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in a few shitty companies outsourcing.

Hey Anonymous Coward, here in Vancouver, the large offices of "a few shitty companies outsourcing" include Amazon, Microsoft, SalesForce, Slack and Electronic Arts.

https://www.straight.com/files...

Vancouver (and the lower mainland in general), has a similar problem that i assume new york does. Air BNB depletes possible rental stock. I am not sure low the new york vacancy rate is, but mostly due to foreign capital in-fluxing into the real estate market here, our vacancy rate is 0.3% (probably less now, things are only getting worse).

That said, I stay in airbnb pretty much every vacation i go on with my family as what you can get for the price blows hotels away (if there even are hotels in a destination). It's either that or camping, is really all one can really afford when you pay more than half of your salary into paying rent.

It seems that people are somewhat confused and think its like a "big hotel lobby" or something driving this ban on aribnb. It very well may be that people are trying to protect their cities from ever higher rents. Especially in popular cities where it is impossible for an average family to own a property. The cities become just a resort in this case, instead of what they should be: A place where people can live within an hour or two commute of their workplace affordably.

Can you download proper grammar as well? No? Not interested.

Regards,
Single minded pedant.

Meh, all I saw was an extraneous apostrophe.

You want to discourage retarded commenting, vote this fucker down:

Smilie-face, winkie-face Derptard, downvote to your heart's content.

I have no problem with a course teaching about what anti-vaccine supporters claim if it helps doctors debunk it in person and helps them dismantle it in person. I hope this is what it is about.

That was exactly my hope. I could see the legitimacy of inoculating students to all the half truths and outright lies that alternative fruitcakes are trying to pitch the public. It's even important to have our medical students versed in some of it just so they can be prepared to counter the fear mongers.

Regrettably, the course outline reveals otherwise. It goes as far to say the course will delve into a quantum physics’ understanding of disease. So it's a course teaching the very worst of the lies. The instructor is listed as Beth Landau-Halpern. Here's an undercover video CBC caught her and others in where she tells the parent that vaccines are causing allergies and other stupidity that is entirely counter to scientific evidence. She even has a blog post here confirming it was her and pleading that her advice was devoid of context, as if there is some context in which suggesting vaccines like that for MMR is really far worse for a child than a homeopathic placebo she was willing to sell...

This is as about as bad as it can get. We have the U of T willing to run a course taught by someone this loony, and then to review the course material and find it acceptable even! Of course, they are not going to be offering the course next year, and hopefully never again. But for it to get this far is a sign of some very, very deep rot in institutions that seriously needs to be cleaned up.

You cite the words of a judge

Of course, who else is better suited to demolishing your bullshit allegation of Mann filing suit over "mocking the hockey-stick curve"?

not a scientist, a person more used to evaluating arguments among celebrities than deciding the value of opposing scientific hypotheses.

Shifting the goal posts after an own-goal isn't going to help you.

Scientists accuse each other of manipulating data all the time,

[Citation Needed]

Challenging interpretation of data, methodology, etc. is not the same as allegations of fraud. Anyone with a basic understanding of either science or ethics is aware of this. You seem to lack either.

This is traditionally handled by applying the scientific method to marshal facts and test contending hypotheses. If Mann is confident of having science on his side, why should he be afraid of a lowly editorialist?

He's suing over allegations of fraud. He's done the science, it's been reviewed and corroborated, but the fraud allegations continue. Filing suit is only logical.

And yes, I'm proudly neutral on all scientific questions, meaning that the scientific method, not my political opinions, is the fitting arbiter of truth in this area.

And yet I doubt you pollute cosmology articles with comments about how you're "neutral on the size of the galaxy, age of the sun, properties of the Standard Model", etc.

You people have chosen to contaminate climate research with your political bullying.

You're confused - I'm not a denialist, so it's not "my people" doing that.

Now that this no longer seems to be working, you're rollling in the lawyers. Good luck with that.

The denialist side is finding it untenable to challenge the science and is now attacking the scientists. Good luck with that.

It might work for Mann too.:

Justice Emily Burke ordered the National Post, Fisher, Terence Corcoran, Peter Foster, and Kevin Libin to pay Weaver $50,000 after finding that the defamation was "serious" and that the "factual foundation to the four articles was distorted or false".

"It offended Dr. Weaver’s character and the defendants refused to publish a retraction," Burke wrote in her ruling. "The libel was widely published by at least one high profile journalist and two others."

As anonymous coward so eloquently states, numerous articles can be found on google. I also suggest the movie, "Collapse." The Vancouver paper has a nicely written summary of the movie here:

http://www.straight.com/articl...

...about how the West is not really special about democracy:

http://www.straight.com/news/g...

Writing about your original, even pre-homo-sapiens hunter-gatherer groups, who had democracy since we had language:

They were all very little societies: rarely more than 50 adults (who had all known one another all their lives). On the rare occasions when they had to make a major decision, they would actually sit around and debate it until they reached a consensus. Direct democracy, if you like.

People have been running their affairs that way ever since we developed language, which was almost certainly before we were even anatomically modern human beings. So 99.9 percent of our history, say. That is who we are, and how we prefer to behave unless some enormous obstacle gets in our way.

The enormous obstacle was civilization. All hunting-and-gathering societies were essentially egalitarian. The mass societies that we call civilizations arose less than 10,000 years ago, thanks to the invention of agriculture. Until very recently all of them, without exception, were tyrannies, pyramids of power and privilege in which the few decided and the many obeyed. What happened?

A mass society, thousands, then millions strong, confers immense advantages on its members. Within a few thousand years the little hunting-and-gathering groups were pushed out of the good lands everywhere. By the time the first anthropologists appeared to study them, they were on their last legs, and none now survive in their original form. But we know why the societies that replaced them were all tyrannies.

The mass societies had many more decisions to make, and no way of making them in the old, egalitarian way. Their huge numbers made any attempt at discussing the question as equals impossible, so the only ones that survived and flourished were the ones that became brutal hierarchies. Tyranny was the solution to what was essentially a communications problem.

...and notes that tyrannies have been going downward ever since printing, much less twitter.

I'm Canadian and have lived in the US for years you are misreading/exaggerating things.

The difference is newer subdivisions (actually probably 15 years old) have "superboxes" where Canada post deliver the mail to. The other difference is we only get mail Monday-Friday.

If you haven't seen one they look like this: http://www.straight.com/files/styles/blog_main/public/shutterstock_153195602.jpg

You get a key to one of the slots. If they have parcels they put a key in your box to open one of the large boxes and you just throw the key in the inbox when you are done. Mine is around 3 houses away and i just pick my mail up on the way home.
Not sure "mail delivery" counts as a "basic human right"?

Oops. screwed up the link

Self-defence courses are entirely legal in the UK. What this man is advocating is a form of self-defence that involves disproportionate, extreme violence. Under British law, defence has to be proportionate to the threat - you can kill a person who is attempting to kill you, but you don't have the right to kill a person who only slaps you. The British police have warned that these "self-defence" courses are teaching non-legal self-defence, and that the people who use these methods will be prosecuted and likely land up in jail.

Would the U.S. authorities actually allow a "celebrity" foreigner who advocates and teaches illegal violence to enter the country? It seems U.S. authorities routinely reject people for much lesser reasons, like a Twitter post, being friends with some bikers, minor drugs use etc. Heck, until Obama overturned it, even HIV sufferers couldn't enter the U.S.

A timely piece found in today's Georgia Straight:

“It’s still early, but I think the days of having old textbooks with out-of-date information are gone,” Su said. “It’s realistic to think that in five years’ time, every student will be a digital-immersion student.”

And, to throw some red meat to the /. crowd, here's a quote from the first (and only, so far) comment:

too bad for the kids. they will now be exposed to pulsed microwave radiation of the same frequency as a microwave oven for the entire school day and throughout their school life. this will have devastating consequences for their health and reproductive capabilities.

Anyone volunteer to post a comment to set the record straight?

I was always cold in school, being tall and lean. This would likely have made me more comfortable in lessons :-)

A timely piece found in today's Georgia Straight:

“It’s still early, but I think the days of having old textbooks with out-of-date information are gone,” Su said. “It’s realistic to think that in five years’ time, every student will be a digital-immersion student.”

And, to throw some red meat to the /. crowd, here's a quote from the first (and only, so far) comment:

too bad for the kids. they will now be exposed to pulsed microwave radiation of the same frequency as a microwave oven for the entire school day and throughout their school life. this will have devastating consequences for their health and reproductive capabilities.

Anyone volunteer to post a comment to set the record straight?

Responding to you because of the Anonymous Faggot who is attempting to spread disinformation.

http://www.straight.com/article-119340/stephen-harper-opens-door-to-prison-privatization

This is what the above poster is talking about.

Yes Stephen Harper IS privatizing prisons.

NO it is NOT a good idea.

Not that it matters - since ICBC has the responsibility of ensuring we have safe drivers, both through their issuance of BC Drivers Licenses and vehicle Insurance.

What really gets me is the lack of transparency and due diligence in informing the public of how they are sharing our information and what technology they are using on our public infrastructures. I would have though the legislation and regulations that govern how public bodies store, utilize and share personal information would require ICBC to inform drivers that ICBC would be providing 'identifying information' to third party agencies/organizations. I don't remember seeing such a statement the last time I renewed my insurance.

I'm not surprised the RCMP took a while to cough up any documentation. They have their compartmentalized units and unique policies from division to division.

As an aside - how about the traffic cameras that have popped up everywhere. Pretty much every major intersection has a wireless or fibre connected camera for live monitoring. Who knows what's attached to that.

"... less than a week after a United Nations agency warned that Iran was secretly working to develop a nuclear weapon..."

That is not what the UN warned or reported. The headline is repeating western propaganda. Read this, this, this, or this.

Yeah right, oil shale and tar sands... just the thing we need in our collective backyard. If we're lucky that would only be as bad as hydraulic fracturing for gas. The actual oil listed in the Kiplinger piece (OCS, Bakken, ANWR) totals about 200 billion barrels... enough to supply the USA's needs for about 30 months. Yay!

And if we do go for the shale/sand play, we'll get a paltry 3-to-1 return on energy inputs. Seriously, there are better ways to solve our petro-fuel problems.

As for the original topic (nukes), we need to get beyond the 1950's technology. If we're going to use them, at least we should use the safest designs possible.

All of that seems reasonable until you get into situations where the government claims their political decision has a sound basis in science, when in reality it doesn't, but the scientists who could dispute the claim are simply refused permission to talk about it.

It's not like these sorts of things have occurred recently.

When a politician stands up in the House of Commons and claim that a scientific department is behind the statements being made there, shouldn't scientists be able to independently confirm or deny to the media whether that claim is true? Or can the politicians just claim what they like and tell the scientists to shut up about it or be fired (or resign)? There have been enough examples recently where the situation is pretty close to that, and it's wrong. If I was a scientist in that situation it would defy my sense of personal ethics, and if some politician implied the scientists in my department were supportive, when they actually weren't, I'd be quite angry about it.

*(service not available for elected officials, law enforcement officers, or judges by state law)

or in Canada (thankfully)

- RG>

Warmists

What the fuck?! The only people I've ever seen trying to turn this into a political debate are the people who deny anthropogenic climate exists. If they aren't spouting debunked, unsourced lies like the parent, they're claiming it's a socialist conspiracy to increase taxes. There are rough 6 groups involved in the climate change 'debate':

• Climatologists, who have reached consensus, not only that climate change is certainly happening, is due to human influence, and is actually worse than they dare mention to the public.
• The public, who are heavily swayed by the media and lack the ability to discern the truth for themselves.
• A few non-climatologists scientists who remain sceptical (Dyson being one of them).
• The conspiracy theorists and crackpots who believe climate change is a political scam -- yeah, the Moon landings were fake too, 9/11 inside job, blah blah.
• Oil industry shills who need to keep their businesses going.
• Lazy bastards who will go to great lengths to believe the previous two groups, so they don't have to bother changing their lifestyles or trade in their Hummer.

There is no dissent in the scientific community. The only people politicising this, or even turning it into a debate, are right-wingnuts like you. Really, I'm surprised you didn't get LiberalAsASwearWord(tm) into your post, without even knowing what that means.

I would be somewhat surprised if Canadian law didn't already have a set of exemptions to its copyright laws prior to 1997 (such as for instance for educational purposes, reference, backup, etc.).

Let me preface this by saying I am not a lawyer, just a concerned citizen and copyright holder.

I don't know about prior to 1997, but looking at the Exceptions to the Copyright Act, fair dealing seems to cover research or private study, criticism or review (if the source is mentioned), and news reporting (again, if the source is given). There are also exemptions for educational purposes, provided there is no "motive for gain." (I'm not sure how that could be accomplished, as using a copyrighted work for educational purpose would at least result in someone gaining knowledge). Also, I don't think the educational exemption applies if the work is commercially available.

This article states "unlike the fair use doctrine, fair dealing in Canada does not contain exceptions for parody and satire." Take that with whatever amount of salt you normally apply to Wikipedia entries; I see no specific mention of parody and satire in the Act. (An example of the chilling effect the lack of protection for satire and parody can have can be found here. In this example, the publication is invoking trademark law, and the defendants are citing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but if satire and parody were specifically sanctioned by the Copyright Act it would have helped to strengthen their defense).

Last summer, our federal government tabled a contentious bill to ammend the copyright act, granting us the right to record TV programmes, and copy music to our iPods, but it would also outlaw the circumvention of DRM technologies, effectively making the new rights useless.

That bill died when the Conservative government violated its own fixed election date legislation and called an election in October. They are currently struggling to maintain their minority government status (despite not having the confidence of our elected Parliament), and stated in their throne speech "Our Government will proceed with legislation to modernize Canada's copyright laws and ensure stronger protection for intellectual property."

That doesn't sound to me like they intend to strengthen the concept of fair dealing to protect the rights of Canadian citizens, but rather they intend to adopt policies closer to the US DMCA, to protect the interests of the "big four" media companies in the US, UK and Japan. I guess time will tell.

Happens in every olympics.

During the Atlanta Olympics, many homeless people were taken for a bus ride to different part of the state.
Many of the homeless were jailed for silly offenses.

http://www.straight.com/olympic-cities-punish-poor

Before someone calls an only-in-America terrorist threat on an obvious video game recreation? Last year, complete with the bomb squad you requested and a police chief telling the press how he's incredulous at the way instructions for making cardboard boxes are publicly available online.

Aren't you sorry you asked?

(Don't start fuming over this - instead, make some yourself. They're awesome.)

. . . you're wondering why a group of people would be opposed to communism would want to live in a "planned" community?

The problem is not just that Party apartments are small and uncomfortable; the opposition to communism is ideological, not only practical. I wonder why people who are ideologically opposed to central planning would want to live in a (centrally) planned community - or at least why they would not notice the inconstency. Of course, if the ideological complaint really centers on property (as you imply), not planning, then it makes sense - although in that case the arguments about the superiority of markets to central planning has been hypocritical hot air. Actually, I think this has the ring of truth to it.

There are a couple of developments here around central Virginia that have been pretty successful. The common spaces really *are* used.

The difference I see between a mall and (say) a public plaza is that the former is private property, to which you are admitted on the assumption you will help the mall owners achieve their goal (selling things). Do otherwise - playing checkers, eccentric dress, religious prosletyzing, political activites, etc. may get you kicked out. The same is not true of a public space: it is truly a place of multiple purposes and uses, in which people can meet on equal terms. If ownership of property helps people be in charge of their private lives, public spaces and institutions help them achieve the same within their society.

the kind of developers you are talking about should have no trouble getting some zone rules and other regulations changed when they are proposing a large development

I have read several instances in Canada where this has not been the case: developers have given up on innovative projects because even when the bureaucracy supports alternatives in principle, in practice it has rejected change at every step.

As for your developments in Virginia, if people really do use and appreciate them, then that's fantastic. Most (but not all) of the new urban "communities" I have seen elsewhere have failed to achieve that.

Sprawl has happened because developers were giving people what they want. Having an affordable house with a yard for the kids and decent schools are often not available in urban environments.

Probably many people have wanted those things, but many others have not. In a development monoculture it's impossible to know. Developers, like other people, often stampede to one solution, then to another. Some people may prioritize a private yards, while others may prefer shared playgrounds or courtyards. School quality is not a consequence of suburbia per-se, but correlates to the status of the people who live in an area (indeed, house prices are effectively used as a means to exclude those of lower class from schools). Given the variety of housing and urban styles around the world, it seems likely in a society of immigrants that these styles would appear. But for the most part they don't.

In the Vancouver area, where I live, we are cursed with hordes of Vancouver Specials, a kind of generic boxy house. But immigrants didn't buy them because that's what they wanted, rather because "that's what was available and they assumed it was the latest style". Now Specials are out of fashion. An architect who wanted to work with one found that "The toughest part of the challenge . . . lay in that thicket of bylaws. Robb spent all of 2000 negotiating with city-hall planners". Before you say that's just one guy, realize that innovation often starts with those on the margins. Stopping one guy from trying something new may stop

You think some parts of the US/Canada border are weird? Then consider Baarle:

It is a Dutch town in the Netherlands. But it is also a Dutch town in Belgium. And a Belgian town in Belgium. And a Belgian town in the Netherlands. And there are even bits of the Dutch town in the Belgian town in the Dutch town.

In effect, you have the Netherlands surrounded by Belgium surrounded by Belgium bordering on Belgium.

Confused? Me too.
http://www.straight.com/content.cfm?id=4051

I read an interview with Ben Affleck in The Georgia Straight a couple of months back. IIRC he called the movie "dogshit." When the star of a movie says that, you gotta know that nobody liked it.

I don't drink Starbucks, I have an Executive MBA from a top school (that means I have experience as a manager), and I've been to 17 countries other than Canada, including time spent living with families in five of them. I fail to see how I project insular or socialist views.

The inventor of the bicycle (a blacksmith who made one with iron wheels) refused to patent it, and seemed to have been pleased that other people copied (and later improved on) his design.

There was a story about him a month or so ago in The Georgia Straight a month, or so ago, but I don't have the time to hunt it down (got a class to get off to).