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and the groceries at the company store (not quite, but we are getting there)

Many people HAVE been there, and it didn't work out well for them:

Along with the company houses came the company store — one in each community, stocked with everything that the miner or his family would ever need. These were quality goods, but they came with a high price; everything could be charged on credit against the miner's pay envelope, and few families escaped being in perpetual economic bondage. Over time, company stores in Nova Scotia's coal-mining towns became symbols of corporate oppression and in times of labour unrest were the objects of looting and violence.

To be a stickler, the reason you don't drive on the road within 15 minutes of rain is ALSO due to the "natural" oils in the road coming up. And on new roads, it's vastly due to the oils that live inside the asphalt.

http://www.gov.ns.ca/snsmr/rmv/handbook/DH-Chapter5.pdf

http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/buses/UpdatedWeb/topic_8/page5.html

Find your MP and put the pressure on, please. I've already called mine (Laurie Hawn), to find his position on the debate. The rep at his office had never heard of the Net Neutrality issue. While I hope this isn't common, I wouldn't be surprised. If your MP is a Conservative, put the pressure about how damaging this will be to small businesses, startups, and our fancy new "Knowledge-based economy" idea. It may be easier to convince the Liberal or NDPs about how damaging this could be to the consumer. I urge EVERY Canadian on Slashdot to put in a courtesy call or two to their local Member of Parliament. While you're at it, contact your MLA to see if you can help pressure your provincial government as well. I'll include links:
Alberta
British Columbia
Manitoba
New Brunswick
Newfoundland
Northwest Territories
Nova Scotia
Nunavut Territory
Ontario
Prince Edward Island
Quebec
Saskatchewan
Yukon Territory

  The very worst thing is to think: Gee whiz, what the hell was that, stand up, and walk over to the window to look outside.

That's what happened to many people in the Halifax Explosion.

http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mnh/nature/salamand/thumbs /images/red-eft.jpg

Just so the Photoshopers have a starting point ;)

-Rick

and, like Halifax is in Nouvelle-Écosse (cuz you can 't use English Latin in french) see map

Here is some information about typical BSD user group sessions in Nova Scotia.

If all the ice in the world melted, the sea level would rise by about 70 meters. That leaves ~2400 meters wanting for the seabed, if this boat was only half way up the mountain (assuming the parent got that height right, and 2,500 meters isn't that high)

Let's assume this shortfall was made up by plate techtonics. I haven't read the bible, but I'm assuming they're dealing with a relatively short time frame here, since the Noah story was supposed to have taken place. Let's give them a good chuck of time, say 7200 years to keep things nice a mathematically simple.

So, to give plate techtonics the credit, the Ararat area would therefore have to be moving 33cm a year, or 1mm every single day for the last 7200 years, vertically.

Continental drift occurs at, on average, at the same speed your fingernails grow, or ~5-10cm a year. Now three time the average would be something special, but three times the yearly average purely vertically would have geo physicists very interested, esspecially considering the Arabian plate is esitmated to have an average tectonic movement of around 4cm per year (this is largely horizontal movement, remember).

OK, so let's give a little give and say the 4cm/y was purely vertical over the last 7200 years, that's 288 meters, leaving us still 2,112 meters short of the sea level, even if all the ice had melted.

So, tectonics would have had to have being working overtime and a half to have made up for this shortfall.

Let's think about this from the perspective of the geological record. From observation by many different people around the world of sedimentary strata, from gas sample taken from ice cores along with many other observations, it is agreed in the scientific community that sea level was about 6 meters higher ~8,000 years ago.

Now, truth is that ~8,000 years ago (7600 to be a little more precise), there were huge floods, as the weather was very unstable, but the flooding that occured certainly didn't cover the Earth (there'd be some wicked Quaternary formations if it did), which leads me to thinking that the story of Noah's ark should be taken more in terms of a fishing tale (thiiiiiiis big), rather than an accurate record of a historical event.

Besides, need we get into the debate about exactly how big that arc would have to have been in order to contain two of every species on earth? Or that for a gentically viable population, you need around 10-20 breeding pairs (according to a genetics scientist friend of mine). Or that reforesting the Earth would have taken hundreds of thousands, if not million of years. Or that the bible has been rewritten, translated and modified many, many times (but let's not go there) .

Ammunition ship explosion:

link
another link
and another link

That ship was carrying 2,500 tons of high explosives. That means a 2.5 kiloton blast. That's about 10% of the Hiroshima atom bomb. I hope those lifeboats have powerful outboard motors attached, because they need to get at least a mile away quick.

I'd say he was an "Accadian", not an "Acadian".

So yes, it is in all probability a typical Katz f*ckup...

"I can't see how it's good to remove the humanity from mining"

Few industries are as physically dangerous for human labour. Major disasters are a fact of life - see The Westray Disaster for a summary of lives lost in a moderately recent Canadian accident.

I won't respond to the rest of your rant - just consider this - machinery can be replaced, lives can't. Thinking that a mine is a source of a job, not a danger to human life, merely reinforces a viewpoint that labour is merely a commodity.

Ed

So I guess the point of this (rambling) post is that computers are not the solution to illiterate kids and crappy grades. They are a fine educational tool, if used correctly, but we can't forget the importance of good old teaching, and work. and stuff.