Slashdot Mirror

On the heels of a terrorist attack in Boston, and after calmly watching these guys for over a year, the RCMP make arrests just as the Canadian government just happens to be debating a new anti-terrorism law in parliament. For certain political interests, it seems rather convenient to have the al-Queda bogeyman appear in Canada at this precise moment.

FWIW, we have seen precedent for the Prime Minister's Office (illegally) influencing the actions of the RCMP.

So they believe animal testing is morally wrong. Why? Is that a root belief, or does that derive from some other belief. For example, I believe that the anti-vaccination group is wrong, not in and of itself, but because I believe that 1) anti-vaccination propaganda leads to reduced vaccination rates, 2) reduced vaccination rates leads to more dead or crippled children, and 3) I believe in improving the quality of life for people where it is possible and the risks and side-effects are negligible. That is to say, there are several other things that lead me to believe that anti-vaccination teachings are morally wrong.

So if they believe a priori that animal testing is wrong, then I'll argue with them there. But surely they have to have a deeper reason than that. I mean, I can easily see the argument that animal testing is or can be cruel to animals, and I'm more than willing to take steps to reduce the animals' suffering. So if that's the case, then why are groups like them (and PETA - see PETA's disturbingly low adoption rates) so intent on rescuing animals only to kill them?

Your point is entirely valid, but I do hope they've been careful with the drafting of this one. They don't have the best record recently at avoiding unintended consequences.

Personally, I wouldn't mind living near a wind farm; however, I've seen all the feedback from people who actually live near them, and it tends to be negative.

They really aren't much like windmills; partly because there are so m any turbines.

Here's some actual reports though:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/david-dodge/living-near-a-wind-farm_b_1910707.html
http://mywinddiary.blogspot.ca/
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/wind-turbines-health.htm
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/07/11/pol-cp-wind-turbines-health-canada-study.html

But with modern CG and video-editing, you can't just trust any video on the internet.
For example, see the recent Eagle Baby Attack video.

Either that or all the maple syrup has lulled them into a diabetic coma.

Second link to this article was broken. Well stated in any case.

You are forgetting that PETA believes animals are better off dead than in the care of humans.

That article I linked talks about wind powered ships. It claims what is probably obvious, that most of the fuel is used near the ports to get the ships up to speed and to slow them down. Another reply below mentions kite-based "hybrid" ships that claim to reduce 20% of fuel consumption emissions.

I'll put these numbers together: 20% savings over 90,000 ships is equivalent to taking 18,000 container ships out of the ocean. That is the equivalent of 900 billion cars. Since there are just over one billion cars in the world, I'd say there couldn't be a more obvious solution.

And these hybrid ships don't cost any more or take longer to sail across the ocean. With $2000 in fuel savings, we could see the price of shipped goods reduced instead of increased.

2. Regarding Canada's federal debt. As of a year ago Canada's total Public Debt hit $1.1 Trillion, but that was only 57.9 % debt to GDP ratio. That is regarded as low and is perfectly fine. Canada can handle that just fine and still sustain robust economic growth. The US recently exceeded a ratio of 100% debt to GDP ratio. That is bad because when the debt ratio exceeds 85-90 % then economic growth is inhibited significantly.

Canada did the right thing running up the deficit during the recession so as to maintain economic growth. The U.S also had to do the same to keep the recession from expanding into a full blown depression. But Canada had good fundamentals -- a relatively low debt -- so it could run large deficits for a while without undue long term effects. It can lower spending later and bring the deficit down using expanded revenues from future GDP growth. The U.S was not in as good a shape having already run large deficits through out the Bush years. Now we are saddled with a huge debt burden that is sapping our growth dooming us to many years of low growth and high unemployment.

This is a list of the ten countries most in debt based on this percentage.

What China does only affects their own citizens?

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/06/02/gmail-hacked-from-china-google_n_870126.html

Really, when ICE hijacks a DNS entry, they are not stepping outside of US borders; you can register your DNS name as a .co.uk or whatever for your country, and the US will not legally touch you (or your government will cooperate, but at least that is your government and not some hack).

What we really need is a decentralized system of Internet governance, but transferring to the UN is basically a step in the opposite direction.

Since the Canadian supreme court ruled in April that even in exigent circumstances that the government must obtain a warrant the bill is unconstitutional on its face. This is just like the US Congress passing CDA, COPA et al, it's pandering to the conservative right even though anyone with a brain has to know it won't stand up to judicial review.

And now they're bringing in JP Morgan and RBC to do a strategic review of the company.

Maybe they can still salvage things.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/05/29/rim-shares-halted-jpmorgan-rbc_n_1553968.html

Inaccurate unscientific ramblings, sound bites and clichés do not support your argument. That not only goes for hkmwbz but also Soulskill (the author of this topic who so brazenly declares the science is all but settled), JD, Shavano and Blueg3 below. Global Warming / Climate Change is NOT scientific fact, it is THEORY presently being developed and there is still much to learn. Blind supporters of global warming make outrageous claims and forget that all of this is THEORY which must be backed up with evidence. There are no 'denialists' - that is not even a word! You offer NO LINKS to scientific studies to back up your outrageous claims, so I will.

Urban Heat Islands are definitely real, especially in rapidly growing countries like China. See this paper published by the Journal of Geophysical Research:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/28/new-paper-uhi-alive-and-well-in-china/

So hkmwbz you are certifiably wrong there. Then you persist with your clichés

there's a huge amount of evidence that the warming is caused by humans.

Really? Show us your evidence. Where are your links? What is definitely an undisputed scientific fact is how little scientists know and how much they are still learning today.

Then we have JD (below) making ridiculous statements like:

The current imbalanced rise in CO2 is much more troubling because studies show that plants do NOT like massive levels of CO2 unless they come combined with massive levels of O2.

JD what makes you think CO2 is presently imbalanced? Where is the evidence for your statement? Do you actually know what the present percentage of CO2 in our atmosphere is??? It presently is around 0.039445%. Do you have any idea how the increase in CO2 has increased during the last 50 years? It has increased from 0.032 to 0.0395, or by approximately 25%. Here is the data:

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

Look at that graph. Its a fairly straight line over a period of 50 years. Fairly straight line despite the dramatic jump in CO2 emissions since the mid-1800's (PDF). Even though human population has more than doubled during the last 50 years! Even though the number of cars has increased 800% from 122 Million in 1960 to over 1 Billion today. And yet somehow our planet's climate just keeps on balancing things out and the rate of increase of CO2 is fairly constant. But wait, JD definitely said "imbalanced rise".

JD continues:

CO2 rises alone, without any other alteration to the environment, will cause plant growth to decline and is eventually toxic.

Really? Where is your scientific evidence? The reality is CO2 is a fertilizer to plants. Plants LOVE CO2, even without a corresponding rise in O2 (wrong again). Even in high concentrations CO2 continues to act as a fertilizer. Here are some links from climate change advocates which you seem to blindly trust:

http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/thegreengrok/fertilizationeffect
http://www.good.is/post/rick-santorum-thinks-carbon-dioxide-isn-t-harmful-to-plants-tell-that-to-a-plant/

I'm addressing the incessant refrain that China somehow can "Call in" US debt, as if they were regular loans. There's no mechanism by which China can use US Treasury issued bonds to harm the US. There's no mechanism by which they can even threaten it. There is no leverage. People need to stop uncritically regurgitating this hysterical nonsense.

Is there a leverage for US (and other First World nations) to get tougher on China as the OP suggested? Or is it also a hysterical nonsense?

I see... and all the other nations (especially those in BRICS) will be happy to hear US started to default on bonds issued to China and will do nothing, right?

"If China acted to damage the US using Treasury bonds"

Exactly the same as freezing the assets of a dictator who threatens the US, which has happened any number of times without destroying the financial system. And why would Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa get between the US and China in a dispute? Why would they avenge China if China did something stupid and came off worse for it?

Avenge? I don't think vengeance is the proper term. I'd rather think they'll get around, rally and lower the level of trading with US; I mean: how comfortable would you be with a partner that sucks you dry, how long would you still stay in the partnership?

In case it escaped you: while US (and other First World nations) use Africa as a garbage dump, China invests heavily there; even in 2006, the Africans were the second largest trading partners after US. Give it enough time and ...

Africa is seen by Chinese businessmen as 900 million potential customers in a fast-growing market. Perhaps more importantly, African societies are far from market saturation, like their Western counterparts.

Globalization is a bitch in every sense of it, can't stay forever at the winning end if you stop playing fair.

Japan's population is declining and aging faster than anywhere else on Earth. This is a double whammy that is going to destroy their national budget.

A conservative should be against disruption, and a progressive should be in favour of, well, progress.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, Democratic politicians are not unlikely to be in the back pocket of Big Coal, Big Oil, and Big Content, where they try not to notice the Republicans in there with them. At least Republicans hate solar, we can at least distinguish the two on one tech issue.

Frankly, I think ALL the available politicians are "conservative" about disruptive technologies, since new companies are still poor and unable to bribe\\\\\\ contribute to their campaigns, and the existing Powers That Be are able to ensure that any disruptions are thwarted, or at least slowed down.

I think that Canada's NDP ("New Democratic Party" - based on the British Labour Party - no longer actual socialists, but as far as we go in that direction) does show what a genuinely progressive party would be like in the States. They don't take corporate contributions. And here's the most anti-DRM piece I've ever read from a national politician - from an NDP Member of Parliament, last month in the Huffington Post, protesting our Conservative Party's new "C11" bill:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/romeo-saganash/copyright-canada-reform-bill-c-11_b_1143332.html

Excerpt:

"Most nations with modern copyright laws do not criminalize bypassing digital locks for non-commercial use. They allow people to burn a CD from music purchased on an iPod. They let you copy a new DVD to your laptop. They don't prevent someone who is visually impaired from using software to read ebooks aloud. They don't stop teachers from referencing other media to illustrate a lesson. Under Bill C-11, all of these acts are crimes."