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Someone actually did this in Canada (Ontario) during the brief period of time where simple possesion of less than 30 grams was considered legal.
Here is a link to the storry. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/07/22/stolen_mariju ana030722

One thing that this points to is that the problem is unlikely to be either the Media or Internet use. With the exception of the CBC (my favorite!), canadians much the same garbage as the US does, and Internet (broadband) use here appears to be higher than in the US.

(( I'll bet you, however, that states that voted Republican in the last election did worse than states that voted Democrat... If it's true, though I won't bet on whether that's a cause or an effect. ))

Ultimately, manufacturers like HP and Sun are increasingly pushed into niche and legacy markets as PCs get faster and Linux and BSD become more capable. I would expect more withdrawals like this in the future rather than less.

More than that, HP has seen considerable pressure from younger webmasters who see their business practices as inequitous and dangerous. Admittedly such efforts are probably scattered and short lived, but they seem to have some sympathy amongst conservative culture warriors as well. Ultimately, only time will tell whether these efforts have any effect on HP's bottom line.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has been experimenting with fostering a web community to provide material. ZeD is a pretty nicely tuned late night show aimed at material that wouldn't normally even be on the radar for regular programming. 15-30% of each episode consists of content from the web, there are no commercials ! and the host is cute.
It's great because the community provides feedback and you host your work there (for the price of giving CBC broadcast rights..)

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has been experimenting with fostering a web community to provide material. ZeD is a pretty nicely tuned late night show aimed at material that wouldn't normally even be on the radar for regular programming. 15-30% of each episode consists of content from the web, there are no commercials ! and the host is cute.
It's great because the community provides feedback and you host your work there (for the price of giving CBC broadcast rights..)

The article about compensation is a hoax.

See this article

On the day of the anniversary, the British Broadcasting Corporation had to retract a story reporting that Dow Chemicals had accepted full responsibility for the Bhopal tragedy and was poised to offer $12 billion more in compensation.

An activist "falsely identified himself as a Dow employee" and made the claim to the BBC, according to a statement posted on Dow's corporate website.

The statement continues: "Dow confirms that there was no basis whatsoever for this report."

The CBC has been doing a good job recently reminding people about the magnitude of this disaster. I just can't image things on the order of 30,000 lives -- other than war -- and apparently the effects continue even today.

This just reminds me of a sad truth: large companies operating in the third world see the people there are disposable. A settlement of $300 million for something of this scale is just sick (way way too small).

• Today: 60,000 military personnel including 9,500 sailors, 19,000 soldiers, 13,000 air men and women and 18,500 administrative and support personnel. There are also 21,500 reservists.
  
• Second World War: 60,000 men and women enlisted in Canada's armed forces in one month (September 1939) after the declaration of war.
  
• First World War: More than 600,000 Canadians enlisted to fight in the First World War from 1914-1918.
  

• Today: There are 34 warships and 9,500 sailors in Canada's navy.
  
• Second World War: 23 Canadian ships were sunk by German U-Boats in the Battle of St. Lawrence alone.
  
• First World War: During the course of the First World War, Canada's naval service grew to a force of 9,000 men and 100 ships.
  

• Today: 2,300 armed forces have been deployed to combat terrorism; 1,500 Canadians deployed to NATO peacekeeping in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
  
• Second World War: More than one million served and approximately 45,000 died.
  
• First World War: Almost 620,000 Canadians served in First World War and 66,000 died.
  

There's been plenty going on in the field of fusion. The first experiments which investigated sonoluminescence were thought to include fusion. These were disproven. Since then, however, sonic experiments have been conducted with heavy acetone and evidence of fusion has been certain.

And yes... people are always trying to disprove it.

What the bloody hell is it with you yanks(Only yanks would argue because they have the highest prices in the world!) and your disdain for collective bargining agreements?

Seriously. These aren't sports cars, they're drugs many people need to continue living. Drugs which don't fall under this category, such as Prozac and Viagra, cost more in Canada than they do in the US.

Look at this page. When allergy medication and breast cancer treatments are being sold for 1/3 the price here than in the states, and the drug companies are still making a profit(they wouldn't sell here otherwise), you're being ripped off in the worst way -- with a gun to your head. Pay or die.

This page is very interesting as well, because it outlines the criteria the PMPRB uses to set the price of patented prescripted drugs. Breakthrough drug prices are limited to the median of the prices for the same drugs charged in other specified industrialized countries that are set out in the Patented Medicines Regulations (France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, U.K. and the U.S.). This is hardly the Wal-mart model of bleeding everyone else dry.

Frankly, this is a stupid discussion. You guys seem to have forgotten that capitalism is a two way street -- Just like labour unions formed because companies abused individually powerless workers during the industrial revolution, collective bargining of some sort has to be utilized (ESPECIALLY since these companies are the only supplier because of patents and our government generally keeps it's fingers out of that pie, sending aids medicine to africa excepted) to keep drug companies from charging whatever they want for things people need to stay alive. You guys can keep getting extorted if you want, but don't argue that we're wrong for wanting affordable drugs and are willing to use force to achieve those ends.

The fourth estate is traditional journalism.

There is in fact a show on CBC in Canada called "The Fifth Estate". I guess the bloggers will have to be demoted to the Sixth Estate.

Approaching a problem from a "as cheap as possible" DYI angle will often lead to technological improvements, too. If you're on a budget you tend to make sure things just work and in order for them to just work (ie. not break) you have to keep things simple.

After watching last week's "CSI: New York" episode (click here for a synopsis), I was pretty impressed with the idea of having a robot lift prints from an explosive ordinance before detonating it. Turns out that robot really exists and was build as a DYI project by a Canadian law enforcement officer.

Canada, that oh-so-boring nation of the north, has had a long internal struggle with separatism, which may be instructive.

Quebec is francophone in a largely anglophone nation, with a distinct culture and long (for canadians) continuous history. Separatist sentiment runs high, including strong positions in various media, many organizations, and strong political institutions at both the provincial and federal level. The Bloc Quebecois, part of the official opposition in the federal government, is a powerful alliance of mostly separatist interests.

Canadians don't shut down this discussion, on the whole. Oh, there is some rudeness (for canadians, who tend to be pretty courteous in public, except for Parliament), and some shouting, and some strong rhetoric in both directions. But, except for a brief period in 1970 (which was actually pretty mild by international standards), it hasn't erupted into violence and oppression.

The key seems to be the right to dissent within reason. We don't disappear people for political opinion anymore in Canada (okay, well, not for long anyway), even though we have a genocidal history, like the Turks. While there has been federalist and separatist propaganda and some dirty tricks, there was also a referendum in the '90s in which Quebec voted 51-49% to stay in Canada, and surprisingly that has settled things for awhile.

The nation-state is a malleable entity, and viciously protects that secret. Very few modern nation-states' borders are undisputed, and very few were formed without trampling on sovereign rights. How a nation deals with the fallout from that is an indication of its social maturity. Canada's major failure has not been Quebec separatism, but its dealings with the indigenous population (the continuing fallout from genocide).

I hearby patent cows farting. Every farmer that has a cow that farts must pay me a penny for every fart.

Prior fart

No clue how to reach Pat, so I'll assume he will be thoroughly reading the responses to the post. I understand his email would otherwise become unuseable.

I noticed last week that in British Columbia (Canadian west coast), a tropical fungal infection has been on the rise. It's often misdiagnosed, and it's been a bit of a problem in B.C. recently.

Take a look: CBC story from 23 Nov 2004, and CBC story from 25 Nov 2004.

Cryptococcus neoformans infection seems to cause serious lung and CNS problems. It's also contracted from spores in the air, so it could explain how it could have come from nowhere.

Whatever the problem turns out to be, good luck in getting better. Have you tried going to the media in your area? *Mystery Illness Baffles Doctors* I'm sure some local health professionals will help then! Perhaps it would also help to *ONLY* answer questions the doctors ask, instead of giving a huge number of details (some of which may be completely irrelevant to the core problem) that overwhelm them.

No clue how to reach Pat, so I'll assume he will be thoroughly reading the responses to the post. I understand his email would otherwise become unuseable.

I noticed last week that in British Columbia (Canadian west coast), a tropical fungal infection has been on the rise. It's often misdiagnosed, and it's been a bit of a problem in B.C. recently.

Take a look: CBC story from 23 Nov 2004, and CBC story from 25 Nov 2004.

Cryptococcus neoformans infection seems to cause serious lung and CNS problems. It's also contracted from spores in the air, so it could explain how it could have come from nowhere.

Whatever the problem turns out to be, good luck in getting better. Have you tried going to the media in your area? *Mystery Illness Baffles Doctors* I'm sure some local health professionals will help then! Perhaps it would also help to *ONLY* answer questions the doctors ask, instead of giving a huge number of details (some of which may be completely irrelevant to the core problem) that overwhelm them.

These kinds of scary FUD stories come up again and again, but the problem is not world production, it is a distribution problem. So while US farmers are payed to produce too much food and while thousands of tonnes of food go to rot in Canada, African's are left to starve.

The real obstacle to the world's food issues have far more to do with economics, politics and popular will rather than the production capacity of the planet. Perhaps this won't be a big deal anyway, the UN forcasts that the earth's population will begin to decline in our lifetimes

maybe that's why people in quebec work the least hours on average in canada? :D

i know some that work 9-3 job daily with 2 hr lunch breaks...

I'm not anti-GM, but that seems a bit silly to me. I haven't bought a new CD in many years, don't pay for TV, use a credit card only for online stuff, don't use a shopper card and pay with cash for just about everything - how about you?

Automobile "black boxes" only record a minimal set of data, and only keep it for a short period of time.

Speaking as someone with pretty deep roots in the auto industry, I have to disagree wth you. Especially with newer systems, there's a great deal of data preserved because it helps the controller "tune" parameters and because the controller needs to constantly check its own calibration. Even the top speed your car has ever travelled, when (an RTC is trivially easy, after all), how the brakes are performing, if the airbag has been deployed or the intertia switch has interrupted the fuel supply - all that is kept in "permanent" memory... and lots more... until it is explicitly cleared via human intervention.

(it wouldn't be useful in proving you ran from a crime).

Actually, it would and it has.

So avoid products with RFID tags

That may be a viable option at the moment, but what do you do when everything includes an RFID tag?

Who cares? If you on't want the store to know what you bought, first step is to cut those credit cards in half. How many people flailing about their hands in this thread wouldn't even consider giving up their credit cards or their checking account?

This is the same chicken little response people had to bar codes in the 70's, and even to self-serve gas stations in the 80's.

As an almost permanent recluse, I find it hilarious. I rarely even answer the phone because it's most often a sales pitch. I rarely open my mail because I simply don't care. Short of a true psychopath you won't find many people more asocial than myself and yet I fear RFID tags about as much as I worry about being hit by a meteor.

Nuking the tag when you get home isn't sufficient, because you've already given away information simply by buying the product in the first place.

So I guess you never saw a bar code?

If you're seriously worried about this kind of stuff you better close those bank accounts ASAP, stop shopping at Von's, Wal-Mart or any other major chain retailer, and cancel the pay TV, the telephone, the magazine subscriptions, the electricity and anything else with your name on it. They've all been sharing your information for years.

..."Here you go. Mail is evil. Pass it on. Hey, mail blows. Fax it to a friend."

"Why does this dummy have a bucket on its head?"

"Because we're blind to their tyranny."

"Then shouldn't you be wearing the bucket?"

Check out this link on loyalty cards. Interesting read on who really beneifts from the programs, and how.

Heavy computer use is tied to glaucoma. Since most monitors are currently CRTs, I'd blame the boob tube. I am definitely not buying another CRT.

That's CBC, not CBS. Their noon news show had a pretty glowing report on Firefox 1.0 release and the reasons to move to it. Didn't see anything on their web site though.

Here's the crux of the GM/Patent problem, as referenced by another poster. When you introduce the GM DNA into nature, there's no way really to control natural processes such as wind blowing seeds around, etc. In essence, over time, it is almost inevitable that this "patented" GM stuff will get mixed in with the "natural" stuff, so all of a sudden a farmer is liable for penalties through no fault of his own (not necessarily *forced* but not something he did on purpose). Carry that principle through to all potentially GM life and the issue looks a bit spooky.

A farmer not buying GM seeds is not compelled legally to do a damn thing different.

Only if the farmers are using GM seeds. If they use normal seeds, then there is no problem with holding back seed for next year.

WRONG.

Percy Schmeiser's battle.

Even though Schmeiser didn't intend to grow the plant, didn't profit from it's growth, and in fact tried to eradicate it, he was still sued, and he lost. He wasn't able to eradicate it because Monsanto made the plants hard to kill by design.

Ingenious business model, really. Maybe I'll design a (non-fatal) virus that is effectively treated by a medicine that I control. I'll sue anyone that attempts to treat it any other way. Afterall, if you don't want to pay my price, just don't get sick, right?

I think you've rather betrayed your own bias.

Do you have any evidence for this claim,

Er, the second part of his post backs it up...

Think its a conspiracy theory? It's already happening. IN CANADA

The U.S. regime will most likely criminalize the use of the olds seeds. And even if they do not its only a matter of time before the new seeds will "find" a way into their crops and the patent holders will begin to extort the iraqi farmers. Think its a conspiracy theory? It's already happening. IN CANADA

While the levy paid on music players may or may not make downloading legal, that does not change the fact that downloading music from P2P is 100% legal in Canada. If you are confused about your rights, please see the CBC's music download FAQ.

While the levy paid on music players may or may not make downloading legal, that does not change the fact that downloading music from P2P is 100% legal in Canada. If you are confused about your rights, please see the CBC's music download FAQ.

Not legal. A bill to decriminalize (not legalize) marijuana has been re-introduced to the house. May pass, may not.

Canada legalized gay marriage.

Only legal in some provinces. However, unless our minority government collapses, it will likely be legal very soon.

euthanasia

Not even close. However, there was recently an interesting case concerning assisted suicide in BC.

Well if that's true, then I would argue that that's all the more reason for them to be included in the protocol.

China and India?

If they're not producing the same amount of greenhouse gases than the USA or the EU, then adopting the Protocol should not be too big a deal for them, and they should be able to handle it.

What the hell are you talking about?

India has ratified Kyoto.

China has ratified Kyoto

Are you going to say now that you think the US should too? Or was all that talk about India and China a smokescreen?

By the same token, the government of United States of America is failing, and we can see the effects - dropping standards of living, growing deficits, the exodus of jobs, the rising crime rates, and so on.

I don't mean to be a stickler about the crime thingy, but crime rates have been steadily dropping for the past decade or so.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - An error with an electronic voting system gave President George W. Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said.

Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.

---Full Story here

I cannot totally agree. I know a LOT of guys who, to this day are very pro-Bush, very pro-war and who are video game addicts and whose behavior is clearly influenced by that kind of thinking; it infects their normal day to day dialogue, it affects what they think about, and it affects the decisions they make in life. Numerous of them have also either served or are currently serving in the military. I know quite a spread of people and this is not, I think, a localized phenomenon.

Whether video games came before or after the process of their world view is not the point. That such people are going to exist regardless of media is not the point. --The point is that such media is the lubricant which greases the machine of society, and social movements build a sort of gravity which can pull others along on behavioral trajectories which they would not necessarily have chosen otherwise. As we have seen, and what the recent election demonstrates, if you can get enough people following a certain trajectory, then the whole system will follow suit and become committed.

Sure, there are going to be people like you who are able to keep a firmer grasp on their own psyches. Heck, I played a lot of C&C-type games when I was younger. But, as we have seen, one only needs to lull about half a population into following an emperor in order to retain a lock on power.

If any single cause was too successful, spotlights would shine. Cumulative effects are where it's at.

-FL

Okay, turned on the news wondering what kind of spin CNN would have on this. Didn't come up. So I started doing searches....

CNN
Foxnews
BBC
CBC
Aljzeera's search engine is not working properly today; oh well.
Ohio News Now

Anyone care to tell me why this simply isn't being reported at all? I've never heard of the Columbus Dispatch. Nor have I heard of the Washington Dispatch (one other place I've seen run the story).

Is it too new to be picked up?
Is it not considered newsworthy as just correcting a routine error?
Is it being censored? And if so then why by every news company including those outside of US juristiction?

Forgive me for being a bit skeptical on this story, but I do tend to assume that vote talliers can spot an order of magnitude error.

"shareholder derivative" suit (google for more info), which is kind of a class action

Shareholders already had a class action against Nortel and some of its current and former executives, and this morning I heard on CBC radio that one is now being brought against members of the board (it doesn't seem to have made the web site yet).

I saw 'smart guns' and 'NJIT' and all I could think of was this.

I mean, They gotta sue somebody!

The following is from Volokh:

Quebec's Human Rights Commission has ordered a man to pay a $1,000 fine because he referred to another man as a "fifi," the French equivalent of "fag." Worse yet, the comment wasn't made to the complainant (which would at least raise red flags about an implicit threat or true harassment of the individual), but to his "traveling companion." According to the CBC, the "Rights Commission ruled that the term was an inappropriate way of referring to homosexuals and adds to the disgrace and lack of respect of human dignity people are entitled to."

Now, it's obviously not nice to call someone a "fifi." But when the State can punish individuals for "inappropriate" comments they make in private, noncommercial contexts, the slippery slope towards authoritarianism is steep indeed. This, of course, is not the first example of the growing Canadian intolerance of freedom of speech.

Thanks to Professor Moin Yahya for the tip.

Any Canadians offended by most post should read this before emailing.

End of post from Volokh

So as long as your speech is politically correct, you are fine. Otherwise, the State will fine you big bucks for speaking out.

CBC's science show - Quirks and Quarks has had ogg support for a few years. They also have an audio archive of old shows.

Now that they've switched, you're going to remember to congratulate them on it, right? Maybe even a little 'thank you'?

Still, it warms my heart to see that they have tested their streaming on Mplayer under FreeBSD and Gentoo (Linky.) They even tell you how to reduce buffering time in Mplayer by changing its .conf file.

For those with a penchant for other browsers, they provide a link to a patch for Windows Media in Mozilla, too. (Not all the streams are available in OGG...yet.)

Proud to be a Canadian, where at least I know I'm free... :)

Stop! Stop! You're bringing a tear to my eye. I think I hear O Canada playing softly in the background. I must turn on the CBC.

Unfortunately, those nerds in Information Management won't allow us to stream audio. I sneaked this little device into the office called a "radio". By using this "radio", "tuned" to a "frequency", 91.5MHz in my case, the stupid network people will not detect me listening to the CBC. Well, I guess if they read this post, they will be able to tell. d'oh

If I would change one thing on CBC would be to put better things on CBC Overnight. As much as the Netherlands & Sweden are cool places, the Radio Netherlands and Radio Sweden are really dorky, so is the Voice of Russia. It does help cure insomnia. Radio Prague , ABC and BBC are pretty decent.

CBC Radio has always been ahead of the rest of CBC in terms of technology. They've been making one of my favorite radio science shows, Quirks and Quarks available in mp3 format for years. It's been available in Ogg since September 2002. I think they were broadcasting in stereo well before CBC Television, too.

CBC Radio has always been ahead of the rest of CBC in terms of technology. They've been making one of my favorite radio science shows, Quirks and Quarks available in mp3 format for years. It's been available in Ogg since September 2002. I think they were broadcasting in stereo well before CBC Television, too.

CBC Radio has always been ahead of the rest of CBC in terms of technology. They've been making one of my favorite radio science shows, Quirks and Quarks available in mp3 format for years. It's been available in Ogg since September 2002. I think they were broadcasting in stereo well before CBC Television, too.

Also on the CBC, Bob MacDonald's weekly science show, Quirks and Quarks, has a running archive of past shows in OGG format.

Despite the parent article stating there were a plethora of complaints when the CBC switch from Real Media streams to windows media, they do, in fact, provide information on their site for unix users to access these streams.

For the ogg streams, they only provide access to the stations in Toronto, rather than the local stations.

Whichever format, though, I'm happy that I can listen to the CBC on the operating system of my choice. However, I think it is appropriate that a public service broadcaster use a format that is unencumbered and hence accessible to all.

Happy about this?

From CBC's Ogg FAQ:

We're currently testing the streaming of Ogg Vorbis, an open, free audio codec. Please contact CBC Audience Relations if you have suggestions or comments.

Happy about this?

From CBC's Ogg FAQ:

We're currently testing the streaming of Ogg Vorbis, an open, free audio codec. Please contact CBC Audience Relations if you have suggestions or comments.

Typical to automatically assume the word citizen refers to American Citizens. The wording is a little off, but it is pretty clear they are referring to Canadian Citizens working for US-Owned corperations.

The privacy commissioner was referring to Canadian citizens living in BC. The provincial government wants to out-source all medical services plan data to a subsidiary of an american defence contractor. Because we have mandatory health coverage, every resident of BC has an MSP record. That's 4 million Canadian Citizens whose medical records could be demanded by a foreign intelligence service without a warrant issued by a Canadian judge.

According to this story the provincial government is going to outsource anyways.

This is so important to understand, I'm going to re-post it above the discussion about bin Laden's tape.

This story (and this summary) really should be front-page material