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I live in Quebec, in french. Years ago I tried to buy Zelda on GBA for my kids (10 at the time). The packaging was bilingual, but the game was english only! How nice is that? The european version of Zelda was in 5 languages, including french of course. We ended up playing in french on an GBA emulator...

Game distributors, for a tiny insignificant extra profit, are willing to force an entire nation where french is considered important to forget its culture. That's unacceptable. This deal only requires the distributor to be a little less lazy (and greedy) and put the french version, if one exists, on the shelves next to the english one. Is this "saying 'non' to english video games" ? hardly.

By the way, all this french and Quebec bashing is what will make Quebec leave Canada sooner or later. Think about this before you bash.

Link on page to original article:
http://www.thestar.com/article/611472

Date on original article:
Apr 01, 2009 04:30 AM

Move along, nothing to see.

of story that just came out yesterday from Toronto. I guess this practice is more common than I thought. Spanning more than one industry for sure.

The problem is that, far too often, those aren't the ones that end up calling the shots. And, partly due to their public exposure, cops are quick to close ranks when their actions are questioned.

Also, the purportedly impartial boards that are supposed to provide oversight are frequently ineffectual.

Here's a recent report from my province:
http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/508889

Compressed air is another means of storing wind energy that is getting looked at again. The CAES schemes need large geological structures such as salt mines or depleted gas fields, but there are quite a lot of viable structures in places like Texas and Ontario where there is also interest in wind energy. It is not economical on a small scale since a large part of the compression cost is independent of the reservoir size.

According to the US Department of Energy "nearly two-thirds of the natural gas in a conventional power plant is consumed by a typical natural gas turbine because the gas is used to drive the machine's compressor. In contrast, a compressed-air storage plant uses low-cost heated compressed air to power the turbines and create off-peak electricity, conserving some natural gas."

In the last 20 years only two facilities have ever been built - a 110-megawatt plant in Alabama and a 290-megawatt plant in Germany. Iowa is building a new plant "expected to cost $200 million and operate by 2011 with the capacity to store 200 megawatts of power, enough for several days. Both the Iowa and Alabama installations can draw air to make power within 15 minutes and make a gas turbine roughly 40 percent more efficient. "

http://www.eere.energy.gov/de/compressed_air.html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081224-full-of-powerful-wind-bury-it-in-the-ground-for-later.html
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/553702
http://www.isepa.com/index.asp Iowa Stored Energy Park
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-178929.html

>I suggest you look at how well the people in countries with 'social' programs do over countries with out them.
doing great like this:
http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results.html?artId=15524

reiterated here:
http://www.harp.org/canada-phillips.htm

and here:
http://www.thestar.com/FederalElection/article/515864

15 percent of canadians don't have a family doctor because they go where they can get paid. People that work and pay their taxes get screwed.

And fascism is a form of socialism as is communism. Get it right ; )

I'm voting independant because republicans and democrats are destroying this country with stupidity.

-Viz

The NDP have never left less government debt in their terms of office.

Of course, Gary Doer in Manitoba has had a balanced budget every year for the last decade, as well as creating a rainy-day fund of hundreds of millions, but don't let that stop you from making black and white statements.

Laytoon[sic] would say anything to get elected [whether] he mean[t] it or not. World readers need to know it is routine that Canadian candidates lie often.

AFAICT, that's par for the course in Canada, the US, and the UK, and I suspect pretty much every other democracy. The Liberals did fairly well during the election a few years ago in part due to Sheila Copps promising to do away with the GST, and we all know how well that turned out. The Conservatives have a similar history, such as this, or these. Federally speaking, we have a lot more reason to distrust Conservative or Liberal election promises, since they have both actually formed the government and then broken those promises, while the NDP have never been in that position. That's not to say that they wouldn't, but it seems strange you'd single out Layton, since his party is the only one of the three that have never actually done what you suggest he would do.

"Green Shift" is a ridiculous policy

What is ridiculous about putting a cost on emitting CO2? Currently the emitters benefit from being able to emit CO2 but the costs are felt by everyone. This is privatized gain with socialized risk. Putting a cost on emitting CO2 helps to eliminate this moral hazard.

in a widely distributed clip of his appearance on ATV, he didn't understand a simple question

The interviewer's question mixed present and past tenses in Dion's second language. When Dion asked for clarification, the interviewer's responses were sloppy and unclear. Perhaps Dion should have simply interpreted the question however he liked but as with the Quebec issue, Dion apparently prefers to have a clear question before answering.

not scientifically groundless.
While more studies need to be done, there ahve been results indicating that games do help the elderly.

http://www.mwsearch.com/Games4elderly.html

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/163960

http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ506062&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ506062

http://www.nur.utexas.edu/fachome/gmcdougall/Documents/DallasMorningNews.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18275322?ordinalpos=30&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

This was also covered in an article in the Toronto Star.

>>It looks like China broke the rules, and the gold needs to be stripped from the effected athletes.

China was also cheating in TKD, with their judges refusing to score good players that would face Chinese athletes next:

http://olympics.thestar.com/2008/article/481950
http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/taekwondo/story/2008/08/19/f-olympics-taekwondo-gonda.html
http://www.tsn.ca/olympics/story/?id=246955&lid=headline&lpos=secStory_main
http://www.sportsnet.ca/olympics/2008/08/20/olympic_taekwondo_gonda/

Pamela Wilderman, the code enforcement officer for [the Massachusetts town of] Marlboro stated, 'I think Mr. Deeb has crossed a line somewhere. This is not what we would consider to be a customary home occupation.'

The actual article says:

Pamela A. Wilderman, Marlboro's code enforcement officer, said Mr. Deeb was doing scientific research and development in a residential area, which is a violation of zoning laws. It is a residential home in a residential neighborhood," she said. "This is Mr. Deeb's hobby. He's still got bunches of ideas. I think Mr. Deeb has crossed a line somewhere. This is not what we would consider to be a customary home occupation. ... There are regulations about how much you're supposed to have, how it's detained, how it's disposed of."

Either the poster didn't properly read, or he/she just considers zoning bylaws useless. For those that do think zoning bylaws serve no point, let me reference the recent propane explosion that occured in the middle of a Toronto residential neighbourhood, leaving two people dead and hundreds of homes damaged, and is now the subject of a zoning review

The poster wrote:

Pamela Wilderman, the code enforcement officer for [the Massachusetts town of] Marlboro stated, 'I think Mr. Deeb has crossed a line somewhere. This is not what we would consider to be a customary home occupation.'

The actual article says:

Pamela A. Wilderman, Marlboro's code enforcement officer, said Mr. Deeb was doing scientific research and development in a residential area, which is a violation of zoning laws. It is a residential home in a residential neighborhood," she said. "This is Mr. Deeb's hobby. He's still got bunches of ideas. I think Mr. Deeb has crossed a line somewhere. This is not what we would consider to be a customary home occupation. ... There are regulations about how much you're supposed to have, how it's detained, how it's disposed of."

Either the poster didn't properly read, or he/she just considers zoning bylaws useless. For those that do think zoning bylaws serve no point, let me reference the recent propane explosion that occured in the middle of a Toronto residential neighbourhood, leaving two people dead and hundreds of homes damaged, and is now the subject of a zoning review

Apparently Hawking has responded to the press reports. A move isn't happening any time soon, if ever. But he is planning to visit Waterloo for a week this year.

There's quite a few such articles:

The 256-processor laptop with roll up screen and keyboard

Flatter laptops

Fold-up screens

Clip-together screens

Gas-turbine batteries

Dual touchscreen laptop

Mac Tablets

>In Ontario this is actually the the stance taken.

Since when?

Telehealth only exists because Ontario has such a shortage of doctors, it can take several years to visit a family doctor. About 1 in 10 Ontarians don't have a family doctor, not due to choice, but due to ridiculous government rules that make it impossible to either make money as a family doctor, or become one.

In fact, many families (such as mine) end up with one separate doctor per person because once you get a doctor, you marry, you have kids, each time you have to find a new doctor for the new family member since your family doctor has already accepted too many clients, before they've even opened the doors!

Ontario tried to "innovate" it's way around this stupidity by allowing urgent care clinics (family doctors that only see clients as they walk through the door). Now we're seeing these urgent care clinics become the size of small grocery stores due to the shortage of doctors in Ontario.

But, I suppose you're right. Telehealth *does* keep people out of emergency for colds. Of course, they're only GOING to emergency because they have no family doctor (again, not by choice) and because they don't want to line up for hours at an urgent care clinic to see someone who knows less about their history than their hospital does.

Nuclear is expensive. Just about every plant requires govt. subsidies, and almost always goes over budget. Darlington NGS here in Canada is a good example of that. And now the Ontario govt. wants to build Darlington 2, Electric Boog-a-loo.

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal last month (reprinted here) about the high costs involved with nuclear power. New builds in places like Finland are behind schedule and over budget. The Bruce reactor refurbishment, here in Ontario, is already $300 million over budget.

I'm not anti-nuke (I work at a nuclear plant), but the public should know that nuclear power plants don't come cheap; and if their govt. decides to go on a nuclear building spree they should be prepared to open their wallets.

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

Alcohol is addictive too. Oh, and so is tobacco. In fact, so are many over-the-counter drugs. Oh, and don't forget all those prescription drugs with addiction issues (diazepam or morphine, anyone?). Oh, and there's things that do major damage your body, such as various cancer treatments, or the potentially fatal side effects of aspirin. However, all of these things also have many medical benefits.

So let's make them illegal. Oh wait, that worked so well with prohibition. And in Canada, almost 25% of cigarettes are suspected to be illegal, and that's just due to the high taxes.

So let's drop the addiction argument and take a good long look at how addictive it is, how much it takes to get addicted, etc... Let people make their own decisions for themselves. Inform them. Discourage them from doing it, but let them if they want to. The problems associated with the illegality of drugs are probably worse than the problems associated with addiction to said drugs. Now I'm not saying go out and start selling them in your local 7/11, I'm just saying stop throwing people in jail for having those drugs.

But I'm getting off-topic. Addiction is addiction, yes, but one must look at the severity of the addiction and the benefits of using the addiction product, before automatically dismissing the product.

Consider that, according to sources like Columbia's Jeffrey Sachs, the Worldwatch Institute, and the United Nations, with that same money the world could: Eliminate extreme poverty around the world (cost $135 billion in the first year, rising to $195 billion by 2015.) Achieve universal literacy (cost $5 billion a year.) Immunize every child in the world against deadly diseases (cost $1.3 billion a year.)

They can limit each encrypted bank or IM connection to 10-20KB/sec and you wouldn't even notice. You would notice your torrents slowing down though. Many ISPs are already using deep packet inspection. Hell, rogers in canada is playing around with inserting messages into websites! I can only hope that it pushes more of the web to https.

As a bit of background, the original problem with Maclean's was not because they publish hate articles about Muslims, it's because that they refused to publish a response by the Muslim community to those articles.

From an article that was published in thestar.com:

"In our case, we have filed human rights complaints not because Maclean's published 19 articles about Muslims over two-and-a-half years that we judged to be defamatory, but because it refused to publish an adequate counterview when the Canadian Muslim community asked for one."

Spoofs and thoughtful criticism of Islam are one thing. Steyn's shrill book however is just old fashioned hate mongering

His books and articles with their hysterical fear mongering owe a spiritual debt to works like the 1911 anti-Asian screed "The Yellow Peril" and even a little bit to the classic "Protocols of the Elders of Zion".

Make blissfully contemptuous generalizations about currently fashionable minorities like Jews or homosexuals and you are an instant pariah. A finished career and a round of condemnation from sound-bite worthy people are what you'll be getting. But do the same with Muslims and you are a champion of free speech and democracy.

Free speech has never been an absolute. And restrictions around hate speech in Canada were never a problem until they started interfering with anti-Islamic smears.

Everyone arguing for Steyn's right to earn a living as a Professional Muslim Hater owes a letter of support to Holocaust deniers like David Irving and Ernst Zundel who have been prosecuted under hate speech laws.

The challenge of Islamic terrorism has tested the commitment of the West to it's stated principles.
And from habeus corpus to hate speech, to limits on executive privilege, to privacy it has found that commitment wanting

P.S kdawson is a troll

Actually, it hit as far as Ontario Canada

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/415921

So once we actually spot US warships in our arctic with our fancy satellite what will we do about it? Send our 4 WWII submarines to intercept and destroy them? Stop trading with the US to punish them? Or ooohh..how about we send a diplomatic note and withdrawing our ambassador from Washington.

The reality is is that the US-Canadian relationship is so lopsided that it's escaped our attention. Canadians that are actually making "sovereignty" arguments are so removed from reality they might as well be launched out to outer space.

Here's a contrarian article on the subject: http://www.thestar.com/Canada/Columnist/article/413736

The dispute is over hardwood,

The dispute is about softwood. This can be confirmed in about two minutes on Google.

and NAFTA clearly shouldn't apply when you are destroying the environment to undercut your competitors.

Do you really think that the US was imposing duties for environmental reasons? Seriously?

Can't argue with you about the government's action re: the preservation of the spotted owl though. I'm not a big fan of North America's lack of respect for the environment as a whole. Then again, I could be doing a hell of a lot more personally.

jhanigsb@ryerson.ca , credmond@ryerson.ca , fdshaikh@ryerson.ca , pres@ryerson.ca , emcginn@ryerson.ca That's the president, board of governors, and legal counsel. Here's what I wrote...


Ryerson leadership,

I recently read the article below on Chris Avenir's Facebook Chemistry study group:
http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/309855

This activity is also the subject of discussion on an Online Rights group at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/07/0355244

My view is that the school should explain to the student why the group needs to be different and the student should make the required changes. Since the university's purpose is to educate, you should teach the student what specifically was wrong and how it can be done correctly.

Expulsion should be used as a last resort for students who are beyond reach. In this case, you have a first-year student who created a support group for academic improvement. Discipline of this sort will discourage the use of the Web as a medium for collaborative education as illustrated in the quotes below from Ryerson students:

"All these students are scared s---less now about using Facebook to talk about schoolwork, when actually it's no different than any study group working together on homework in a library," said Neale.

"That's the worst part; it's creating this culture of fear, where if I post a question about physics homework on my friend's wall (a Facebook bulletin board) and ask if anyone has any ideas how to approach this - and my prof sees this, am I cheating?" said Neale, who has used Facebook study groups herself.

The article also mentions that Avenir "is still attending classes pending his hearing but admits the stress of the accusations is affecting his midterm exam results." In my opinion, the university's behavior borders on harrassment, because it is negatively affecting the student's academic performance.

The university has an opportunity to set a good precedent for collaborative education on the Web for present and future students. Please encourage the student to run a Facebook study group with the approval of the school in a way that supports the school's mission. The student needs to know how the group needs to be different and the student will make the required changes to abide by school policy.

She also posted the picture of an undercover anti-terrorism officer on the web, putting him at risk. http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/287642 (bottom of the article).

Knowing Rachel Marsden's track record, Wales should feel lucky he got out of the relationship with only some of his clothes being auctioned off.

Don't forget about the golf lobby. In honesty, I don't mind if the sports/business lobby is driving DST. There may actually be some benefit there. What I don't like is the ploy that DST is for the environment when in fact it is for the economy.

The Toronto Star, the largest daily circulation newspaper in Canada, ran a story a few weeks back about an "inventor" who has discovered a method to get energy out of nothing, with a few electric motors and magnets.

The idiots at The Star ran the story with a straight face, including the financial backing that the "inventor" has raised. Now, I don't know if the "inventor" is an honest kook or a fraudster, but the sad fact is that a major newspaper has no one on staff who ever took a physics course or has any scientific knowledge. YOU CAN'T GET ENERGY OUT OF NOTHING!!!

Sadly, the idiocy at The Star is not limited to science. And this "inventor" is going to bilk quite a few idiots out of their savings and/or venture capital.

At some point you have to say there's one born every minute.

-FL

If you're really concerned about civil rights in Canada, the Ontario Court of Appeal just approved the use of evidence obtained through flagrant police misconduct. The Appeal court upheld a trial judge's decision to admit evidence found in a vehicle - despite the judge's finding that the officer had no legal grounds to stop the vehicle, seriously infringed the man's Charter rights and misled a court while trying to justify his actions.

That kind of shit would get laughed out of a US court, and get the cop sued and/or fired.

You're not up to date. The US no longer has to apply for extradition.. in fact it's perfectly legal for them to send bounty hunters over here, grab who they want, and ship them back to the US

Absolutely not. That would be kidnapping under Canadian or UK law, and possibly cause a diplomatic kerfuffle.

However, if a kidnapping was committed in a foreign country to bring a lawbreaker to the US to face charges, US courts don't care, the lawbreaker will still face charges in the US. This has been US policy for decades. The better question is would the US extradite the kidnappers to face trial in the foreign country?

The US is not alone in this - France has done this quite a few times, most famously for the terrorist known as "Carlos the Jackal", who was sentenced to life in prison.

If you read the "holy crap" link http://www.thestar.com/Article/300041 it basically describes it so you can do your own experimenting......

Magnets, steel axel, "back emf", and viola.

Layne

Also, in a follow-up article linked to the main article the inventor is quoted as saying: "What I can say with full confidence is that our system violates the law of conservation of energy." The guy doesn't believe he is just building a more clever or efficient induction motor, but sadly believes his pushing beyond the laws of physics.

"What I can say with full confidence is that our system violates the law of conservation of energy," he says.

"Now, is that perpetual motion? Will it end up being that?"

They seem to be losing profitability as well. Probably MS sees a turn around soon, but they may be paying too much. I Yahoo continues to slide MS may be able to pick up Yahoo at a better price.

http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/298769

BTW, MS is very much following the GM model. A bunch of investors saw the automobiles as the next big thing and pasted together a mega car company by buying up smaller compaines (Pontiac, Chevy, Buick etc.). Nothing new or innovative here.

In this story:

http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/299523

Ballmer makes this comment:

" Signalling Microsoft doesn't intend to take no for an answer, Ballmer wrote that the company "reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo's shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.""

My question is how many chairs does that involve?

that's a good start, however for some time now I've been thinking that the government should be publishing real time expenses online through an easy to use interface. I live in Toronto, Ontario and our city has been suffering on the verge of bankruptcy even though the budget from the taxes is over 7.5 billion CAD/year. About 60% of the money goes to the unionized city workers, which is a shame, there is no competition for the city contracts really, it's all government based mafia. This is not a surprise given that the city is governed by an NDP idiot-troll and the province is yet again in the hands of a liberal pathological lier.

I would like to see the government's bank statements on line. If the city gets the 7.5 billion CAD a year from the taxes, I would like to see the current balance, look at all expenses in detail. If a million is given away here, another million there, I would like to see the details of every transaction.

If the city mayor suffers a defeat on his crazy tax proposals (something he concocted instead of looking at balancing the budget the correct way, without immediately imposing new taxes the NDP way,) then the mayor wants to punish the city with meaningless reduction in working hours of community centers and libraries, I want to see the savings in the budget. Of-course the truth is that there was no savings, since the union city workers are still sitting in those centers and libraries because the union will not allow the city not to pay these people and the only sufferers are the citizens who cannot use these public resources.

The government does not want the citizens to be able to see detail of every dollar that is spent, because if we did see these details, we would revolt.

that's a good start, however for some time now I've been thinking that the government should be publishing real time expenses online through an easy to use interface. I live in Toronto, Ontario and our city has been suffering on the verge of bankruptcy even though the budget from the taxes is over 7.5 billion CAD/year. About 60% of the money goes to the unionized city workers, which is a shame, there is no competition for the city contracts really, it's all government based mafia. This is not a surprise given that the city is governed by an NDP idiot-troll and the province is yet again in the hands of a liberal pathological lier.

I would like to see the government's bank statements on line. If the city gets the 7.5 billion CAD a year from the taxes, I would like to see the current balance, look at all expenses in detail. If a million is given away here, another million there, I would like to see the details of every transaction.

If the city mayor suffers a defeat on his crazy tax proposals (something he concocted instead of looking at balancing the budget the correct way, without immediately imposing new taxes the NDP way,) then the mayor wants to punish the city with meaningless reduction in working hours of community centers and libraries, I want to see the savings in the budget. Of-course the truth is that there was no savings, since the union city workers are still sitting in those centers and libraries because the union will not allow the city not to pay these people and the only sufferers are the citizens who cannot use these public resources.

The government does not want the citizens to be able to see detail of every dollar that is spent, because if we did see these details, we would revolt.

We'll just have to wait until Joe Francis gets out of Reno jail to start this series...

Just to get the story straight, it wasn't the pumps that were missing, but actually the emergency backup power for the pumps that were missing.

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/285359

The idea is analogous to running a 24/7 100% up time server without a backup generator. You technically can do it, but you run that risk of a blackout. Same situation here for the nuclear reactor.

So those Canadians who truly are conservatives, please vote for a party other than the so-called "Conservative" Party of Canada in future elections. They just aren't conservative in any way.

I for one have no intentions of voting for the Corrupt Party of Canada. http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/281331 and rememebr Harper (current PM) and Mulroney are the best of friends.

Her is a Canadian voters dilemma, Liberals are not different, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponsorship_scandal

Our government is a plutocratic corrupt government. Need someone decent to vote for. Someone who will think of the people first and not CTRC, DRM taxes (CDs) and DMCA.

I'm a Canadian citizen living in Ontario who has been screwed by Bell many times. I used to think the "oh no we have such a large country and only 30m people" argument justified these companies abusing us, then I realized the vast bloody majority of us live in Ontario and our population density in many areas is comparable to many states.

There is absolutely no reason that I pay $100 - $150 a month for BlackBerry service that would cost $50/month if I lived in the states. Apparently I am not the only one who thinks all three major Canadian mobility companies have been screwing us.