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Maybe they should have Computers in the prisons, like they do in china. Exchange Virtual Gold for cigarettes ...

Jeff Veltri of Temporal Power has a flywheel design he claims can deliver twice the power at half the cost of the Beacon designs. Ten of his prototypes will be used for smoothing wind turbine power production. But his design is based on permanent magnets so I wonder how that'll fare which the rising cost of rare earth minerals.

http://www.thestar.com/business/article/978578--hamilton-a-new-spin-on-energy-storage

changes to procedures or updates are easily updated electronically, compared with paper. While some manuals remain on board, the move has eliminated about 50 pounds of paper

So is Chalk River in Canada. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalk_River_Laboratories But our Prime minister fired the nuclear watch dog when she said to shut the plant down after the last time the reactor had a spill. http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/303953

There is! For ONE BILLION DOLLARS http://www.thestar.com/news/article/984932--playstation-users-plan-class-action-suit-for-hacking?bn=1

Insane, I read the amount in the paper this morning and thought it was a typo.

Well. If lawyers in Canada work anything like the way they do here in the U.S., they make bombastic claims and ask for spectacular redress right up front. They know they'll never get that much (but hey, they might) but the hope is to vilify the organization they are suing in the court of public opinion.

There is! For ONE BILLION DOLLARS
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/984932--playstation-users-plan-class-action-suit-for-hacking?bn=1

Insane, I read the amount in the paper this morning and thought it was a typo.

The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi plant now at the centre of the crisis - the Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) - has had a rocky past in an industry plagued by scandal. ... Sugaoka worked at the same utility that runs the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant where workers are racing to prevent a full meltdown ... In 1989 Sugaoka received an order that horrified him: edit out footage showing cracks in plant steam pipes in video being submitted to regulators. Sugaoka alerted his superiors in the Tokyo Electric Power Co., but nothing happened. He decided to go public in 2000. Three Tepco executives lost their jobs.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/955468--japanese-power-companies-hid-nuclear-safety-problems-wikileaks?bn=1

In one case, workers hand-mixed uranium in stainless steel buckets, instead of processing by machine, so the fuel could be reused, exposing hundreds of workers to radiation. Two later died. ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110317/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_earthquake_nuclear_scandals

Y'all is looking at the possibility of gettin' yer He3 from Ontario, Canada as well.

Rest of the world, there's nothing to see here.

This is a sexy spin story the goverment is flogging in order to try and change some headlines. As it's been pointed out, this happened months ago, and there is no proof of who actually is involved.

I'm not going to get into the political drama that caused them to do this, but they've done it before:
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/854197--russian-bombers-a-make-believe-threat

... how watching Fox News leaves viewers less informed.

Don't mess with Google, they will fuck you up.

REV 13:4

You quote this as your source: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/932571--ottawa-to-reverse-crtc-decision-on-internet-billing?bn=1 The article from "the Star" contradicts itself by saying: "The promise to reverse the ruling comes as CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein is scheduled to explain the decision Thursday before the House of Commons industry committee." They say it is a "PROMISE" nothing more. I see no official releases from the CRTC to verify that a decision has been made. My understanding is that the have until March 1, before making a ruling. I don't think this is over yet.

Clearly, it is time to move the security checkpoint out into the parking lot.

That's how they roll in Israel. Apparently, it's quite effective. http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother

This has been written up in the Toronto Star, Wired UK, The Australian and a few others.

Interesting, and saddening, that overseas media has picked this up and US media doesn't seem to be terribly interested. From one of TFAs,

But why has Nasa taken the day off from searching the galaxy to try its hand at movie criticism? Well, the agency argues that bad flicks can worry viewers. In fact, so many people wrote in to the agency, worried about potential 2012-related catastrophes, that Nasa had to publish a special website just days before the film's November 2009 release.

The myth debunking page reads "Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012."

Scientific illiteracy is becoming a big problem in the US. Kudos to NASA for tackling it.

I'm not criticizing people for correcting themselves, so I don't know where you got that. Just pointed out that there are errors and the people that make the errors are not always the ones that discover it.

I understand your point about extant arctic ice, but you miss my point that it is possible that when the interpretation changes, the result may change as well. Not saying it will or won't in this case, but as you allude to, it is evolving. So when we further refine the methods, the rate of change may be more or less that previously thought.

For instance, if you look at cryosphere today, you can see the sea ice area in decline for the N hemisphere from about 2000-2007 but at that same time it went up in the south.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.area.arctic.png
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.area.antarctic.png

So I understand your point about local patterns.

As for the "hottest year", considering this:
In the United States, the calendar year 1998 ranked as the hottest of them all – until someone checked the math.
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/246027
I think I'll wait and see if there are any "corrections"

Uh - doesn't sound like anarchists to me, these guys sounded pretty hell bent on Serbian nationalism in my opinion. Anarchism =/= Nationalism. And really, since when did showing opposition to financial institutions that really seem to be only serving themselves become such a bad thing? The powerful and wealthy are creating laws to basically benefit themselves, creating as many layers of protection from those that would dare show a physical presence on the street. The giant bailout packages, the fancy police toys, the UAVs, the billion dollar trade summits, the snatch-and-grabs of political dissidents, demonstrate exactly how the gravy train works.

"Black Hand was founded on the 6 September 1901."

Oh wait you wrote "an anarchist", as in, the assassin himself: Princip wasn't even born until 1894.

What was the point you were trying to make again? That you haven't read the long history of European anarchism?

It's not enough to posit that there's something both less intrusive and more effective. You have to actually show such a thing.

How about this?

Canada naïve about terrorism, CSIS head says in WikiLeaks memo

WASHINGTON—Canadians have an “Alice In Wonderland” attitude toward global terrorism, the former head of Canada’s spy service told a U.S. counterpart in 2008, according to a secret American memo disclosed Monday.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service Director Jim Judd is also quoted as saying that Canadian courts have the security service “tied in knots,” hampering their ability to detect and prevent terror attacks inside Canada and beyond.

Alleged terrorism plot targeted Canada

Toronto terror plot foiled -- Canada

From 2001 - Canada called 'weak link' on terrorism

Mohammed is one of the estimated 350 suspected terrorists living in Canada, taking advantage of the nation's liberal refugee program, which takes in about 60 percent of the people who apply, more than three times the U.S. rate.

"Anybody can apply for refugee status. All you have to do is arrive and say,

'I've been persecuted,' and we give them the benefit of the doubt," said Martin Collacott, former director general for security services at the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs. "Within days of arriving you can get welfare, free dental and medical. And if you need to, you can just disappear in the country."

The Criminal Intelligence Service, Canada's CIA, estimates there are about 50 terrorist organizations spread throughout Canada, including 350 members of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Tamil Tigers and al Qaeda. Among them is Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian with ties to al Qaeda who was caught by U.S. immigration officials attempting to sneak explosives in the trunk of his car, from Canada, in December 1999.

While awaiting approval of his refugee claim in Montreal, Ressam traveled to an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, where he learned how to make bombs, the CIS has reported. Ressam later confessed his plot to blow up Los Angeles International Airport at the turn of the millennium.

"Canada is our weak link," said Vincent Cannistraro, retired chief of counterterrorism operations for the CIA. "U.S. security is only as good as Canadian security."

Do you understand how Israel conducts their security? It has nothing to do with length of flight. See this -> http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother

They actually look at the PERSON and have their airports setup such that they don't all freak out when an issue occurs. Oh and when someone manages to conduct an attack they get ANGRY instead of bleating and running into the corner of the pen. WTF happened to this country?

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother

The ONLY part of this article that seems difficult is getting the public to be angry instead of frightened and to place trust in the people protecting us. Oh and getting the people who protect us the training and skills instead of spending a bazillion on equipment that Govt. officials have a vested interest in seeing sold.

I guess we're screwed? I mean really who's a bigger target the Israeli people or us? I realize that the margin is shrinking but still they've been FAR more secure than us for a good long time. Their reaction to a possible bomb in luggage is pretty telling - here's we paralyze an airport and evac everyone into a nice tight target group. Over there they're prepared and drop the luggage into a container to contain the blast while calling for help - they evac like a dozen people to our thousands. What a concept!

Article that describes some of the Israeli methods: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother

And there is something wrong with the whole security theatre to begin with...

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother

That article is definitely worth a read. I would happily accept a shift to an Israeli model of airport security, if only for the simple reason that it would get you through airport security in 25 minutes. The additional security and nobody handling my junk or ogling my nakedness, and we have ourselves a winner.

So what you're saying is that if there's a 0.00001% chance that somebody who looks like a nun is a terrorist, and a 0.01% chance that somebody who looks like a young Arab male is a terrorist, we should search every young Arab male and miss the terrorist nuns? Oh, and there's also the not-insignificant problem that any terrorist who notices this sort of profiling will simply recruit a lighter-skinned female terrorist and dress her up like a nun.

There's no reason to profile based on what color people are, or how old they are, or what they're wearing, or what brand of shoes they have on, or whatever else. The only useful profiling is behavioral profiling. Israel's Ben Gurion airport manages to move passengers from their car, through six layers of security, to the terminal lounge, in less than half an hour. No taking off of shoes required, no inspecting liquids. They just talk to you, they look you in the eyes, ask you questions, and see how you answer.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother

Profiling is exactly the right response, but it is a person's behavior you should be profiling, not what color they are or what they're wearing. There's no reason to have ridiculous lines, pat downs, naked body scanners, etc, when you can get by with a few simple, quick interviews.

How many people have had to take off their shoes at the security check? Let me ask that a different way: how many individual shoes have been removed and put back on since the TSA started that procedure? How many bombs have been found in those shoes? This whole security crap is a waste of everyone's time and money, we need to be looking at how the Israels have been doing things for the last 50 years and take a goddamn hint already instead of trying and failing to reinvent their working wheel.

We're doing it wrong. Here's a great article on how Israel handles security at their airports. Note the emphasis on training PEOPLE as opposed to buying and trusting multi-million dollar machines to do the job.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother

This one?

Would you have that attitude about cars if someone started detonating car bombs in populated areas? After all, you can walk right?

I don't have a problem with licenses or real security, but this is way too fucking far. I'm sorry you don't see it that way.

Smart countries with better reasons to fear terrorists than us have already thought about that:

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother

(yes, it's been posted by others here as well, but it's worth a read.)

And there is something wrong with the whole security theatre to begin with...

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother

You must have dealt with the 407 ETR highway in Ontario.

I am being chased by collections by them right now, even though I am still disputing the $8000 bill they suddenly sent me.

With no warning they sent me the bill, and though I called them the next day, they'd already sent it to collections. So now I have a ding on my credit, I have collections after me, all for a bill that isn't even REAL. There is no way I used $8000 of their services in a month - it's clearly a billing error. however, they refuse to settle things and insist that I drove thousands and thousands of km on their highway in a month, even though I don't even live in the area.

Companies have no feedback loop on this sort of shady billing. It costs them very little money to bill someone for some huge amount, argue with them, send it to collections and wait. Reading online, 407 ETR does this ALL the time, to people that don't even live in Canada, and have never been here.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/fixer/article/732443--407-bills-can-hound-drivers-for-15-years

I wonder how many people just pay to get rid of them, and how much money they clear every month due to their disgusting billing practices.

And the icing on this cake - the Government has given them the power to block you from getting your licenese renewed if you have unpaid bills.

I wish there was actually someone on _our_ side against these kinds of practicies.

You've been reading ycombinator. http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother

Licensing costs are too expensive to justify anything but the 1600 MWe behemoths using standard fuel cycles with proven technology.

Citation needed.

Here's my own, The average non-fuel O&M cost for a nuclear power plant in 2009 was 1.46 cents / kWh. That includes licensing. Or this:

Issue #1: The New Licensing Process [ppt]

• The Mythology: The old licensing process was a major factor in the collapse of nuclear power in the U.S.
• It has now been repaired by changes in law and regulatory policy, paving the way for the renaissance.

As if that's not enough here are some more links:

1. Hooked on Subsidies...
   "How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."
2. Is it time to press reset on nuclear?
   "Cost overruns, delays in building reactors are sapping a nuclear revival"
3. Study warns of cost overruns at proposed reactors - MarketWatch
4. Cost Overruns at Finland Reactor Hold Lessons
5. Boiling The Frog: Nuclear Optimism Hides True Costs Till It's Too Late
   "The Frog Jumps: The Ontario Story. Last week the Ontario government put plans to build 2 new next-generation reactors on hold, after it received bids "more than three times higher than what the Province expected to pay", according to a story in the Toronto Star. The only "compliant" bid -- one where the supplier would be sufficiently at risk if costs exceeded the amount quoted -- was reportedly a $26 billion quote from Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd, equal to roughly $10,800 per kW."
6. Nuclear construction delays in Finland's Olkiluoto 3
7. Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant

Yeah, let's mock them for that until they start omitting the "according to so-and-so" qualifications, and then we can mock them for pretending to be in a position to make definitive claims about topics they don't understand.

My major concern would be with the reporters who are so clearly scientifically illiterate or utterly innumerate that they rely solely on quote-mining to support even the most inane statements of fact. There are writers who are so fearful of basic science and mathematics that they publish statements like this:

"Thirty-five per cent means for every 20 people, seven are successful," said Paul McNicholas, an associate professor at the University of Guelph’s department of mathematics and statistics. "That's an awful lot . . . better than one-in-three."

This is from one of Canada's major daily newspapers. The reporter is so afraid of mathematics - or so afraid to go out on a limb and do his own minor arithmetic - that he needs to get a professor of mathematics to back him up. (What's worse, the article is about the legal system, and the prof's statement that "That's an awful lot" inadvertently makes an implicit judgement that should have been left to a legal scholar, not a mathematician.)

Reporters have abdicated any responsibility for ensuring that what they print is true and accurate in any higher sense than "I printed exactly what some people said."

Suggesting we ban press outlets is decidedly anti-American, whether you personally consider them of any value or not. Change the channel, not the law.

It may be anti-American, or maybe not, but it is Canadian to allow the Right Wing Fox news network to operate in Canada while continuing to keep Al Jazeera banned from Canada.

As long as Right Wing governments are in charge, anything that is bad is good, and Double-Speak rules the day.

Scientists very rarely drive out dissenting views.

The Andrew Weaver complaining about the Harper government is the same guy who sued the National Post for not covering his science the way he wished them to.

UVic's Andrew Weaver sues National Post

Any scientist who disregards Stephen McIntyre because he's unqualified to offer an opinion is a douche bag. Not sure if Weaver himself crossed this line, but he seems sorely tempted.

Portrait of a local climate skeptic

Stephen's criticism of the statistics behind the original hockey stick graph have been upheld by eminent statisticians. The original peer review of the hockey stick study failed to encompass statistical competence, so it was a failed process. The adhesive on the gold star dried up, the sticker fell off. If you ask guys with only average competence in statistics to performed the peer review, they fail to spot subtle errors. An error is an error is an error. No amount of groupthink will spare your conclusion.

Yes, scientists can be plenty good at driving out dissenting views.

1) You have no scientific training.
2) Why don't you publish a paper in a peer reviewed journal if you think you have something to say? (Our anonymous review process will soon send you straight to hell and you'll have hardly any recourse.)

Much less often:
3) That's an excellence point. I'll fix my paper immediately. I disappointed this error made it through peer review. We should fix that, too.

No, the usual argument is that peer review is good because it's the best we have. Sadly, the conclusion does not follow the argument. Peer review has an acceptable track record in coming to long term consensus. For climate change, another century of study would restore my faith in the consensus of peer review. Peer review is a low pass filter. Science is deeply, deeply, deeply wrong for decades at a time. Many of our greatest theories had to first outgrow the pimply teenage years (where peer review is at its most intense).

Back to Harper, I'm beginning to get the feeling that liberalism is the politics of oil surplus. When it's all about grabbing a giant share of a shrinking pie and holding on for dear life, fear and conservatism seems to rule the day.

Scientists resent having their work misconstrued as the ignorant (but powerful) race to the bottom. Sometimes they get a little too worked up and put the boots to Stephen McIntyre in defense of science, when in fact their doing the exact opposite: immunizing science against criticism that points out loose ends in a cherished conviction.

The whole enterprise of science is based on the premise that the smallest valid criticism is worth more than the largest flawed conviction. But I don't have to earn my living as a scientist, so it's cheap for me to espouse lofty views, and I'm able to actually express my views because I'm not a minion of the Harper government.

Wikipedia JSF edits traced to Defence computers in Alberta

Harper really needs to brush up on his Mandarin. Tanks are better for suppressing dissent, and cheaper, too. I wonder, however, if his ideological nose bone will make it hard for him to master tonal pronunciation.

Plus, we have no idea how they ranked the narcissism and self-esteem listed in TFA.

You just need to find a better article:

The more prolific the Facebook activity, the lower they rated on the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and the higher in the Narcissism Personality Inventory.

Or from the published research itself:

After agreeing to participate in this research study, Facebook owners were administered a brief four-part questionnaire. The first section required demographic information, including the participant's age and gender. The second section addressed Facebook activity; it required respondents to indicate the number of times they check their Facebook page per day and the time spent on Facebook per session. The remaining sections assessed two psychological constructs: self-esteem and narcissism.

The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was used to measure participant self-esteem. This 10-item test measured self-esteem using a 4-point Likert scale, ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Example items include “On the whole, I am satisfied with myself” and “I take a positive attitude toward myself.” The original reliability of this scale is 0.72. This measure has gained acceptable internal consistency and test–retest reliability, as well as convergent and discriminant validity.

Narcissism was assessed using the Narcissism Personality Inventory (NPI)-16. The NPI-16 is a shorter, unidimensional measure of the NPI-40. While the 40-item measure revealed an =0.84, the NPI-16 has an =0.72. Despite this discrepancy, the two measures are correlated at r=0.90 (p

And now you know.

Yaz.

Those aren't the only bad parts of ACTA. Here are some more odious provisions, in my opinion:

* ACTA would impose the DMCA's "no circumventing DRM" clause everywhere
* ACTA imposes 3rd party liability for infringement everywhere (it already exists in the US & much of Europe)
* ACTA creates ISP safe harbors (plus notice & takedown), but raises the bar for qualification, e.g. ISPs must have some plan to curtail repeat infringement by subscribers
* ACTA offers statutory damages to copyright holder, as well as actual damages, and as Jammie Thomas can tell you, that wipes out any relevance to damage
* ACTA targets transferring pharmaceuticals across the border, which is mostly designed to get those going from Canada to the US
* ACTA requires criminal penalties for "willful" infringers, and their aiders/abettors, which is looser than the current US standard
* The forfeiture provision for large scale infringers is vague enough to possibly be a problem
* ACTA has broad

China, India, Pakistan, Brazil, New Zealand, & Japan really don't like it for a lot of reasons. To a some extent, the developing world doesn't like it because it would cost policing resources enforcing copyright/trademark when the resources are needed for more important activities, like stopping crimes. The US & Western Europe are the largest proponents.

My question is, if I find a device on one of my motorcycles or car, is it legal for me to remove said strange device. One of those times I like being in Canada

Then you must be just as ignorant and as Right Wing as most other Canadians are. If the U.S. is doing something oppressive, then Canada almost always follows suit.

Right now, while Canada's crime rate is decreasing (and we've NEVER had crime like in the U.S., with its prison economy), the Right Wing conservative government of Stephen Harper wants to spend $10 BILLION dollars to build new prisons. I will repeat: crime is decreasing but the Conservatives want to build more prisons. Well, this is because they don't think enough people are in jail. One of their earliest mandates was to make jail sentences longer and put more people into prison.

The present Right Wing Conservative government of Stephen Harper has also said they will introduce DMCA-style legislation, have warrantless wiretapping, etc etc. I'm not sure what type of delusion you are having by implying that Canada is somehow safe from oppression.

I've did a quick Google to back up my claims. But as a person who only occasionally reads/listens/watches the political news in Canada, these are well known facts to me because they are so ubiquitous to the type of society that we live in. Next time you say something so ignorant (or deceptive?) you should Google to see what political party is in office in Canada.

References:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/845272--ottawa-s-prison-plan-won-t-work-critics-say
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/06/26/police-emergency-wiretaps.html
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9639/warrentless_wiretapping_comes_to_canada__canadian_media_censored/ ... etc and so on...

There are indeed some huge loopholes with copyright law, like allowing record labels to utterly screw over artists by stealing their music. Then there's the less-absolute screwing in the form of abusive contracts. Copyright law certainly sucks, but it's already in the industry's favor.

I'm guessing you haven't been reading the rest of this thread. There was other evidence. The forum post led the police to him. They canvased the neighborhood he was bragging about. Found witnesses who would testify to the event, and he pleaded guilty as a result.

“Just looking at forums is obviously not enough, so an investigation was launched,” said Const. Serguei Barmakov.

He said police canvassed the neighbourhood and found a person who had witnessed the speeding incident and was willing to give a statement. Soon after, they found Rigenco.

Ref: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/845967--speeding-boast-online-costs-19-year-old-his-licence

That article is short on details but this one is pretty clear:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/845967--speeding-boast-online-costs-19-year-old-his-licence

"Just looking at forums is obviously not enough, so an investigation was launched," said Const. Serguei Barmakov.

He said police canvassed the neighbourhood and found a person who had witnessed the speeding incident and was willing to give a statement. Soon after, they found Rigenco.

"He knew it was coming and he was remorseful for his actions," Barmakov said.

Barmakov said the Apple Blossom Dr. incident wasn't an isolated occurrence -- many of Rigenco's neighbours were concerned about his driving.

Also why he had a $40k+ car:

Spektor said Rigenco's parents, who don't know much about cars, bought the M5 for him as a reward for doing well in school

It goes on to say that the parents took away his car as a result of his reckless behavior.

Yes, since the summary was somewhat lacking:

“Just looking at forums is obviously not enough, so an investigation was launched,” said Const. Serguei Barmakov.

He said police canvassed the neighbourhood and found a person who had witnessed the speeding incident and was willing to give a statement. Soon after, they found Rigenco.

Ref: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/845967--speeding-boast-online-costs-19-year-old-his-licence

I don't know if it is worth repeating or not. But, the police did not charge him based on his online confession. The police investigated based on his online confession. The investigation led the police to canvass the neighbourhood for witnesses.

According to http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/845967--speeding-boast-online-costs-19-year-old-his-licence , "police canvassed the neighbourhood and found a person who had witnessed the speeding incident and was willing to give a statement. Soon after, they found Rigenco."

Based on this, I don't see anything wrong with the police charging him.

They already have the sound cannons that cause instantaneous and permanent hearing damage, and can rapidly cause permanent deafness.

They were used against protesters to the G20 meeting.

Just to protect against your comment being skewed as "police were causing permanent damage to protesters", the Toronto police were approved to use the LRAD in voice mode but blocked from using alert mode. Used as per their instructions and judge's orders, the devices are unlikely to cause permanent damage. Similarly, being authorized to carry guns isn't the same as shooting protesters dead.

Sources:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/828473--toronto-police-can-use-sound-cannons-but-at-lower-range
http://open.salon.com/blog/gordon_wagner/2010/05/27/lrads_--_sound_cannon_for_crowd_control
http://www.gcaudio.com/resources/howtos/loudness.html

I like how you take the time to do all that research but you don't bother doing something as simple as typing "Sonic Cannon G20" into Google. If you had you might have realized that he was probably referring to the 2009 meeting in Pittsburgh, not the 2010 meeting in Toronto.

The first link to said search:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2009/sep/25/sonic-cannon-g20-pittsburgh/

You hit the nail on the head. Here's a story from last week about Netflix being offered in Canada: http://www.thestar.com/business/article/837394--netflix-to-bring-internet-movies-and-tv-to-canada

Here are some choice quotes:

Companies like Rogers Communications Inc. and Groupe Videotron have been rolling out similar kinds of Internet-based services but the market is still in its infancy in Canada, analysts said.

and

Rogers Communications Inc. said customers prefer dealing with one company for all its entertainment needs. "Customers want to be able to subscribe to one service on a monthly basis and get it on a monthly basis," said David Purdy, Rogers' vice-president of video products. "Rogers has been moving toward a strategy that will allow customers to watch content on any platform of their choosing," Purdy said, referring to TVs, computers and mobile phones. The company recently launched video-on-demand online.

Fuck Rogers, seriously. I hate them. Their digital boxes are horribly slow and randomly lock up, requiring constant reboots. Their internet service sucks, I'm capped at 60GB/month and the latency and packet loss is horrible (I constantly have issues connecting to basic sites like google.com for example). I'd switch if I could but there are no other options in my area.

I love how my internet connection in 2010 is worse than my connection in 1995. Aside from a speed increase, the quality has gone way down hill, and I pay more for less. Yay for monopolies!

Do you have any trustworthy sources? (Seriously? About.com?)

Well, I already showed the NewScientist one, so I'm guessing you missed that one, how about these? 1 2 3 4 Or are these not good enough for you? I'm of course assured you have many trust worthy sources that can show that a gay couple raise horrible children? You have yet to show one granted, but I'm sure its just because your saving the best for last.

Sure, you can find edge cases where a true marriage might not result in building a family.

There are absolutely no gay marriages that can build a proper family.

If you can't see the difference between a few fractions of a percent and 100% - well, it's not worth talking to you.

Many edge cases? Ignoring that oxymoron, its not as uncommon as you seem to want to insist on. The issue with abuse and bad parenting is not many people speak up about it but it happens more then enough that its a well know issue that these things happen in heterosexual couples (and is well documented from MANY cases, not 'edge cases' like you wish to dismiss them as). Granted I don't see many, if any, issues of home abuse by gay/lesbian couples, so it kinda shows that the more toxic homes are the heterosexual ones :)

Also, what is your definition of a 'proper family'? What the bible tells you? Bible tells many things, with many of them contradicting itself, like Exodus 20:13 "Thou shalt not kill.", only to have Jesus himself command you in Luke 19:27 to "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring them hither, and slay them before me". So much for don't kill. When you put your morals in a religion, you need to question what it says and not blindly follow. This happened in the Dark Ages and is now forever known as the worst times in history.

Most of that money went for putting up fences and the like around town... oh, and sprucing up a few small towns over 100 miles away that the G8-G20 people will never visit in order to boost tourism somehow. Don't forget the 2 million dollar fake lake and media center next to a real lake which will promote the beauty of the Canadian wilderness... There's the almost 100 million dollar sprucing up of Huntsville for, uh, nothing as it turns out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/world/americas/25canada.html

I for one enjoy the ~1 million spent for new sidewalks which cover half of the fire hydrants, new gazebos, landscaping and 200k Welcome rock (as in stone, not music). Nobody from the G8 or G20 will be going there by the way.
http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/820390--from-fountains-to-gardens-to-buried-hydrants-it-s-a-new-world-in-the-near-north
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/markets/headline_news/article.jsp?content=b3755778

But that's ok, it's the other host nations which understate what it actually costs them to run a G8-G20 meeting. We're honest here in Canadia!

The last one I felt on the shores of Lake Ontario was over 5.0 and was around 1998 (confirmed by today's article in the Toronto Star).

The last big earthquake in the region was in October 1998 when an earthquake measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale struck southern Ontario.

Earthquakes in Lake Ontario aren't rare, we get a couple dozen a year, just not big enough to feel them. This one was at least 3 or 4 times as long as the last one I felt, and I've heard of 2 or 3 since then that others felt but I didn't.

Just because you haven't felt them doesn't mean they haven't happened!

I hope the offshore aspect solves the NIMBY mentality I often encounter whenever wind energy comes up.

It won't. Toronto Hydro wants to build a wind farm 2-4 kilometers offshore near the Scarborough Bluffs, and residents are up in arms over that... source.

If built, the development would see up to 60 turbines planted on a reef, two to four kilometers offshore, in a line stretching from Toronto's east end to Pickering. Tyrrell says the project is a key element of Toronto's green policy to cut the city's greenhouse gas emissions - in this case, by boosting renewable energy generation. He's aware that the proposal has stirred opposition, but says he agrees with an opinion he first heard voiced by Mayor David Miller:

"Would you rather have a gas plant in downtown Toronto, or would you rather have a renewable energy source offshore?"

Scarborough Councillor Paul Ainslie argues that the turbines mar the view: Couples having their wedding photos taken at the Guild Inn with the lake in the background don't want turbines in the frame.

They're more concerned with protecting the scenery in wedding photos than producing clean electricity. You can't win with these people.

And anyone has any further information regarding this?

http://www.thestar.com/business/article/735096--geist-record-industry-faces-liability-over-infringement