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When the average cost to transfer a gigabyte of data is below 5 cents - http://business.financialpost.com/2011/02/05/how-much-does-bandwidth-actually-cost/ - I don't buy all these complaints from carriers about customers using huge amounts of data, especially since the typical "unlimited" (heh) data plan costs $30/month. At that rate, a customer would have to transfer 600 gigabytes of data in a given month to equal the raw cost of that bandwidth to the carrier.

Now, admittedly, that is based on the raw cost of bandwidth, and, of course, other factors come into play in figuring the cost of delivering that data, but the point is that carriers are, without question, earning money hand over fist with the current rates they are charging. I mean, we also have carrier CEOs admitting that the cost of bandwidth has little to do with the cost of services - http://stopthecap.com/2011/07/28/time-warner-ceo-bandwidth-costs-are-not-terribly-relevant-to-broadband-pricing.

No, these common refrains from the carriers are due to nothing more than them wanting to have their cake and eat it, too. They don't want to upgrade their infrastructure to support the bandwidth capabilities today's customers are demanding, but they still want to justify charging the rates they do whilst continuing to advertise "unlimited" data plans. So how do they go about doing that? Blame any and all bandwidth problems on "data hogs".

Again, I'm not buying it.

China has a tremendous skill-set that while works very well for reverse engineering and building things, does not work so well where free-thinking innovation are needed to make advances.

It's a big mistake to underestimate their abilities... Just 3 days ago we read that China surpassed the USA as top patent filer.

What's lost on people is a simple fact: there's already a high incentive to reduce fuel use because of the high and ever-increasing cost of that fuel, yet the CO2 emissions continue to go up. Efficiency gains of a few percent or even a couple tens of percent will help, but they won't change the fundamental problem if at the same time you are expanding the total energy use by more than that.

A perfect example of this is the tar sands development in western Canada, where the oil companies are very proud of the substantial and genuine efficiency increases when it comes to energy use and CO2 output per barrel of oil extracted. The incentive here is obvious: the companies make more money if they can do it more efficiently. A LOT more money. This is a genuinely good thing, but it doesn't make a speck of difference to total CO2 emissions if you are simultaneously doubling the amount of oil being extracted every decade or so. Likewise it's not all big companies driving the problem. It's great that car efficiency improves, but if people are driving longer distances and CHOOSING to drive less efficient vehicles like SUVs instead of cars, well, none of that efficiency gain matters either. Calling this sort of thing "progress on CO2 emissions" is a joke, and that's pretty much what Canada's policy has been for the last 10 years: a joke. It's not unique in this respect among industrialized countries, but it's still pathetic.

This is as bad as an alcoholic committing to cut back to less than the level they drank in 1990, then spending the next 10 years touting the fact that now they're drinking "light beer" instead, even though their bar tab and total alcohol intake goes up every single year. Oh, I've switched to 6% alcohol rather than 8%. Never mind that you're drinking 30% more by volume. Then they finally announce they are giving up because it's "not economically feasible".

Worst thing is, we *know* the supply is going to dwindle eventually. We're going to be facing this problem anyway and be forced to quit cold turkey someday. Canada's attitude seems to be "Let's pocket the money from the oil sands now, throw huge amounts of money into expanding it, and not bother investing in preparations for the inevitable end of this non-renewable resource."

$13.6billion? Are they kidding? That's less than the forecast investment in oil sands in 2013 ($18.5 billion). And that's only one industry. The government doesn't have to bill every individual Canadian $1600. It could be half of that by making industries contributing the most to the problem and profiting the most from production of fossil fuels pay a greater share than they currently do. Oh, that will drive the prices up, will it? Yes, of course it will -- to a level that will more accurately reflect the real costs globally. The only reason governments are dragging their feet is on the premise that we need a global agreement that affects economic activities equally, which is fine, but the idea that $13.6 billion is unaffordable isn't correct. Our government is already planning to spend $9 billion on fancy new F-35 fighter planes to replace the current CF-18s when we could settle for more affordable upgrades such as new F-18 Super Hornets that cost half as much and have the reliability of dual engines for remote arctic work instead of single engines of unproven reliability. I'm all for supporting the military, but the deal they have planned is extravagant. It's all down to the priorities of our current government, which are: protect lucrative oil production at all costs and spend money that supports their political base.

I guess ever since CERN validated the results of a Danish study proving the causal effect of cosmic rays on cloud seeding, and the causal effect of the Sun's level of activity (and magnetic field) in regulating the cosmic ray flux in the upper atmosphere, we'll just have to lump CERN (a truly scientific organization as opposed to the IPCC lobbying group) in with the "fringe" that knows that climate change is not affected in a major way by human activity.

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/09/02/lawrence-solomon-our-cosmic-climate/

http://probeinternational.org/library/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/CLOUD_SI_press-briefing_29JUL11.pdf

The hypothesis holds as long as there's no significant discrepancy between results of the model and actual measurements.

The problem is that the shotgun approach of asserting, say, three dozen models, and then having actual measurements that have significant discrepancies with 75% of them, doesn't really say much. If your model isn't making predictions of any utility, and furthermore, cannot separate correlation from causality.

Not a single AGW model predicted the previous decade of lack of warming, and not a single AGW model can accurately hindcast all previous decades of climate.

Let's say I have a hypothesis that says that global climate change is caused by software piracy, and the predictions of that model I build show a strong correlation to our observed temperatures, within a huge range of error that I build into my model. Does my hypothesis hold? Sure, in the strictest sense of the word. Is my hypothesis really all that useful? Absolutely not.

The sad part, of course, is that so many people do see models as more than what they really are - they assume that these models represent evidence, when in reality, they're simply toys. Especially when you design them to withstand direct refutation by opening their error bars so wide that nearly *any* possible outcome is covered.

Obligatory cite for you to ponder: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/04/07/climate-models-go-cold/

(Please do not troll with some test that produces evidence for one of above theories. For example, the only way to independently test the big bang would be to recreate the universe. Using an atom smasher to create a model doesn't cut it.)

Glad you see it that way and agree with the OP. All the data for global warming is exactly that: a model.

And it is subject to Garbage In, Garbage Out.

See here: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/04/07/climate-models-go-cold/

for the explanation why the models have been so off base.

However, there is an independently testable case for Earth: Mars

Totally lacking in humans, with more hard data about the ice caps than Earth's ice caps, you can look at drawings made since Newton's time.

Mars has shrinking icecaps and no humans. Therefore humans are not the primary cause.

But it does not match the climate scientist "narrative" so it is not discussed.

Quotes are from Lawrence Solomon: Japan’s radioactive fallout could have silver lining.

Sometimes reality is surprising.

If only we were talking about radiation instead radionuclide(s) your post may of actually been relevant.

First of all, quite a bit of the discussion has been about radiation dosage as opposed to "radionuclides". BTW, plenty of normal background radiation comes from "radionuclides", I hope you're enjoying them. :-)

Second, very few Japanese will be ingesting the iodine and cesium they're being warned about. As long as it's not ingested, it in fact amounts to nothing more than a slight additional radiation dose.

Third, you're making a huge leap in assuming that Japanese nuclear bomb survivors didn't come in contact with the same materials being emitted by the Japanese nuclear event. After all, the exact same reaction was the driving force in each case, with the same fission byproducts.

I hope this cleared things up for you a bit, "AC".

Quotes are from Lawrence Solomon: Japan’s radioactive fallout could have silver lining.

Sometimes reality is surprising.

If only we were talking about radiation instead radionuclide(s) your post may of actually been relevant.

radiation kills long term (unless it's a massive dose)

That is commonly accepted thinking, but is apparently incorrect.

The tens of thousands more distant from Ground Zero, and who received lower exposures to radiation, did not die in droves. To the contrary, and surprisingly, they outlived their counterparts in the general population who received no exposure to radiation from the blasts.

These findings come from the Atomic Bomb Disease Institute of the Nagasaki University School of Medicine, which has been analyzing the medical records of survivors continuously since 1968.

Quotes are from Lawrence Solomon: Japan’s radioactive fallout could have silver lining.

Sometimes reality is surprising.

I see that you do not know how to use the google search engine. I searched for the following "Ipad use in business" and got the following:

http://www.apple.com/ipad/business/

http://www.apple.com/ipad/business/apps/

http://www.apple.com/ipad/business/profiles/

and searching for "Ipad use fortune 100" yields:

http://www.financialpost.com/news/Fortune+using+testing+iPad/4131601/story.html

That 97% figure is 100% bogus.

This number will prove a new embarrassment to the pundits and press who use it. The number stems from a 2008 master’s thesis by student Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at the University of Illinois, under the guidance of Peter Doran, an associate professor of Earth and environmental sciences. The two researchers obtained their results by conducting a survey of 10,257 Earth scientists. The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers — in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change. The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout.

There's no debate in the scientific literature. Obviously, there's a debate among laymen.

Which begs the question: why is "the majority of scientists agree" not enough when it comes to climate change. It's enough when it's there's fear of creating black holes at the LHC. It's enough when it's NASA sending satellites into space. These places have just as much motivation for being "grant seeking" and all the other accusations that have been flying around.

But when it's climate change the majority of scientists, the IPCC, and even NASA isn't enough. They're all part of a conspiracy, and there is only a handful of very specific people in the entire world that we can trust.

Well let's look at that;

How do we know there’s a scientific consensus on climate change? Pundits and the press tell us so. And how do the pundits and the press know? Until recently, they typically pointed to the number 2,500 — that’s the number of scientists associated with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Those 2,500, the pundits and the press believed, had endorsed the IPCC position.

To their embarrassment, most of the pundits and press discovered they were mistaken — those 2,500 scientists hadn’t endorsed the IPCC’s conclusions, they had merely reviewed some part or other of the IPCC’s mammoth studies. To add to their embarrassment, many of those reviewers from within the IPCC establishment actually disagreed with the IPCC’s conclusions, sometimes vehemently. Lawrence Solomon: 97% cooked stats

oh well if we can't use the 2500 number how about the “97% of the world’s climate scientists” accept the consensus," number

The number stems from a 2008 master’s thesis by student Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at the University of Illinois, under the guidance of Peter Doran, an associate professor of Earth and environmental sciences. The two researchers obtained their results by conducting a survey of 10,257 Earth scientists. The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers — in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change. The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout. Lawrence Solomon: 97% cooked stats

well that's certainly disappointing

3,146, or 30.7%, answered the two key questions on the survey:

1 When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
2 Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures? ... Surprisingly, just 90% of the Earth scientists who responded to the first question believed that temperatures had risen — I would have expected a figure closer to 100%, since Earth was in the Little Ice Age in the centuries immediately preceding 1800. ...
As for the second question, 82% of the Earth scientists replied that human activity had significantly contributed to the warming. Here the vagueness of the question comes into play. Since skeptics believe human activity has been a contributing factor, their answer would have turned on whether they consider a increase of 10% or 15% or 35% to be a significant contributing factor. Some would, some wouldn’t. ...
In any case, the two researchers must have feared that an 82% figure would fall short of a convincing consensus — almost one in five wasn’t blaming humans for global warming — so they looked for

There's no debate in the scientific literature. Obviously, there's a debate among laymen.

Which begs the question: why is "the majority of scientists agree" not enough when it comes to climate change. It's enough when it's there's fear of creating black holes at the LHC. It's enough when it's NASA sending satellites into space. These places have just as much motivation for being "grant seeking" and all the other accusations that have been flying around.

But when it's climate change the majority of scientists, the IPCC, and even NASA isn't enough. They're all part of a conspiracy, and there is only a handful of very specific people in the entire world that we can trust.

Well let's look at that;

How do we know there’s a scientific consensus on climate change? Pundits and the press tell us so. And how do the pundits and the press know? Until recently, they typically pointed to the number 2,500 — that’s the number of scientists associated with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Those 2,500, the pundits and the press believed, had endorsed the IPCC position.

To their embarrassment, most of the pundits and press discovered they were mistaken — those 2,500 scientists hadn’t endorsed the IPCC’s conclusions, they had merely reviewed some part or other of the IPCC’s mammoth studies. To add to their embarrassment, many of those reviewers from within the IPCC establishment actually disagreed with the IPCC’s conclusions, sometimes vehemently. Lawrence Solomon: 97% cooked stats

oh well if we can't use the 2500 number how about the “97% of the world’s climate scientists” accept the consensus," number

The number stems from a 2008 master’s thesis by student Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at the University of Illinois, under the guidance of Peter Doran, an associate professor of Earth and environmental sciences. The two researchers obtained their results by conducting a survey of 10,257 Earth scientists. The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers — in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change. The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout. Lawrence Solomon: 97% cooked stats

well that's certainly disappointing

3,146, or 30.7%, answered the two key questions on the survey:

1 When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
2 Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures? ... Surprisingly, just 90% of the Earth scientists who responded to the first question believed that temperatures had risen — I would have expected a figure closer to 100%, since Earth was in the Little Ice Age in the centuries immediately preceding 1800. ...
As for the second question, 82% of the Earth scientists replied that human activity had significantly contributed to the warming. Here the vagueness of the question comes into play. Since skeptics believe human activity has been a contributing factor, their answer would have turned on whether they consider a increase of 10% or 15% or 35% to be a significant contributing factor. Some would, some wouldn’t. ...
In any case, the two researchers must have feared that an 82% figure would fall short of a convincing consensus — almost one in five wasn’t blaming humans for global warming — so they looked for

Please get your fucked-up governmental regulations correct, sir. It was EPA regulations, not the Jones Act holding up the skimmers:

http://www.financialpost.com/Avertible+catastrophe/3203808/story.html#ixzz0sAN3FUyT

Nor am I one of those assholes who feels the government is infallible. Corruption is rife in all institutions.

Moratoriums on drilling & making BP put up $20 billion in escrow, doesn't make BPs gusher, gush any more or less. Moratorium isn't really a bad idea, as it's obvious these people do not know how to fix blown out well. The Ixtoc spill 30 years ago was in shallower waters and it took them forever to cap that well as well.

The booms & barriers issue is an interesting one, but building giant sand berms off the coast would be a major undertaking and unlikely to stop the oil as oil can just go around, unless we're going to build a giant berm around the entire gulf coast which doesn't seem feasible. Booms require constant attention, so you would need a huge workforce to do that. I don't think they are bad ideas, but they may be unfeasible.

"The Dutch know how to handle maritime emergencies. In the event of an oil spill, The Netherlands government, which owns its own ships and high-tech skimmers, gives an oil company 12 hours to demonstrate it has the spill in hand. If the company shows signs of unpreparedness, the government dispatches its own ships at the oil company's expense. "If there's a country that's experienced with building dikes and managing water, it's the Netherlands," says Geert Visser, the Dutch consul general in Houston."

Read more: http://www.financialpost.com/Avertible+catastrophe/3203808/story.html#ixzz0uXrz3l5t

But Obama screwed it up too, with not waiving the Jones act, and by giving in for unions: (but that of course doesn't imply that government has to screw it up, does it? Just look at Netherlands.)

"The Americans, overwhelmed by the catastrophic consequences of the BP spill, finally relented and took the Dutch up on their offer -- but only partly. Because the U.S. didn't want Dutch ships working the Gulf, the U.S. airlifted the Dutch equipment to the Gulf and then retrofitted it to U.S. vessels. And rather than have experienced Dutch crews immediately operate the oil-skimming equipment, to appease labour unions the U.S. postponed the clean-up operation to allow U.S. crews to be trained."

I'm not an Ayn Rand fan, but here the government made big mistakes as well:

"In sharp contrast to Dutch preparedness before the fact and the Dutch instinct to dive into action once an emergency becomes apparent, witness the American reaction to the Dutch offer of help. The U.S. government responded with "Thanks but no thanks," remarked Visser, despite BP's desire to bring in the Dutch equipment and despite the no-lose nature of the Dutch offer --the Dutch government offered the use of its equipment at no charge. Even after the U.S. refused, the Dutch kept their vessels on standby, hoping the Americans would come round. By May 5, the U.S. had not come round. To the contrary, the U.S. had also turned down offers of help from 12 other governments, most of them with superior expertise and equipment --unlike the U.S., Europe has robust fleets of Oil Spill Response Vessels that sail circles around their make-shift U.S. counterparts.
"
Read more: http://www.financialpost.com/Avertible+catastrophe/3203808/story.html#ixzz0uXqOLNzS

"Crucial offers to help clean up BP’s oil spill came “from Belgian, Dutch, and Norwegian firms that . . . possess some of the world’s most advanced oil skimming ships.” But the Obama administration didn’t accept their help, because doing so would require it to do something past presidents have routinely done: waive rules imposed by the Jones Act, a law backed by unions."

http://www.examiner.com/x-7812-DC-SCOTUS-Examiner~y2010m6d14-Obama-blocked-cleanup-of-BP-oil-spill-by-Americas-allies-Failed-to-issue-needed-Jones-Act-waiver

Why does this seem like something that would appear in the plot of a Simpsons or South Park episode?

Because they're not really trying to clean up the oil leak.

They've rejected the best available technology for cleaning up the oil because the water it returns, in situ, isn't quite pure enough for EPA regulations.

Instead, they're attempting to pump the Gulf of Mexico into ships and cart it to land, for storage and later processing.

It's so absurd it can't be due to ignorance.

So who then are the right people?
If you know why haven't you sent their names to the Government so they can do more than just worry about why it's taking so long?
Also is it really a "news blackout" is is there really just nothing else to report?
How on earth would BP enforce a news blackout anyway?

Are you astroturfing or something?

The right people would have been the Dutch.

Sending their names to the government woudn't help; they've already refused the help.

There is a kind-of blackout, ie here is CNN's take on it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpJBsjKhRTo

BP doesn't enforce the blackout, the government does.

pffft! don't you read the Financial Post? it has been screaming about Rely on the BSDs for a while...

While reading your reply the term "parinoid lunatic" came to mind.

Thank you for demonstrating how the AGW alarmists typically respond to critics.

What's even more troubling than dismissing any opposition as lunatics or in league with the enemy (typically oil and coal moguls), is the efforts to manipulate the facts and re-write history to suit their agenda.

You can't make this stuff up.

i4i is privately held, so it's not that simple.

http://www.financialpost.com/scripts/story.html?id=51f6ac07-09ec-4940-aba2-4ecdda0a4f3f&k=64727

Well, there's always Solo Mobile. Oh...same deal with Bell? Virgin Mobile? Oh, Bell again? Why do they need TWO sham fronts?

Virgin Mobile (Canada) was originally a join venture between Bell Canada and Virgin (UK). Bell bought out the UK stake earlier this year.

I suspect Bell left Virgin as-is so that uneducated consumers think there is competition.

You can trace most of the crappy Canadian mobile market back to when the Liberal government of Jean Chretien allowed Telus to buy Clearnet, and allowed Rogers to buy Fido, reducing the number of competitors from 5 to 3.

Sadly, Canadian telecom policy for decades has been that it's better for Canadians to be robbed by Canadian companies than charged a fair price by foreign companies (T-Mobile, Vodafone, etc).

Actually, the problem is that the entire process replicates a circular argument. A study is done, and peer reviewed by scientists who already agree with the premise, making it pretty likely that they won't have major problems with the conclusion or the methods used to achieve it, since they use the same ones. The study is blessed as long as it agrees with the accepted conclusion.

So rather than a rigorous winnowing process, we end up with a mutual admiration society, or a secret scientists club to which only those in one camp are allowed full membership.

This interview with Dr. Vincent Gray, a former expert reviewer for the IPCC, illustrates other problems with the IPCC's "scientific method". They wouldn't know objectivity if it jumped up and bit them in the ass. Couple that with the U.N.'s statements that AGW is really just a means to a global governance end, and it's difficult to see an unadulterated, pure, trustable process here.

http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=55387187-4d06-446f-9f4f-c2397d155a32

The "existence of a record" in a database is not the same thing as having a criminal record. That is strictly a data retention policy, for internal usage (administrative purposes). The person who is granted an absolute discharge at the time of their trial does not have a criminal conviction, despite the presence of a notation in the database that they received the discharge. An absolute discharge means that the judge never convicted them, even though they pled guilty. The judge has the absolute right to order that the person not be convicted of a crime when there is no minimum sentence, even if the accused has pled guilty.

Or perhaps you forgot the case where a JUDGE turned out to have had an absolute discharge for an offense when he was a lot younger. It came out years later, and his argument was quite simple - absolute discharge == no criminal conviction, as per the law. It happens all the time. It's not hard to find cases where that happened. It took me less than a minute to find one, and only a few minutes more to cut-n-paste a bunch more.

Here - recent cases: read them and weep.

SAGUENAY, Que. -- The son of former Montreal Canadiens goaltender Patrick Roy received an absolute discharge Wednesday after pleading guilty to an assault charge in connection with a nasty hockey fight last year.

Jonathan Roy, a former goalie for the Quebec Remparts of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League now turned singer, will not have a criminal record. He will have to donate $5,000 to local charitable organizations.

The younger Roy was charged after pounding rival goalie Bobby Nadeau during a hockey brawl in March 2008.

Another case from July of 2009

P.E.I. MLA gets absolute discharge for assault

P.E.I. Progressive Conservative MLA Mike Currie has been given an absolute discharge for assault during a sentencing hearing in Charlottetown on Friday.

Currie, MLA for Georgetown-St. Peter's, said he was relieved by the judge's decision to grant him an absolute discharge, which means he will not have a criminal record.

And Another one, April of 2009

Quebec boy's record cleared despite kirpan conviction

Judge says case has been given too much attention, gives boy unconditional discharge

Jan Ravensbergen, Canwest News Service
Thursday, Apr. 16, 2009

A 13-year-old LaSalle youth involved in Quebec's latest skirmish over the kirpan was declared guilty yesterday in Quebec Youth Court of having threatened two schoolmates with a hairpin normally used to secure his turban.

But Judge Gilles Ouellet then removed the sting from that conviction by handing the youth an absolute discharge -- ensuring the boy remains free of any criminal record.

One form BC in February, 2009

B.C. Supreme Court Madam Justice Marvyn Koenigsberg also found the man at the centre of the ruling, a worker for a marijuana compassion club on Vancouver Island, guilty of producing and possessing for the purpose of trafficking the drug, but gave him an absolute discharge.

Same with an RCMP Officer in Nova Scotia

Truro, N.S. (Canadian Press) - An RCMP officer was granted an absolute discharge today on a fraud charge in Nova Scotia provincial court.

In passing sentence in Truro, Judge Robert Stroud said Ron Lamb has an u

If you're considering Canada, a better option is Manitoba. We are among the least recession-affected provinces, if not the least affected. Many companies are growing, not closing. I'll start with the nice things.

For work, it all depends what you do, but you should be able to find it in Winnipeg. There's agribusiness, genetics, a level 4 biohazard lab, oil & gas (#1 in Canada, #21 in the world for investment at the moment), tech, TV, film production, manufacturing, engineering, construction, long haul trucking, communications, higher education, government... the list goes on.

The cost of living is remarkably cheap compared to the other provincial capitals. House prices are on the rise though, so if you are serious, get in sooner rather than later. That said, I think the average selling price right now for a single family detached home is about $209,000 (roughly £100,000). Our housing market is very stable and doesn't suffer the insane booms and busts like Calgary does. Population density is much lower, and homes generally have large front and back yards in comparison with what you usually get in the UK (if you get one at all). Also our electricity rates are among the lowest in North America and it's all hydroelectric, with some wind, and comes to about $0.06/kWh.

Manitoba has very beautiful wilderness and nature, literally within minutes of Winnipeg. Outdoor summer activities like fishing, camping, hiking, hunting, swimming, windsurfing, laying on the beach, and more are all possible. In the winter there are a couple halfway decent downhill ski slopes (it's the Prairies not the Rockies, give us a break!) and countless cross country ski trails, outdoor hockey/skating rinks and frozen rivers to ice skate on, tobogganing, and much more. Manitoba is more than 2.5 times larger than the UK so there's all kinds of room to play. We've also got some really great festivals: Folklorama, Festival du Voyageur, the Fringe Festival and the Folk Festival are some good examples. The MTS Centre (sports arena) is one of the busiest venues on the continent and hosts nearly all the bands and shows that tour North America.

Now for the criticisms (my gf is British and she loves it here but YMMV). We used to be the auto theft and murder capital of Canada, but not anymore thankfully! It gets COLD here in the winter, and DREADFULLY so. We're on the open prairie so the winds can whip up and drop the temperature like a stone. -40C is not unheard of, and we almost always get -40 windchills at least once during the winter. It's not always that cold though. It can snow a lot as well, but varies year to year. We do have excellent snow clearing though. In fact our Mayor was interviewed on BBC Radio 4 during the snow storm fiasco you guys had. The interviewer was asking what was necessary to have a good snow clearing operation, and he was saying none of it was really feasible for London anyways. In the summer it can get really hot here, 30C or higher is not uncommon, but 20-25C is usually where it's at. Winnipeg is one of the sunniest locations in Canada too. However, with all the nice warm weather comes MOSQUITOES, so many the city often has to larvicide and fog against them. If you're prepared (i.e. long sleeves, light coloured clothing, bug spray) you're generally fine. In terms of natural disasters, we get floods (1950, 1997, 2009), tornadoes, thunderstorms, hailstorms and blizzards. No hurricanes or earthquakes so far.

Traffic is considered a problem by most people who live here. Keeping in mind that Winnipeg is unique among North American cities its size because it doesn't have a freeway system, the most common criticisms are the timing of the traffic lights and construc

No, keep buying your Canadian-brand cars.

Actually, there are at least 30 brand-name car models made in Canada, which are also sold in the US, though some may be made there too. To name a few, the Dodge Charger, Ford Crown Victoria, Edge, and Flex, Chevy Impala and Monte Carlo, GMC Sierra, Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla and Matrix. Guess you haven't heard about Canada's automotive bailout debate. If no cars were made in Canada, why would they be talking about giving automotive companies $2.8B.

Sound's like you don't know what you mean, unless you're planning on cashing everything in tomorrow.

http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=847962/

So I certainly wouldn't expect the US government to come out with a net gain on this (though it'd be amusing if they did), but the net loss is going to be far less than the upfront cost.

I have seen and heard many people mention something similar with quite a few thinking that the government will actually come out ahead in the long run.

A very interesting article by former FDIC Chairman William Isaac makes the argument that the current "need" for a bailout is mainly due to the Fair Value Accounting rules (mark to market) that are crippling the market now.

It seems that under this scheme, any time there is a some sort of market disruption (e.g. thinly traded markets that freeze up) institutions' balance sheets will be savaged by being forced to mark to market at prices substantially lower than the actual long term value of the assets.

Ottawa brings copyright into the digital age -- The Toronto Star

The federal government tabled new legislation Thursday morning designed to make it easier to track and prosecute anyone caught downloading copyrighted files, such as music and movies, from the Internet. -- The Globe and Mail

Controversial copyright legislation positioned as a made-in-Canada solution to stamp out online piracy -- The National Post

I finally settled for a couple twisty bulbs, but I'm not too happy about it because they contain mercury

Oh, please. There's more mercury in your watch battery than in the CFL. And it's not like its posing any actual danger to you. The mercury isn't released into the air when the CFL is broken. If it does break, you can clean it up with a vacuum and a pair of rubber gloves, just like a non-CFL. No need to call in a hazmat team.

Unless you're going to get down on the floor and lick up the broken CFL, it doesn't pose much a risk to you.

Environmentally, the tiny bit of mercury is far outweighed by the massive energy usage and packaging savings the CFL gives you over its life time. The CFL can either be disposed of with your paints and batteries (ie: safely), or some places even have CFL recycling programs to reclaim the materials.

Take a gander at the Natural Resources Canada FAQ about CFLs. It includes a link to a health study about the effects of CFL's mercury.

The distinctive brains of psychopaths.

"But for psychopaths, the word 'cancer' and the word 'table' had the same emotional connotations - which is to say, not very many. It's as if they're emotionally color-blind."

Even more staggering were the findings of a study conducted by New York City psychiatrist Joanne Intrator, with Hare's collaboration, at the Bronx Veterans Administration hospital in 1993. The investigators employed the same language test, this time injecting the subjects with a radioactive tracer and scanning color images of their brains. As normal subjects processed the emotion-laden words, their brains lit up with activity, particularly in the areas around the ventromedial frontal cortex and amygdala. The former plays a crucial role in controlling impulses and long-term planning, while the amygdala is often described as "the seat of emotion." But in the psychopaths, those parts of the brain appeared to remain inactive while processing the emotion-laden words. That, says Hare, helps explain why a psychopath's conscience is only half-formed. "I showed the scans to several neurologists," recalls Hare. "They said that it did not even look like a human brain. One of them asked, 'Is this person from Mars?' "

According to Scientific American.
Not surprisingly, psychopaths are overrepresented in prisons; studies indicate that about 25 percent of inmates meet diagnostic criteria for psychopathy. Nevertheless, research also suggests that a sizable number of psychopaths may be walking among us in everyday life. Some investigators have even speculated that "successful psychopaths" - those who attain prominent positions in society - may be overrepresented in certain occupations, such as politics, business and entertainment. Yet the scientific evidence for this intriguing conjecture is preliminary.

One in 100.
One person in 100 is a psychopath, meaning that they lack a moral compass, sense of responsibility or empathy (this is a personality disorder, not a mental illness). And although they are overrepresented in the prison system, according to research by American psychologist Dr. Paul Babiak, and his Canadian counterpart Dr. Robert Hare, psychopaths are also well-represented in corporate environments.

here's a story about what I'd say is a very black & white likely case of psychopathy, and one at its worst, at least on a small scale.

The above link being pretty heavy, I thought I'd offer this lighter fare; A pseudo-scientific test to measure yourself on the psychopath-meter.

If you're going to navigate your pathway through reality, (down the river of life), you need to know where the rocks are if you're going to be able to avoid crashing into them. Christianity and the like has programmed all kinds of self-destructive behavior into human-kind. "Turn the other cheek" is an example of social programming which makes us food for the psychopathic human-type, --the type which I would guess is generally in charge of countries and most of the most powerful organizations which shape our lives; the psychopath recognizes its own and shapes the rules of the world to benefit itself, and study of the power structures over the centuries, doesn't really ever let go once the seat of power is attained. --Christ's supposed dying on the cross, (which I am doubtful actually happened for a variety of reasons, not the l

Given the uniqueness of health-care, a fully market-based solution seems implausible. So the question is what's the right way to run it.

One thing that should be remembered about the current regulations for mercury are very strict in contrast to the levels associated with deterministic effects. This is perfectly natural since the natural occurrence of mercury is in such low concentrations. In fact almost all practical problems with mercury and how to deal with it are somehow linked to the inability to accurately measure it at the concentrations it begins to harm organisms.

One thing that gets me about this story is that it refers back to the case of Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, who was apparently told that the "safe level" of atmospheric mercury is "300 billionths of a gram per cubic meter". This figure is utter bullshit. This equates to 3.3ng per litre. Average atmospheric background levels of mercury are 10ng per litre. This woman was panicing because she had levels "6 times the safe level", where the safe level is actually one third the background level. And if you live near a coal-fired power plant, you probably have substantially more than that. Insanity, is what this entire scare is.

Knowing the history of how Apple & corporate IT departments have treated each other (prejudices on both sides), and the steadfast change-averse nature of corporate IT to this day, don't get your hopes up that the iPhone will be adopted much more than the Mac has across the enterprise. That's certainly been the conclusion of clear-deaded analysis outside of the RDF, at least. If there wasn't another solution that wasn't just "good enough" we might have a different outlook, but the truth is that RIM (like MS solutions) might be more expensive and cumbersome, but it's now been accepted by corporate IT as "standard". And heaven forbid anyone suggesting a "nonstandard" solution in corporate IT, especially one as flashy as an iPhone (videos? music? arcade games!?! the horror!!!) If anything, the relatively closed ecosystem of the platform would probably be seen as an advantage by most IT managers; but remember that you don't necessarily win in corporate IT by having the best technical or financial solution.

Mind you, even a small uptake of the iPhone in corporate environments does not necessarily mean Apple makes off poorly - it's more than they have now, their low-overhead iPhone model means they'll make money from corporate deployments no matter how few, it adds a sense of security to potential adopters of the iPhone (ie. a show of committment by Apple) and it adds momentum to the platform.

umm.... see, the problem lies in the fact that DOJ is two-faced in its dealings with Micro$oft and then with the cable conglomerates. In fact, if you check the records, one can see that Microsoft even made a bid for Prime Cable before this all began - and was denied due to technical details.