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Yep, the safety records of Russian systems are not very pretty, particularly in recent years where the whole program keeps going downhill. They've not killed anyone onboard recently, but that's pure luck - they've had plenty of accidents with unmanned Soyuz that could easily have killed the crew, many onboard near-incidents which could have killed the crew, plenty of crew injuries, and the death of ground crew. And the sort of faults they're getting are just humiliating - forget things like "didn't realize that we lost O-ring redundancy at temperatures below 40F", the sort of errors the Russians have been making are along the lines of "installed a sensor upside down and repeatedly whacked it with a big hammer to make it fit" (actual failure cause). And their management is just absurd. After one accident that could have killed the crew on return, they responded by superstitiously banning two women from being on the same spacecraft. "This isn't discrimination. I'm just saying that when a majority (of the crew) is female, sometimes certain kinds of unsanctioned behaviour or something else occurs, that's what I'm talking about.'' (the article incorrectly states that the crew was "unharmed", the initial Russian statement, but one of the astronauts had to be hospitalized due to a compressed spinal column)

China is the most dangerous country in the world today. And the information about how horrible the Chinese, despite them getting MUCH worse given the economic situation, the information flow has been nearly shut down since 2007 timeframe. There were big 60 minutes type exposes in 2007 but since then the Police State has seen that information regarding our forced consumption of Chinese Walmart Plastic with Federal Reserve Notes remains in place.

China tires bad:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118278927863547228.html

The organizing committee of Beijingâ(TM)s Olympic games has promised to investigate charges that official merchandise is being manufactured using child labor.

The PRC Chinese poison dog food:
http://www.themoneytimes.com/articles/20070523/chinese_protein_export_scandal-id-104033.html

The PRC Chinese poison toothpaste:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/02/us/02toothpaste.html?ex=1181620800&en=d26dab8b2bd85303&ei=5070

The PRC Chinese poison Children's Toys:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070614/thomas_recall_070614/20070614?hub=CTVNewsAt11
http://blogs.eastbayexpress.com/92510/2007/06/thomas_why_hath_thou_forsaken.php

Chinese Seafood Detained for Safety
http://www.topix.com/forum/food/TFSGN6836LFM2QFV7

Melamine put into milk formula, dog food, etc.
http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/got-melamine-53000-chinese-children-did-in-their-milk.html

- Cow milk so inundated with antibiotics you can not make Yogurt from it.

- Pigs force-fed waste water.

- Lard made from separating fats from sewage.

Made in China: tainted food, fake drugs and dodgy paint
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2118920,00.html

China Jails 2 Protestant Church Leaders
http://www.nysun.com/foreign/china-jails-two-protestant-leaders/58150/

The PRC Chinese government has murdered countless people:
"DEATH BY GOVERNMENT: GENOCIDE AND MASS MURDER"
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.TAB1.GIF
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.FIG1.GIF

Given modern industrial process and productivity, I don't even see how using Chinese slave labor saves that much in the face of having to crate up and ship the goods from china to consuming markets.

The bean counters saved maybe 10% at best making product, and now with the price of shipping goods going up due to petrol, they are probably paying more to have it made in China.

The only real reason it may never come back to the US is a host of states (NY, CA) and The Fedzilla / US government that have a long list of anti-business laws making a return to the US difficult.

You want Made in the USA? Tell state and federal congress to stop doing everything to drive up the cost of business compared to China and India (the only two competitors that matter); stop buying Chinese crap where possible.

Slave Labor rented at a PREMIUM with low quality results is still apparently cheaper than coming back her

If you're in Canada, this was featured a year or so ago on Daily Planet on the Discovery Channel:

Daily Planet - Embedded with Mark Miller - Land Walker. Though it just burns me that they seem to not say "mech" at all.

I think this one was slightly cheaper...

Give it time. The student protests in Montreal, Quebec are continuing, there hasn't been such a prolonged and significant turnout at protests in years. It was originally over rising tuition fees, which most of the rest of Canada roll their eyes at because Quebec has the lowest average tuition of all provinces--in some cases 50% less. OTOH, Quebec taxes are among the highest, so the two kind of balanced out until now.

The provincial government's response, Law 78, tramples on fundamental freedoms enough that over 500 lawyers--lawyers!--marched on the streets to protest.

And so the student protests have morphed to also protest against Law 78, and student groups in other provinces are starting to demonstrate too, but nowhere near the level or intensity of those in Quebec.

I don't support either side in this, but have to hand it to Quebec--the French have a lot more guts than English Canada in standing up for their rights (possibly because they've been standing up to Canada for decades), and aren't as afraid to put themselves on the line to do it.

Why scrap it? It sounds like something the Canadian navy would be interested in buying! http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20111111/w5-deep-sea-dud-111112/

Yeah, it's modern times. Anyway... when I read news I try to get both alternative and mainstream sources covered. I reckon, as the quote goes... truth is usually somewhere in the middle. Having said that, I read a lot recently about fukushima reactor #4. Here's a snippet:

[quote]
The troubled Reactor 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is at the centre of this potential catastrophe.

Reactor 4 -- and to a lesser extent Reactor 3 -- still hold large quantities of cooling waters surrounding spent nuclear fuel, all bound by a fragile concrete pool located 30 metres above the ground, and exposed to the elements.

A magnitude 7 or 7.5 earthquake would likely fracture that pool, and disaster would ensue, says Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer with Fairewinds Energy Education who has visited the site.

The 1,535 spent fuel rods would become exposed to the air and would likely catch fire, with the most-recently added fuel rods igniting first.

The incredible heat generated from that blaze, Gundersen said, could then ignite the older fuel in the cooling pool, causing a massive oxygen-eating radiological fire that could not be extinguished with water.
[/quote]

So what happened until now I guess shouldn't be the focus of media attention, but rather how to deal with reactor #4 - of course, if these statements are true.
Here's url to the full article:
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20120518/fukushima-dai-ichi-risk-reactor-4-120519/

just need some vetted moderators

Perhaps the TSA has some qualified folks for this job...

to rank the attractiveness of people from either gay or straight perspective

Apparently, we don't need real live moderators to rank attractiveness.. On the gay vs straight issue, not sure this helps much in a bar scene (for example, from a straight perspective, maybe I find a lesbian very attractive... not gonna help me much). However, if perhaps there really is gaydar and they can figure out how to automate that...

then making tallies per gender per estimated age buckets (21-24, 25-28, 29-32, etc.)

That's what they are doing w/o the vetted moderators...

THEN you'd really have something.

I think privacy advocates already think there is something here...

I'm completely unbiased on the male vs female front

I think if you don't realize your bias then you are unwittingly probably part of the problem.

There was some excellent research showing that when researchers submitted resumes with identical credentials to firms, but one with a white sounding name and one with an Asian sounding name, the white sounding names had a significantly hire success rate in getting calls. I doubt this discrepancy is from a conscious policy.
http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20090522/resume_english_090523/20090523/?hub=TorontoNewHome
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/work/right-rsum-wrong-name/article1145212/
http://aascpress.metapress.com/content/662555ttv6344365/

On a personal and anecdotal note, unrelated to hiring, there is a family that frequents my business. They are Muslim, and the mother has a thick Arabic accent. I just discovered the other day that she also speaks French (I am fluent). Being from Morocco, her French is flawless and better than mine. After talking with her for some time in French, I just realized that I had been implicitly thinking of her as less educated, due to her Arabic accent when speaking English. Upon hearing her flawless French, I saw my implicit attitude change entirely.

I work really hard to be aware of bias and to not let it get in the way of my interactions with people. But it's there for all of us, despite the effort we put in. It does no good to pretend otherwise.

The NDP knows the two IP addresses they say were used to sabotage their leadership race in a cyber-attack Saturday but have yet to determine the hackers’ identities. (March 24)

More than 10,000 IP addresses used in attack on NDP vote (March 27)

Why did this change?

Also the earlier report talked about constant rebooting to solve the problem. What happened with that?

Only people with piles of money can run for public office. That blocks the majority of the American public. Also seems to mean that those who CAN run aren't very ethical. http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20120227/study-says-rich-more-likely-to-lie-120227/

There's more than one rare earth mine in North America: Hoidas Lake in northern Saskachewan, and Strange Lake in northern Quebec, and Bernic Lake in Manitoba.

I guess the US is just lazy or something; lots of rare earths being pulled out of North America already.

"It was a blast"? Sorry sir, we aren't going to allow you to enter our country...

Well played Mr. Anonymous Coward, well played.

For those wondering, this is the reference.

"Required"?

[Bill] Clennett can't remember if Chretien hurt him with the choke hold because it all happened so fast. But he did end up breaking the crown on a tooth during the scuffle.

A couple of months later, Clennett says the RCMP showed up at his door and offered to pay the $560 dental fee.

While he initially hesitated, Clennett says he took the money in order to buy an ad in the local French newspaper Le Droit, criticizing the Liberal government.

Even the aggressor/victim says the RCMP came to him and offered to pay. Clennett never even filed a lawsuit. How very Canadian of both the RCMP and Clennett.

Of course someone ordered the RCMP to make the offer, but that's a far cry from the implied "required by a court", and Chretien wasn't personally required to pay.

Perhaps you'd like to look into the aftermath a bit closer?

Feb 2012:
=========
"Tony Bennett, who kicked his own cocaine habit 30 years ago, made a pitch for the legalization of all drugs as he reflected on the death of Whitney Houston, whose drug problems have been well documented.

"In Amsterdam they legalized drugs and it calmed everybody down," Bennett said Sunday on the Grammy Awards red carpet.

"It stopped a lot of gangsters who sneak around and get people to take drugs. Everybody gets wounded that way. By legalizing it, you won't have that problem."

The 85-year-old crooner acknowledged his call for legalization is controversial. But he said he stands by it.

"It's called the elimination of ignorance," he said. "If you do something that makes things better, why not do it immediately, whatever it is.""

- http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/plocal/CTVNews/20120213/grammy-whitney-houston-drug-laws-120213/20120213/?hub=CalgaryHome

also @:

http://wonderwall.msn.com/entertainment/whitney-houston-remembered-on-grammys-red-carpet-1666601.story

and from the past, Bill Hicks:

"Itâ(TM)s not a war on drugs, itâ(TM)s a war on personal freedom is what it is OK. Keep that in mind at all times."

"George Bush says we are losing the war on drugs. You know what that implies? There's a war being fought, and the people on drugs are winning it. Ha ha ha ha! What does that tell you about drugs? Some smart, creative people on that side."

"That's what I hate about the war on drugs. All day long we see those commercials: "Here's your brain, here's your brain on drugs", "Just Say No", "Why do you think they call it dope?" ⦠And then the next commercial is [singing] "This Bud's for yooouuuu." C'mon, everybody, let's be hypocritical bastards. It's okay to drink your drug. We meant those other drugs. Those untaxed drugs. Those are the ones that are bad for you."

"Pot is a better drug than alcohol. Fact! ⦠I'll prove it to you. If you're at a ball game or a concert and someone's really violent and aggressive and obnoxious, are they drunk or are they smoking pot? [The crowd answers "Drunk."] Wow! We all know the truth."

"It's all about money, not freedom, ya'll, okay? Nothing to do with fuckin' freedom. If you think you're free, try going somewhere without fucking money, okay? "

Canada is currently in the process of adding new ships to its navy via the 'Single Class Surface Combatant Project', and is modernizing its fleet of Halifax class frigates. Because America's International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) is a pain in the ass and frequently abused for political purposes, one of the big mandates at least for the Halifax frigate modernization is to try to reduce the dependence on U.S. (weapons) systems as much as possible; opting for systems from Canada, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and Israel. IIRC I believe this started with issues around exporting and/or updating torpedoes (or at least that is what I remember being the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of naval weapons systems). It is unclear if this will continue with the new combat ships; there has been no clear indication published (pdf) in the news one way or another. Now if a close ally of the United States is forced to look elsewhere to avoid a lot of issues raised by the abuse of ITAR rules by American politicians and companies, then it is likely a very smart decision of India to avoid buying from the U.S.

But I don't know why they didn't go with the Typhoon. It looks marginally better. The wing load is higher, the thrust, speed, and climb is better, and it super cruises faster. These kinds of things are what allows a plane to return home at the end of the day when the shit hits the fan. Mind you, the Americans did do a bit of a study in the 80s I believe, where they had a bunch of top guns in F-5s go after standard operational F-14s and F-15s and pretty much proved that a bunch of small manoeuvrable fighters were a credible and significant threat to the bigger less manoeuvrable modern planes. Not sure where they went with that after. Maybe the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about took issue with the results of that study.

Canada is finally cracking down on fake immigrants. One of the biggest problems is the abuse of the immigrant investor program which this business apparently is trying to exploit, if you actually look at their web site:

About Rodolfo Martinez

I am the Executive Director of Ontario Immigrant Network, and currently we are working to connect newcomers to rural business succession opportunities.

In other words, "buy your way into the country by buying some dead persons' business."

Nice scam - too bad Mr. Martinez isn't licensed. The Canadian government has required licensing of anyone doing immigration consulting since 2004 because of the number of scams and abuses.

As of April 2004, the only immigration and citizenship consultants who will be recognized by the federal government department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada are those who are members in good standing of CSIC or lawyers who are members of a Canadian provincial or territorial law society.

I will add in a third "Fuck You" to Stephen Harper, this time for the massive amount of cash wasted on the G8/G20 conference a year or so ago, where we spent at least $860m Cdn - including it seems $86k on zipper pulls, and $4400 on $100 pens for world leaders. However the biggest expenditures were $330m for the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police for those of you who don't know), $144m to the Toronto Police and $100m to the Ontario corrections system (source: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20101105/g20-costs-101105/). The meetings lasted 3 days.

During this time the police got to gain valuable experience in riot control - and also in attempting to incite riots when the generally peaceful Canadian protesters didn't actually want to riot (they had undercover cops trying to incite people to set cop cars on fire and otherwise violate the laws). Then they arrested thousands without any justifiable reason, held them without due process and then released them without explanation. During this process they mistreated them in a manner that qualifies as human rights violations. All in all it was a great Police State training exercise where Canada got to show off its abilities to abuse its population to the rest of the world nicely (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_G-20_Toronto_summit_protests).

Somebodies, Canada to pull out of Kyoto Protocol next month, but that isn't really a change as nobody really had a snowballs chance in hell of reducing CO2 anyways. Anyone who says they did is just as well lying, the accounting was all blue smoke and mirrors at best, outright fraud most of the time.

This was a defense contractor they hacked.

If they wanted Gundam, they would have hacked a contractor for the ministry of agriculture...

Daily Planet (a Canadian science magazine show on Discovery Canada) had just a segment last week...

http://watch.ctv.ca/clip531934#clip531934

What I can't believe is how they just danced around the whole "it's a mech" term. It's amusing to watch in its own right as the host just refuses to call it what it is.

Oh yeah, it has guns, too! And yes, it's from a company that makes farm equipment.

This is the 3rd story I've heard about this kind of thing in the last 3 weeks. The first story was here, which is a very interesting way to do this kind of thing. The next story I heard was here which sounds very similar (but different), and now this. Will cancer be eradicated within 10 years? No one knows for sure, but things are very promising. Maybe some of this research will save my life, maybe it will save you life (and I don't have cancer, and you may not have cancer now either, but 10 years older is 10 years older).

Hmmm and yet last year there was a record salmon run - the largest run since 1913. Of course that was mostly Sockeye, not Coho which are in some danger. So you see you can't just talk about "Salmon" ... when people go on rants lumping them all together it seems more like a love of politics than a love of science and "facts".

We might also look into the preferential treatment given native fishing... they get first crack at the stocks, longer periods of fishing than other groups etc. Why? "For traditional ceremonial and sustenance purposes"... funny though I've driven through parts of BC where the you can't throw a stone without hitting a "Fresh Salmon For Sale" sign... of course those were reserves - traditional and sustenance purposes, uh huh sure thing.

I've also walked the shores of lakes on the migration path - well not on the shores, you couldn't do that because they were covered in thousands of dead salmon who were out-competed by other salmon.

And I would be very sceptical of the reports of salmon stocks suffering because of sea lice unless you 'have talked to someone who actually witnessed the methodology used for obtaining samples.

Unfortunately it has become more and more acceptable for "scientists" to let their personal bias inform their work. A very sad state. Trying to lay it all at the feet of politicians, and especially politicians of one flavor, is neither accurate nor productive, it just muddies the waters, incites prejudice and adds to the difficulty of ferreting out the real truth.

http://www.danmccomb.com/posts/706/record-salmon-run-hits-british-columbia/
http://fis.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.asp?l=e&country=0&special=&monthyear=&day=&id=38227&ndb=1&df=0
http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100905/bc-salmon-fisheries-100905/20100905?hub=BritishColumbiaHome

but you're still the one operating the car and presumably won't follow instructions to drive into another car.

You have a lot more faith in drivers than I have...

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/29/swiss-van-driver-gets-stuck-up-a-glorified-goat-track-blames/
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SciTech/20101006/gps-swamp-101006/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/story/2011/03/03/nb-gps-driver-speaks.html
http://www.switched.com/2009/02/27/gps-Lihttp://www.switched.com/2009/02/27/gps-leads-truck-to-impassable-road-for-5-days/?icid=200100397x1219177496x1201334806

At my work, I'm responsible for various chunks of municipal infrastructure that carry Big Important Messages such as "We need a doctor right now," "This cop needs help," "This firefighter's in trouble," etc.

When I was hired, I had to sign a fifty-page document that agrees to the following. The cameras pick me up when I get within 100 feet of the office, they stay on me every minute of every day and the video is archived for years. I agree to audio recordings at any time. My ID badge is trackable and my movements recorded. While I am acting as a representative and employee of this company, all communications of any kind are company property. I have no expectations of privacy at all while I am acting on behalf of the company. All phone calls -- cell, landline and voip -- are recorded. Every keystroke is logged. All emails and IMs are stored. For the 9-12 hours a day that I am doing my job, there is no such thing as a "personal" conversation.

If I make a mistake of any kind -- whether it had consequences or not -- the company is within their rights to fire me on the spot without recourse. I have agreed to mediation, meaning I cannot take my employer to court and I will lose any disagreements. If I make a mistake anyone notices, the company will cheerfully feed me to the customer's lawyers.

All of this because my actions carry a risk of liability for the company and a theoretical risk to human life.

Why on Earth shouldn't someone who carries live ammunition be held to at least the same standard? If Seal Team Six can do their jobs on camera with a live mike, why can't local law enforcement?

And by the way, that "Slut Walk" comment came from a Toronto police officer who implied that a woman deserved to be raped because she dressed like a slut.

http://ottawa.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110217/police-slut-comment/20110217/?hub=OttawaHome

A Toronto police officer who told a gathering of university students that women could avoid sexual assault by not dressing like "sluts" has issued an apology.

Mark Pugash, director of communications for the Toronto Police Service, said the officer would send a written letter of apology to faculty and students at York University for inappropriate comments made at the university's Osgoode Hall Law School.

The officer in question sent a written apology to the school later on Thursday.

Pugash said the officer had also been disciplined internally.

The comments were reportedly made during a campus safety meeting on Jan. 24.

Speaking as a brother, a husband and a father of daughters, the boy that made that comment has no business being allowed out on his own, let alone wearing a badge.

I don't care if a woman is a professional crack whore, a rape victim deserves your utmost sympathy, respect and compassion. You treat both the victims and the topic at large as if God and Mary Magdalene were personally going to hold you accountable for absolutely everything.

If you can't understand that, you have no business being in mixed company, let alone mine. I hope to God you don't share a uniform with anyone in my family.

This link was posted by another in this thread.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SpecialEvent7/20060121/eating_ballot_060122

It's interesting.

But I'm sure that if a large number of voters spoiled their ballots, the numbers would speak.

This organization has been caught selectively editing Beck before to slant opinion. Of course lefties here will simply pile-on without digging deeper. That's the lazy thing for people of any ideology to do. On the radio show he and his staff went into detail and immediately said how places like media matters would make ridiculous claims that he was worried about a Google conspiracy, etc.

He makes a case that Google has eyebrow-raising business with the US government. Should this really be considered crazy by the /. crowd? Especially after they were in bed with China for quite a while there? And now we have news that a Google executive was important in the recent Egypt uprising. I kind of like being skeptical of companies in bed with governments regardless of anyone's particular left-or-right philosophy.

"Simply reverting that rate to historical averages would cut the deficit in half. In fact increasing the US tax rate to what Canadians pay would wipe out the deficit completely."

That's crazy talk! The Canadians don't have a decent economy, and suffered just as badly during the recession as the U.S. did.* Furthermore, they have a terrible, tax-funded universal healthcare system! Why in hell would you want taxes at the kind of levels necessary to support that?

[* Well, actually, not a single major bank failed, because Canada has regulations that didn't allow the kind of crazy "NINJA" mortgages and derived mortgage-backed securities allowed in the U.S., and among the G8 it's economy was strongest over the last 2 years and that's expected to continue, with the lowest ratio of debt to GDP, so this statement is a lie. Canada did better than average. And while the healthcare system is far from perfect, I'd take it over the US system any day.]

Seriously, if you're running deficits in the bad times (like now) and cutting taxes during the good times so that you're *STILL* running deficits then, well, that's just stupid. You can't run continuous, back-to-back deficits in good times and bad and not expect to get into deep trouble eventually. You should be borrowing/spending when times are bad, and paying it back when times are good. That's standard economic understanding. Canadians don't like paying our taxes either, but at least when the government started running surpluses a few years ago people understood that it was better to spend half of it on tax cuts and the other half on debt reduction rather than expecting to get all of it back as a tax cut right away.

Those Bush-era tax cuts in the USA were a foolish, foolish, decision. The theory was that constraining government revenue would slow it's growth. The reality was that the legislators put the growth on credit cards. I hope people enjoyed that extra bit of money then, because they're going to be paying the interest on it for decades to come.

The USA is different in all sorts of ways, and it's your business how you handle things, but, yeah, maybe there's something to learn from other countries trying to tackle similar problems. There are many different approaches, and maybe taxation levels are one thing to consider changing rather than believing automatically that taxes are always "too high". I'd be more focused on getting my money's worth. Unfortunately raising taxes now is almost certainly a bad idea, although I suspect repealing the tax cuts for the top 2% of income earners wouldn't cause a problem in an economic sense (politically is a different equation).

As you indicate, cutting costs is just as important as any revenue increase.

Perhaps if you could give us a list of all that "violence coming from the left" in the US that is somehow being cleverly concealed by all the media of the world (must be some kind of a leftist conspiracy involving all those pinko-commie corporate CEOs!) it would help your points to attain some modicum of credibility. Unless your post was meant to be some very subtle satire, that is.

• It was not the fear of conservative violence that caused Ann Coulter's speech to be cancelled this week.
• It was a liberal who bit the finger off a man who disagreed with him on healthcare.
• It was Obama-loving Amy Bishop who took a gun to work and murdered co-workers.
• Joseph Stack flew his plane into the IRS building after writing an anti-conservative manifesto.
• It was liberals who destroyed AM radio towers outside of Seattle.
• It's liberals who burn down Hummer dealerships.
• It was progressive SEIU union thugs who beat a black conservative man who spoke his mind.
• It's doubtful that a conservative fired shots into a GOP campaign headquarters.
• In fact, Democrats have no monopoly on having their offices vandalized.
• Don't forget it was Obama's friend Bill Ayers who used terrorism as a tool for political change. SDS is still radical, with arrests in 2007 and the storming of the CATO Institute in July 2008.
• It was a liberal who was sentenced to two years for bringing bombs and riot shields to the Republican National Convention in 2008.
• It was a liberal who threatened to kill a government informant who infiltrated her Austin-based group that planned to bomb the RNC.
• It was liberals who assaulted police in Berkeley.
• It was liberals who intimidated and threw rocks through the windows of researchers.
• The two Black Panthers who stood outside polls intimidating people with nightsticks were probably not right-wingers.
• Every time the G20 gets together, it's not conservatives who destroy property and cause chaos.

I could literally go on and on, but let's try to have some perspective here. Violence is a product of the fringe, on either side, and it's sickening to try to use it for political advantage. Those who commit violence in the name of politics deserve political change no more than they deserve leniency in sentencing. Violence furthers no cause. The only call to action that violence has ever moti

Meagan McGrath is alive, although she has had at least one close call, falling into a crevasse in Antarctica. Also, saving a Sherpa on Everest is bad ass.

I like this quote: "Parents voted to protect their children's health and plug the computers back in with hardwires" however the picture from ctv.ca shows a bunch of students with iPads.

Canada *may* be in the midst of a housing bubble. It hasn't happened yet, and opinions are mixed. Personally, I think the prices are going to flatten out, but I'm no expert. Anyway, if it does happen you won't see the same kind of banking catastrophe as in the U.S. because the mortgage rules are stricter, and the banks have stricter rules regarding capital on-hand. In other words, if the housing bubble happens it won't be a big deal that will undermine the entire economy. Slow it, yes. As other people have pointed out, it isn't simply a matter of "more regulation", it's a matter of regulations that give a useful result -- in this case, stricter rules against wild financial speculation.

The reality is, the main reason a housing bubble might happen is that, unlike the U.S., there was only a slight and temporary wiggle in house prices at the time of the economic crisis, and then prices kept on rising. The rate of rise isn't sustainable long-term because housing prices are increasing faster than people's incomes, although at a lower rate than the crazy rates in the U.S. before the collapse. It's a worrisome trend that will have to change eventually.

Ironically, our benevolent Conservative government were the ones that changed to rules to allow riskier zero-money-down, 40-year mortgages (i.e. relax Canadian mortgage regulations to be more like the U.S.) when the crisis hit, and they quickly reversed the decision and hoped it wouldn't be noticed who was responsible for the risky change. Read that article. Our government almost blew it.

Well, ye! Looking like you're having an epileptic fit is decidedly unsexy. We needed a study for that? What next - a study saying that facebook is for loo ... oops - too late

If Canadian farmers have them, it's safe to say the Ruskies have them too. Although, given their lack of effectiveness in Canada, the Ruskies might want a backup plan. Of keep them off the ganja.

I thought it couldn't be true. But it is. I don't know what to say. But I hope that officer Robinson is first on the list of the 4 RCMP officers if charges are laid by the special prosecutor.

I heard about that case, assuming you are referring to this one. Maybe it's just my blue state attitude but I think that guy overreacted. He knew that his neighbors weren't home. All that was at stake was property. Property that was likely insured.

I would not be willing to take a human life over property. I would intervene without hesitation if one of my neighbors was being murdered/raped/kidnapped/etc. But for property? No way. Even if I could get away with it in the legal sense I wouldn't do it. I don't want to live with having ended a human life over property. I've known people who have taken human lives and seen what it does to them. I don't care to experience that myself unless there's no other choice.

I don't think I could have voted for no-bill if I was on his grand jury. I went through the hassle of getting a carry permit in New York State -- no easy undertaking in this "may-issue" state. I've thought about this a great deal and I would not pull out my gun over property. It just isn't worth it. I carry a firearm to save my life, not to save property. Property can be replaced. Human lives can not.

We have tribunals and judges well-versed in case law and guidelines in order to interpret whether or not an utterance or written item can be considered hateful...this determination is made by looking for the motivational intent of the item in question.

For example:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081010/muslim_complaint_081010/20081010?hub=Canada

The tribunal ruled against a group of Muslim complainants in regards to a Macleans article essentially warning people about the potential for a Muslim-ruled world.

The cartoons themselves were also brought before a tribunal:

http://newatheism.blogspot.com/2008/01/mohammed-cartoons-and-civil-rights-in_28.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Levant#Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy

The complaints generated by this were dismissed or withdrawn. There is some sanity here.

I'm Canadian, but I may be able to answer your question to some extent. We've elected a Conservative government since 2006. They are on the far right of the Canadian political spectrum, even falling to the right of centre on the American spectrum. Since they've come in power, there are several small but significant changes to our country's traditions.

- The Prime Minister now abuses his executive authority to evade Parliamentary accountability and mask his contempt of Parliament.
- The Prime Minister now has an entire entourage of armed guards and travels with them in a fleet of at least 5 cars ... to a house across the street (our Governor General's house), instead of walking like every single one of the previous PMs.
- We now have, for all intents and purposes, free speech zones, although they're not called as such. The RCMP blocks protesters from coming within a certain radius of the Prime Minister because the PM, and I quote from an RCMP letter, "could have been embarrassed."
- The Prime Minister has, time and again, tried to intervene with arms-length governmental agencies by appointing to important positions those who share his neo-conservative views and equal contempt of Parliament. For example, the Rights and Democracy organization chair was appointed by the PM, and now that the organization is coming under fire, the chair refuses to appear before a Parliamentary committee.
- The PM also intervenes with arms-length agencies by firing or replacing those in positions of power in those agencies for disagreeing with him. Paul Kennedy, former RCMP watchdog, is the latest victim of this campaign, as he was way too critical of the RCMP. For example, Kennedy wanted to hold officers accountable for their actions! Unthinkable.
- The PM has, for a couple of years now, if I recall correctly, refused to do unscripted interviews with mainstream national media outlets (particularly with the public broadcaster, CBC) because he accuses mainstream national media outlets of liberal bias (where have you heard that before?). He's also tried, unsuccessfully, to dismantle the CBC, but has instead settled for reducing its budget year-over-year.

To understand how that is relevant to your question, you will need some background information on Canadian politics and our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. Mr. Harper LOOOOOVVVESSS you guys. He LOVES America. In a 1997 speech, he blasts Canada for being a "Northern European welfare state" (like Norway or Sweden) and makes the case that America is the shining conservative beacon towards which we as a nation should strive to resemble. This is reflective of his practices while he was in office. He's hired former Republican consultants and PR people and strategists to help with his campaigning and policy decisions. To cut to the chase, Mr. Harper is an American Republican at heart.

In Canada, we've had a long political tradition of responsible politics. There were some scandals here and there, but they were relatively minor. The most controversial use of the executive power of the PMO (Prime Minister's Office) was back in the Trudeau era, when Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act because of terrorism-related acts (bombings, kidnappings) by the FLQ in Quebec, a Quebec nationalist group. Even then, the use may be controversial or questionable, but it was undoubtedly a crisis situation. Otherwise, the executive power of the PMO has almost always been exercised responsibly. That is, until Mr. Harper came along. He abused Parliamentary process by defying the will of Parliament. In Canadian politics, the appointment of a PM is not technically decided by the party with the most seats. It is decided by whichever Member of Parliament has the most support in terms of the number of other Members of Parliament. So a coalition with the opposition parties would mean a new Prime Minister. Mr. Harper didn't like this very much, so he decided

Yeah, annoying licensing restrictions.

Luckily, the Canadian license holder is CTV, and they're also pretty progressive with their online streaming.

I still get screwed over with sites like Hulu, though, and it's probably going to be a long time before broadcast corporations shed the vestiges of regional licensing.

And I forgot to add that I disagree with the OP's sig that patriotism is bigotry. While I am not a big fan of deGaulle (let's just say I would have preferred we left him in Dunkirk when the Germans arrived), proving the "exception to the rule" rule, he said one smart thing:

"Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first." -deGaulle

Nationalism is bigotry. Nationalism leads to ethnic cleansing, even in the form of language laws. The statement is true even though it is completely at odds with his bullshit behaviour in Quebec in 1967 where he supported nationalism (and stuck his nose in Canada's affairs... and pissed off enough people that he had to fly home early leaving the ship he came in to sail home without him... and earning him the status of "rectum non grata" in Canada).

there is no denying that we as a species pump way too much crap into our atmosphere

Says who? You? There is evidence that the increased CO2 levels help plants grow. What's too much? The claim is that it's causing warming and ice melting - which is in doubt. In fact there is evidence that sea levels rose significantly above where they are now in previous inter-glacial periods. There is really no evidence that our CO2 production is changing anything. If you want see mans effect on the weather, read about the daily temperature variation when air traffic is stopped then tell me how you separate these effects from other claimed temperature changes of lesser amounts.

I'm no longer a believer either, I applaud Utah for their message - if not the presentation.

The truck was making the right turn, sorry and in this article they actually mention the cellphone. I just remembered this story from last year and thought it was quite appropriate.

A second article states that it usually takes 90 days for the donation to be transferred.

While the phone companies are looking at how to speed this up, am I the only one who believes that this would be a good way for some banks to earn back some credibility? It seems like they could give the Red Cross a 90 day loan to give them the money today, at 0%. Makes them look really good.

Forget the loan with 0% interest, how about the banks match the amount, dollar for dollar?

A second article states that it usually takes 90 days for the donation to be transferred. While the phone companies are looking at how to speed this up, am I the only one who believes that this would be a good way for some banks to earn back some credibility? It seems like they could give the Red Cross a 90 day loan to give them the money today, at 0%. Makes them look really good.

Sorry that was a typo, it should have said 30 days. Same link though.

A second article states that it usually takes 90 days for the donation to be transferred.

While the phone companies are looking at how to speed this up, am I the only one who believes that this would be a good way for some banks to earn back some credibility? It seems like they could give the Red Cross a 90 day loan to give them the money today, at 0%. Makes them look really good.

Well, Air Canada didn't allow pets in the cabin until recently. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090617/cabin_pets_090617/20090617

I'm pretty sure Harper has done more to dismantle transparency in the last 3 years than Chretien/Martin did during their tenure.

Just a sampling of things I can recall off the top of my head since 2006: This, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this.

And I'll repeat again what I said above: all this (and more that I suspect I've mercifully forgotten over the last 3 years) has taken place under the watch of an autocrat who explicitly ran on the promise of transparency and accountability in the 2006 election.

... and people wonder why the general public thinks politicians are a bunch of assholes ...

This is a common myth. Police officers are *rarely* killed on the job.

Once is enough to make the rest of them kinda skittish

1
2
3,4,5,6
7
8
9

In less than 10 years, from one police force, in Canada. There have probably been more, but I'm getting depressed searching for them.

After all it's an online medium so no-one cares what you look like.

Indeed.

"If the outside surface temperature never drops below freezing, due to above square-cube law... Also it seems no great challenge at all, to design buildings, even domes, that don't collapse under heavy snow loads."

Living in Canada, I know this is not the case. It *shouldn't* be a great challenge, but apparently it is in practice when snowfall is heavy. And these are much smaller domes.

There's this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1-WTc1kow

Of course the report in the news says otherwise:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070822/montebello_cops_070822/20070822?hub=TopStories

But check the comments and see for yourself:

e.g. "Watch as the three men start to realize that they are being accused of being undercover cops... they say nothing, except for the one man in the back who leans over and exchanges a few words with one of the riot cops. Then, suddenly, three men who had been holding stones and getting ready to cause trouble suddenly walk peacefully right into the police line and are led away"

And there was no record of the provocateurs being arrested.

Whether it's something "typical" or not, I don't know. But sure looks like it does happen.

Call me all the bad names you want. If you want to go the racial route you can call me a kike, kraut, polack, limey or mutt (probably your best bet). If you want to go the non-racial route you can call me fatty, geek, pimple-head, etc. None of those things are going to make me run crying to the police for protection from you.

Well, that was the problem.

Let's say I called you a kike, kraut, polack, limey mutt. In Canada, you could file a complaint with the HRC and they would fine me $10k - $100k in fines because I hurt your feelings as a ... you know, your parents got around. Anyway, the kike part would be enough to ruin my life financially.

You don't have the right to not be offended, but in Canada, up until yesterday, that right was being granted by the HRC.

A famous case was two women who went to an adults-only comedy show and heckled the comedian there. He shot back with some adult-themed comments including calling them dikes. They cried to the HRC and the comedian was dragged about the court for yelling at two people who were heckling.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080626/comic_humanrights_080626/undefined