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In related news, from a December 21st, 2007 CBC News article: Libraries urge Ottawa to consider consumers in drafting copyright law

The Canadarm is no longer Canadian. We sold it to the U.S.

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2008/01/08/mdasale.html?ref=rss

Well, Niven's government ordered organ collection stories may not have been too far off either if Falun Dafa practitioners are to be believed. There's been ongoing rumours of organlegging in Asia for a while, and even the UK is being more aggressive about organ collection.

The advantage of using your own stem cells instead of parts of some poor sap cut up for his crimes or beliefs, is that the former should be less subject to rejection. Assuming they ever get this approach viable for use in humans. I'm hoping so because, as the population becomes an increasingly aged one in Western countries, the pressure on organ banks is going to increase. And as the population becomes increasingly obese, the supply of healthy candidates for organ donations is only going to decrease.

Oh well, it could be worse. Transplants could have been available back when people thought debtor's prison was a good idea.

The original /. story on Taubes' book also included a link to an mp3 of an interview. Which I thought was quite interesting.

I've got one person applying the low-carb philosophy, and she's doing quite well - the extra pounds are just melting off. We've got her fight-or-flight response pretty much under control now, and that's probably most important overall.

If the Vietnam War had been protested by this generation, it seems that the country would have emptied out and the war would have continued.

That is ridiculous. Guess what? Between 50,000 and 125,000 people left the US for Canada alone because of opposition to the Vietnam War (source). Full-scale protests and majority opposition to the Vietnam War started in 1967, and the US withdrew in 1973. So looks like those protests did a hell of a lot of good.

I apologize in advance for the flame, but I am so sick of this nostalgic backwards-looking bullshit from the baby boomer generation. Just because your generation talked about free love and had some protests while they were in college doesn't mean a goddamn thing. Most of the people gave up trying to change things, took a job with a multinational, became a born-again Christian, voted for Reagan 15 years later, and fucking ruined everything. And now they're buying mutual funds. The only legitimately successful social change that came out of the 60's was the Civil Rights Movement. Everything else is self-congratulatory bullshit.

Autism as a diagnosis didn't really exist until the 1960s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism#History), not because Autism as a disease didn't exist, but because the symptoms weren't officially recognized as a separate disorder. Furthermore, generally in the U.S. schools didn't treat Autism as a separate disorder from mental retardation and general learning disabilities until 1994 (See article below).

In the U.S. there has been a cross-country decline in mental retardation rates that is fairly similar in magnitude to the rise in autism (a 2.5 rise versus a 2.8 drop), except in a few states like California, where the autism rate rose but was not offset by a fall in mental retardation diagnoses.

The argument isn't that the rise of autism is actually caused by changes in diagnosis, but rather that it's a more plausible explanation than mercury based vaccines which have shown no correlation to autism rates. The one thing we know for sure is that autism runs in families and it is extremely likely to have a strong genetic component.

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2006/04/03/autism-children-rate-20060403.html

Envelopes can contain toxic chemicals, weapons, etc. Computers only hold information.

... has been traced to an earlier collision of larger asteroids about 95 million years earlier ...

Writing in the scientific journal Nature, researcher William Bottke and co-authors laid out a scenario of the origin of the asteroid that landed on Earth in the Cretaceous Era, creating the enormous Chicxulub crater in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.

I am by nature a very tolerant person, but it is time for all good people to actively refute the ideas of the intolerant fundamentalists of all stripes. I am appalled that there are politicians in the USA who think it is OK to condemn people due to their religious beliefs, or lack of belief. For example, Bush isn't sure atheists are citizens. Some politicians think they should be able to tell you what you do in the privacy of your own home. But these guys are pikers compared to Religious fundamentalists. Even peaceful, tolerant Canada had to deal with this, Teen killed by father, and if we scoot over to Afghanistan we have the Taliban executing people who dare to try to educate girls.

Peaceful discourse is our best weapon.

Happy New year.

That sounds great for a small town of about 600 people. But there are hundreds of millions of potential voters

As with many large problems, this is addressed in actual elections by breaking the problem down into pieces of manageable size. These happen to be around the size that the AC mentioned. In Canada, "polling divisions" average 352 people each. In Afghanistan, it's 600 people per polling station.

Indie artists can use HTTP (and Torrent if necessary), theres plenty of willing hosts.

The other problem of course being that the toner could be as bad or worse your lungs as tobacco smoke.
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/10/22/printer-study.html

According to yesterday's interview on CBC's As It Happens, its not the world's supply, but rather the North American supply. In the past when the reactor has been down, the company that supplies the isotopes (Atomic Energy Canada Ltd runs the place, but another company produces the isotopes) buys isotopes from reactors in australia, south africa or Europe (holand I think). Its just this time they decide to make it a big issue. (so they don't have to pay for the isotopes). The interview in question is, I think, in part two of the broadcast... see: http://www.cbc.ca/radioshows/AS_IT_HAPPENS/20071212.shtml The segment is: "ISOTOPES: KUPERMAN"

Bush/Cheney did claim that there was an Al Qaeda / Iraq connection and that Iraq had WMD, and that this posed a clear an present danger to the security of the United States. But then when faced with contrary information, e.g., from Joseph Wilson that Iraq was not in fact trying to obtain Uranium from Niger, Bush/Cheney attacked Wilson (by revealing his wife Valerie Plame was a CIA operative), instead of revising their public story.

Al Qaeda did have connections to Iraq, though not strong. The invasion of Iraq was never sold as being because Iraq and Al Qaeda had strong connections, despite what the history revisionists say. At the time of the invasion, Most Dems, Reps, and governments of the world believed Iraq had WMDs. Even Iraqi leadership believed it. Saddam Hussein was perpetrating a fraud on everyone because the belief of him having WMD was almost as good as actually having them. It should also be noted that a grand jury bent on charging the administration concerning the Valerie Plame "revelation" wasn't able to come up with any charges whatsoever except for a single perjury.

Later Bush/Cheney nefariously blamed "intelligence failures" when in fact they knew better than anyone else that there was no credible threat from Iraq. Cheney was encumbered by a conflict of interest because, in classic Washington revolving-door style, he was re-entering politics having just served as CEO of Halliburton who ended up profiting heavily from the Iraq war. This is absolutely relevant!

The CIA itself admitted the intelligence failures. You can't say that they were just covering because they've also been critical of the administration. The intelligence agencies of a lot of other countries also failed as they believed the same thing. As for Cheney's Halliburton connection, It's been shown that Cheney doesn't gain anything from Halliburton and hasn't since he left the company.

Bush, as commander-in-chief, is guilty of Dereliction of Duty by both starting an unnecessary war based on lies, and then grossly incompetently managing that war. The deaths of American service men and women were absolutely avoidable because they war was unnecessary and avoidable. Abusing power, and abusing the trust and dedication of military personnel by getting them killed unnecessarily is absolutely criminal and cannot go unpunished.

There were some obvious mistakes made during the invasion and occupation. Most of those have been corrected. The fact remains that no war of this caliber has had as few American casualties as this one. No war plan is perfect but this one is far from a grossly incompetent mismanagement.

The death of every American serviceperson and Iraqi civilian due to the war in Iraq is an individual charge of manslaughter against Bush.

Uh, yeah. Right.

There should also be criminal repercussions for the lesser, but still significant crimes, of distracting the US military away from the war against terrorism (in Afghanistan) to a distraction in Iraq, right when the US was most vulnerable to terrorism (after 9/11). The enormous waste of money is also criminal mismanagement.

I hate to break it to you, but the War on Terror is in more places than Afghanistan. I have 2 cousins that just got back from the African "front" in the War on Terror. If you want to read about successes in the War on Terror, check out what we're doing in Africa.

Don't be dissuaded or intimidated by misinformation on Wikipedia, the rabid invective of idiots on FOX News, or snide comments

Actually, they seem to base their conclusion on the fact that Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 don't seem to have entered the termination shock at the same distance from the earth.

Actually, they seem to base their conclusion not only on that fact, but also because they had theorized that it might be that way from computer models that predicted when Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 reached the termination. So far Voyager 1 (actually, not sure on V1) and Voyager 2 reached the termination shock around where they thought they would according to the model that the Solar System is asymmetrical as described in TFA. (Thisarcicle briefly mentions the computer model)

Now, now. There's no reason to get nasty, people. There's a long tradition of using one particular law-breaking, Canadian protest tactic against politicians when people are *truly* angry. It's not easy for Canadians to talk about, but it does happen sometimes that a few of them decide to act violently. It's tragic, really. A kind of secret shame that people in other countries don't hear much about. Yes, we do break down sometimes and resort to violence to make a political statement, and over the years it has happened a lot.

Everyone from Ralph Klein (former premier of Alberta), Jean Charet (premier of Quebec) to Jean Cretien (former Prime Minister of Canada) has been subjected to it. There are many more. I'm sure it's a nightmare for their security personnel to try to deal with:

A pie in the face.

When watching the crowds they're probably looking almost as carefully for those disc-shaped pie-pan missiles as any other potential weapon someone might use. You ask any in the Prime Minister's security team, and I'm sure they'll sigh and tell you they're ready to "take one in the face" to save the leader of the country.

Yes, sure, in some countries they shoot their leaders. Can't have that here. Not polite at all, and not conducive to thoughtful consideration of alternative views. Snowballs and Timbits? Sorry, but those things are no substitute either because they could hurt somebody if you flung them really hard.

Video on youtube.

[In no way is the above intended to incite an actual pieing of the Minister! That would be assault! Seriously.]

Now, now. There's no reason to get nasty, people. There's a long tradition of using one particular law-breaking, Canadian protest tactic against politicians when people are *truly* angry. It's not easy for Canadians to talk about, but it does happen sometimes that a few of them decide to act violently. It's tragic, really. A kind of secret shame that people in other countries don't hear much about. Yes, we do break down sometimes and resort to violence to make a political statement, and over the years it has happened a lot.

Everyone from Ralph Klein (former premier of Alberta), Jean Charet (premier of Quebec) to Jean Cretien (former Prime Minister of Canada) has been subjected to it. There are many more. I'm sure it's a nightmare for their security personnel to try to deal with:

A pie in the face.

When watching the crowds they're probably looking almost as carefully for those disc-shaped pie-pan missiles as any other potential weapon someone might use. You ask any in the Prime Minister's security team, and I'm sure they'll sigh and tell you they're ready to "take one in the face" to save the leader of the country.

Yes, sure, in some countries they shoot their leaders. Can't have that here. Not polite at all, and not conducive to thoughtful consideration of alternative views. Snowballs and Timbits? Sorry, but those things are no substitute either because they could hurt somebody if you flung them really hard.

Video on youtube.

[In no way is the above intended to incite an actual pieing of the Minister! That would be assault! Seriously.]

Now, now. There's no reason to get nasty, people. There's a long tradition of using one particular law-breaking, Canadian protest tactic against politicians when people are *truly* angry. It's not easy for Canadians to talk about, but it does happen sometimes that a few of them decide to act violently. It's tragic, really. A kind of secret shame that people in other countries don't hear much about. Yes, we do break down sometimes and resort to violence to make a political statement, and over the years it has happened a lot.

Everyone from Ralph Klein (former premier of Alberta), Jean Charet (premier of Quebec) to Jean Cretien (former Prime Minister of Canada) has been subjected to it. There are many more. I'm sure it's a nightmare for their security personnel to try to deal with:

A pie in the face.

When watching the crowds they're probably looking almost as carefully for those disc-shaped pie-pan missiles as any other potential weapon someone might use. You ask any in the Prime Minister's security team, and I'm sure they'll sigh and tell you they're ready to "take one in the face" to save the leader of the country.

Yes, sure, in some countries they shoot their leaders. Can't have that here. Not polite at all, and not conducive to thoughtful consideration of alternative views. Snowballs and Timbits? Sorry, but those things are no substitute either because they could hurt somebody if you flung them really hard.

Video on youtube.

[In no way is the above intended to incite an actual pieing of the Minister! That would be assault! Seriously.]

A couple of the "scientific discoveries" weren't really that important to science. Discovering the brightest supernova or the oldest living animal have their merit, but really they're just interesting things that people found. Something like this deserved to be on the list instead: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/01/22/photon-storage.html

Indeed there is "something causing this wave of autism". It's the diagnosis of autism. Autism didn't exists as a childhood diagnosis until the 1960s, autistic children were thought to be suffering from a childhood variant of schizophrenia because the symptoms are somewhat similar. If I understand correctly, in the 1980s the scope of autism diagnoses in the United States was expanded to include milder cases of authism, all the way down to the borderline autism known as Asperger's syndrome. So over the last 40 years doctors have become more familiar with autism as a disease and the definition of what autism is has been expanded, this naturally increases the number of cases that are reported over that time period.

Let me repeat the rise in the rate is based on improved diagnosis technique not a rise in incidence of the syndrome. If you take the mentally handicapped and autistic rates from schools, you'll find the rise of autism matches the decline in mentally handicapped children. Combined the rate is pretty much constant (accounting for noise).

In other news, Canada now causes cancer too.

At least four truckers have struck bridges or overpasses around Winnipeg this summer, causing damage estimated in the millions of dollars.

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2007/12/04/passport-security.html?ref=rss

""Enemy combatant" is a general category that subsumes two sub-categories: lawful and unlawful combatants. See Quirin, 317 U.S. at 37-38. Lawful combatants receive prisoner of war (POW) status and the protections of the Third Geneva Convention. Unlawful combatants do not receive POW status and do not receive the full protections of the Third Geneva Convention. (The treatment accorded to unlawful combatants is discussed below).

The President has determined that al Qaida members are unlawful combatants because ..."

See, that's the problem right there, because I don't see how a President can do that. Under the Geneva Convention people fighting and captured in a war zone (i.e. enemy combatants) are to be treated AS prisoners of war, with all the rights and priviledges therein, until such time as a hearing is held to determine whether or not they qualify as prisoners of war. It's like a default status. The term in the Geneva Convention for the hearing is "competent tribunal". It's implied that this is in some judicial/legal sense. Obviously, neither the US President nor any other head of state is a "competent tribunal", and they aren't given the power under the Geneva Convention to simply declare individual people as "unlawful enemy combatants". Period. The End.

How people transition from being captured to being "unlawful enemy combatants" without somehow passing through the "treat as if a prisoner of war pending a competent tribunal" stage is a mystery that the US government still hasn't really solved for the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. It is plain that some haven't been treated as prisoners of war during their imprisonment (the argument being that they aren't entitled to it because they aren't POWs is irrelevant until the "competent tribunal" has determined such). Yet they haven't gotten properly designated as "unlawful enemy combatants" either -- YEARS later. As of June, NONE of the prisoners there had officially been designated as such, in any way that has held up in court. Whole cases have been thrown out because the furthest tribunals have gotten is to call them "enemy combatants", not the "unlawful" part. The best example is the case of Omar Khadr, who was 15 at the time he was fighting in Afghanistan, 5 years ago, and whose trial has been held up multiple times because of the problems with this designation without a proper procedure being in place.

"Although the President's determination on this issue is final, courts have concurred with his determination."

His word is final? Oh, really? And by what authority is he able to do that? Where in the Geneva Convention does it say heads of state can designate anybody? And why has the Supreme Court of the US disputed the nature and result of the process multiple times? The military tribunal process has been revised over and over again. Even so, according to the article above, NONE of the 380 detainees in Guantanumo in June had been actually designated "unlawful enemy combatants". If the president's word was final, then why the difficulty?

Maybe Mr. Bush wrote it in a memo and wished really hard, but it hasn't held up in the courts. IF the prisoners are "unlawful enemy combatants", then they are civilians that can be prosecuted under domestic law, where Mr. Bush's word may indeed be final (if the law is codified that way). The courts have concurred with that view, and you are right about it. But prisoners have to GET that designation first via a "competent tribunal", according to the Geneva Convention, not by presidential declaration.

If one of our civilians were captured in another country in a war zone and accused of fighting, would you want it to be as so simple a matter as having the head of state declare them an "unlawful enemy combatant", strip them of any POW rights, and treat them under the local laws? Think *really* hard about it.

According to a similar article I had just finished reading when I saw this one, users who are 'caught' by WGA, will receive an offer to buy Vista Home Premium for $119 (USD), about 1/2 of what it retails for. That's right folks, if you want Vista, pirate it first, get caught, and you can have it for half price. http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/12/04/tech-vista-pirated.html

...And for Gods' sake; don't talk to a geek!" :-)

Real geeks and geek squad are two different things.

A real geek can go into the local parts store, order mobo and all the parts. Put one together, load the OS and then program the thing. Setup their own firewall and probably run Linux, BSD or other non-Windows OS. They get into wireless, networking, sniffing and software to depths geek squad could never go.

Geek squad on the other hand is really a salesperson in disguise. The idea is to bilk you for services you do not need.

CBC Marketplace video explains. These are not geeks or nurds, they are modern day snake oil salesmen.

Don't insult real geeks. Real geeks would have all these problems fixed properly in less than 10 minutes or recommend that the system is so old it is cheaper to buy a new one. But real geeks don't drive stupid vehicles and they sure don't work for $30/hr or less.

It sounds like a great idea (more power to the people and all), but you have to be careful about the details of the implementation. If a well-meaning but vocal minority can force consideration of an issue by getting "only" 50000 signatures, is that truly a good thing? In Switzerland, 50000 might be a reasonable number for a petition like this, but in a larger country, the number would have to be much larger.

Even then, if there is inadequate participation from the general population you can get the same kind of problem as exists for voting if people are too apathetic about it -- i.e. that relatively small minorities can ultimately control the vote outcome, regardless of what the whole electorate actually wants. You can say, "Well, if they don't vote, the rest of the population get what they deserve", but everyone would have to live with the results. Try to imagine what it would be like if, say, only 20% of eligible voters do manage to swing things their way.

In Canada a few years ago the leader of one of the political parties, Stockwell Day, was a strong advocate of this kind of petition-based referendum. The threshold he advocated was "3% of Canadian voters", or about 350000. A comedian on a popular tv show called on people to sign a petition to have Mr. Day change his first name to "Doris". More than enough signatures were collected.

So, be careful what you wish for.

Here's some good news on that front.

The BBC is not anti-christian either,

Even the BBC says otherwise!

Dude, I listen to the BBC News hour almost -daily- in the USA. They are very liberal.

It seems we always hear about kids and teachers being investigated by the FBI for wearing 'bush sucks' t shirts or other silly things. that just does not happen here

Well, there's no need to investigate everyone in Britian, because you've got everyone on camera. And then, there's this:

Anti-terrorism laws

The CBC regularly receives awards for overall excellence, at least in Canada.

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2003/08/26/gemini260803.html

Or at least that is what the CBC would have you believe... ;)

I'm not sure how well they do on the international stage though.

I guess you're innumerate since you can't tell that the US has double the rate per population as Canada at 275/300 million vs 17/35 million. The rest of your math is just as bad since you start comparing numbers that aren't the same (i.e. 30 US deaths where the coroner confirmed the taser vs. the 17 Canadian death count using criteria that more closely correlate the 275 US death count). Of course what really matters is how many police tasers are actually in use in each country.

The point is that the current Canadian death count is high enough that the policy for taser use is being reviewed for the RCMP and certain provincial police forces. Even in June, prior to the recent incident in the Vancouver airport, Paul Kennedy, the chair of the RCMP complaints committee had recommended changes to the way the RCMP use Tasers.

Generally, the RCMP are better educated and better trained than most US cops. So if the RCMP are misusing Tasers, I'd rather not think too hard about how your boys are abusing them down there.

One of the people they came across was someone who had fallen asleep. When they woke him up and told him to leave the beach, he was a bit groggy, and slow to gather his stuff, get dressed and leave. ... so they tasered him.

Now, I don't think that a groggy (nearly) naked guy is the kind of situation where use of a baton would be considered reasonable force. I don't even think it would be considered reasonable to use a half-nelson on the guy. Hell, the only thing that they could do for him being too late on the beach was to give him a ticket.

| But he was tasered.

My only explanation is that they intended the tasering exactly as torture -- and an exemplary action to other beach users that you quickly comply with orders to get off the beach at the stroke of sunset or else!

What usually happens is that these people are in such an agitated state that when approached by law enforcement (or a security guard, or some shopkeeper who is trying to get them out of the store, or some passerby trying to get them out of running down the middle of the road in heavy traffic) tend to get even more aggressive and attack, and don't respond to the usual methods of being subdued like pepper spray or threat of arrest or being shot or anything. It can and and often does take 4 or 5 heavily trained policemen to get these guys out of danger. What has happened in the past is that these people continue to fight even when restrained in handcuffs, and then die of a sudden cardiac event most likely due to all the excitement and inability to calm down due to whatever drugs they are on. Over the years this has been well recognized and most sensible jurisdictions have rules such as "once handcuffed do not place in prone position" due to higher chances of these people dying from positional asphyxia.

Anyways, back to the Taser thing. Taser for years and years have been saying that since these deaths can happen WITHOUT the use of a Taser, then it's reasonable to assume that their use had no bearing on whether or not the guy lived or died and he probably woulda died anyways because documented causes of people with excited delirium have and will continue to die under these circumstances. And what they are saying is true to a certain extent: If people die without it, then why would you expect its use specifically to be the sole cause of their death? This guy in this most recent case most certainly was in a crazed state and very well could have died without the use of the Taser: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/11/24/custody-death.html. But that doesn't mean that the use of the Taser even in these cases wasn't contributory in some way. That recent Vancouver airport case had negative toxicology as far as I know, so we can't blame drugs on that guy's death, though he was clearly agitated. But it's just very difficult to prove, even with this video evidence, that the death was caused directly by the taser. It's electrical current. It doesn't leave any pathology.

Two jurisdictions in the States (Ohio and Chicago) have both attempted to certify deaths with "due to Taser" in the death certificate and both have been sued into submission. Taser has a huge lobby and has hired a number of physicists (not doctors) including this guy http://www.andcor.com/page/1/news_032206.jsp to go around the country giving lectures on how Tasers won't cause death and certifying them otherwise will land you a big fat lawsuit.

Anyways, it's a complicated issue, but in reference to your original question, excitation delirium is a state of agitation and occasionally extreme violence and paranoia usually brought on by stimulants and can commonly cause death in a mechanism not yet completely understood. Taser has been using it as an explanation for why people who have been Tasered go on to die for years. Hope that helps. The issue is extremely contentious and and very political at the moment.

http://radio3.cbc.ca/ on web and Sirius, and good podcasts.

I listen to CBC Radio 3 (the Canadian equivalent to BBC Radio 6(uk), TripleJ (aus), and the NPR music shows).
Oh, and it's good.

http://radio3.cbc.ca/

Also found in the "Alternative" and "Public" directories of the iTunes 'radio' section tab.

it took the best part of 4.5 hours to get through the non-residents queue..

Take a look at the Bernstein diet, where the doctor takes your money, about $1000, gives you weekly injections of vitamin B6 and B12 in liquid form, and YET openly acknowledges that there is no medical or scientific evidence proving this helps you burn fat. He does put you on a diet of less than 1000 calories per day, though, which is a no-brainer.

Technically, he's not being unscientific, since he acknowledges the lack of evidence, but you have to admit he's exploiting the public's inability to figure out the subtleties - they think the magic is in the injections. So I'm sure part of the problem is the general public and media.

By the way, there's no denying the obesity epidemic, it's so bloody obvious. Just scan the crowds at a Canadian or US football stadium and you'll notice vast differences in the average spectator size between the countries. Not very scientific, but still valid as an observation.

Where's it's suckered more people in... though, the CBC did a show about it. They covered the US FTC complaint, and how the Q-Ray Canada guys are trying to avoid the same here. (Marketplace is an interesting show... caught onto it from that "Geek expose" thing they did a few weeks ago posted on /.).

Here is a very high profile case of someone who did, in fact, successfully renounce his Canadian citizenship.

Of course, if you look into Conrad's story, he wants it back now!

About Canadian healthcare, where there was only a 'single payer' system. It's no longer true, at least in Quebec, where it is possible to have any kind of services if you got the money : http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/06/09/newscoc-health050609.html

A couple of examples come to mind.

The Government of Canada marijuana farm is located in an old copper mine in Manitoba. You can't beat the security, which is something mentioned in tfa. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2001/08/02/marijuana_010802.html

A solar neutrino observatory is installed in an old mine in Sudbury, Ontario, Canads. It has the advantage of being impervious to almost all kinds of radiation, except of course for neutrinos. http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/

As I look at the other posts, I see lots of naysayers. Well there are at least a couple of cases where old mines have been used successfully for other things.

Quirks and Quarks covered this a couple of weeks ago in a pretty good interview. You can find the show here (in mp3 and ogg =).

Quirks and Quarks covered this a couple of weeks ago in a pretty good interview. You can find the show here (in mp3 and ogg =).

They use horses in situations where motor vehicles would be impractical, such as special events like Canada Day on Parliament Hill, or patrolling parks. A mountie in dress uniform on horseback is partly for the tourists, but it also gives them a good vantage point and mobility.

My uncle, on bicycle, was once chased down by a police officer (though I think Halifax municipal) on horseback. She stopped him for supposedly stealing squirrels from a park, though it was actually just our little dog sticking his head out of the bike basket. That was about 30 years ago, though this article implies they're still used.

I think I heard it best on the CBC Podcast of Search Engine. Basically, what he said, is that computers are machines that copy information. When they are working properly, they copy information really quickly, and really accurately. Trying to stop a computer from copying information is like trying to stop gravity.

Way ahead of you, in Canada our Government has already chosen option 2.. http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/product_of_canada_eh/

I know several who have ended up looking after people who have "G-holed". That is they took too much GHB "recreationally" or by accident (drank from someones waterbottle.. not water) or their high/stupid/sadistic friend screwed up the dose.

The problem is extremely low metabolism and inability to protect your own airway.. some people die.It can real ruin someones night.
It has definitely been used for sexual coercion, and in our community has been involved in date rapes, which does not have to include a fully passed out person.. heck happens even without intoxicants.. just someone who is not able to exit from a sexual situation where they are abused and later subsequently confused about their own level of responsibility, so it is left unaddressed.

I'd rather we were in Iran than Iraq. Iran actually deserves it.

Based on what, exactly? Ahmadinejad's statements on Israel that were willfully mistranslated by the media? Or his statements on nuclear energy that were willfully mistranslated by the media?

Or because they overthrew our popular, peacefully elected president in 1953 and then backed Iraq when they invaded us, killing a million Americans? Oh, wait, we did that to them.

This seems rather odd to me since I've recently seen a study from the UK, and one from Canada correlating an increased risk of cancer with increased weight.

I haven't been able to find the link for the study in Canada, but here is the British: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/11/07/uk-cancerstudy.html