Slashdot Mirror

The following highlights of the booklet are provided courtesy of The Vancouver Sun:

The list.

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11921220
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/05/julian-assange-lawyers-being-watched
• http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/wikileaks-reveals-ugly-truth-about-iran-appeasers/story-fn59niix-1225966020409
• http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_16762752?source=rss&nclick_check=1
• http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/12/must-read-nyt-wikileaks-on-china-and-google/67499/
• http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Wikileaks+indictment+diplomacy/3927123/story.html

Quoth http://www.vancouversun.com/news/WikiLeaks+could+alter+diplomats+relay+info+Expert/3890617/story.html

> If it's like WikiLeaks' previous document releases, a select few newspapers are given weeks to troll the material and write stories, with the rest of the world's media poring through the Internet afterward.

The butthurt is strong with this one.

I can see how an organization like Wikileaks wants to

1) make sure there is some sort of protection
2) make sure that said protection, most likely partially unedited, does not leak in its original form

Contrary to what people are trying to tell you, Wikileaks _does_ retract information, like names, that may hurt people.

So yah, it does suck for the others, but it's painfully obvious that Wikileaks has to work with people they trust.

Frisking bad as it is, is unlikely to give you cancer, deform your eggs/sperm, or sterilize you. So there's that.

Has anyone done a study on that? What's the cancer risk of those scans? Say it's 1 out of X million. So can we be sure that out of X million gonad gropes they're not going to cause permanent injury to the "target"? Or the risk ( probability * impact) of injury is less than the risk ( probability * impact) of cancer?

Apparently there are 700 million scans a year in the USA.

Maybe they should skip the x ray scanners and use millimeter wave scanners instead?

FWIW, apparently the Israelis don't use such scanners: http://www.vancouversun.com/story_print.html?id=2941610&sponsor=

Well, at least in Canada they're $250k a pop. Although since it's Canada, it's really only monopoly money.

An Israeli security expert like Rafi Sela, who told the Canadian Parliament that the strip search machines are "useless".

"Sela, former chief security officer of the Israel Airport Authority and a 30-year veteran in airport security and defence technology, helped design the security at Ben Gurion."

Today's paper had a similar Op-Ed piece about needing better copyright enforcement.

The complaint is the same - people who leak unaired episodes onto the 'net, and thus they need stronger laws to protect that.

What I don't get is why don't they try to find the origin of the leak? If it costs as much as they claim, surely the one leaking it onto the 'net in the first place would be the best place to go, than the thousands of others to play whack-a-mole with.

A simple case of "clean your own house before shitting in everyone else's" or some such. It's just like camcording a movie - no one likes watching camcorded crap, especially since a leaked DVD screener offers far better quality and presentation.

Perhaps these production companies would rather sue everyone the horse visited after it left the barn, than to actually close the barn door. Fix the leaks first that's letting everyone download unreleased episodes prior to airing first, rather than trying to go after everyone who's spreading the leaked episodes. It's easier that way because no law can prevent it from spreading.

What about the morning after? Should I call a cab then too?

$70-125 to install and another $70-110 per month isn't cheap, especially on top of the major bump in car insurance that they already ate

Yeah, that is pretty outrageously expensive. I bet it'd be cheaper to call a cab.

That would be a great idea... if only the small, tiny fact that you can still blow a positive on those tests the morning after. You've slept it off, but your breath will still hold enough traces to show your loaded to hell and back again.

What can you say when the government launches a gambling website, shuts it down within hours, and admits to serious reveals of customer information. Like users being able to gamble with other people's money...

The Dutch government just formally announced its exit from Afghanistan.

Kind of hard for Mr. Assange to imply that this wikiLeaks event is at all related to the Dutch withdrawal, considering it's been in the works since February:

NATO’s request for an extension of the mission sparked a political row that led to the Dutch government’s collapse in February, and the announced drawdown.

They didn't just see these documents and say, "Damn, let's get out of there." They're two separate events.

You'd better be nice to your kids, and foster a good relationship. You might think such a thing in mandatory on their part but let me assure you it is not. When they turn 18 (and at any time after) they can sever any and all ties with you. You have no legal claim to force them to care for you. If they want to leave you to fend for yourself, they can.

Actually, many U.S. states and Canadian provinces do have laws that force children to provide support for their parents. Although, they are archaic and rarely enforced, they do exist. See this NY Times article for a list of 28 U.S. states that still have such laws and how they are applied.

Also, see this Vancouver Sun article for an ongoing Canadian court case that invokes such a law.

Well it would appear that all contrary views are being modded down, but here is another: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Scientists+using+selective+temperature+data+skeptics/2468634/story.html Once again, I'm not saying whose right or wrong, simply that there is still debate.

No, they get sent to labor camps ( *cough* re-education camps ), which they have been thinking about shutting down. China is rapidly modernizing its justice system, so while they are attempting to practice a bit more parsimony when it comes to crimes the US in all but a few states has seen its prison population double or triple in the past few decades.

Err....what evidence, exactly?

Last I heard, it was making negligible impacts in Europe, and in some cases was even counter-productive:
http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/carbon+conundrum/2781956/story.html

Ireland brought in a carbon tax last year, claiming it would fund a cut in the value-added tax. However, the price of gasoline immediately rose by more than four per cent to the equivalent of $1.60 a litre while the cost of heating fuels, including oil, natural gas, coal and peat briquettes, went up between six per cent and 11 per cent, forcing the government to introduce a fuel-poverty subsidy. Britain, when faced with the same situation, had to raise its fuel-poverty subsidy to 100 per cent of the revenue it collected through the tax. Every European nation that has levied a carbon tax has seen weaker economic growth, the loss of industrial jobs, deterioration of public finances and negligible impact on greenhouse gas emissions -- facts that are misrepresented by carbon tax advocates. Germany reduced its emissions by more than 22 per cent between 1990 and 2008. It does not have a carbon tax.

(Bold emphasis mine...)

Non-satellite images here: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/World+biggest+beaver+eight+football+fields+long+seen+from+space/2991042/story.html

Non-satellite images here: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/World+biggest+beaver+eight+football+fields+long+seen+from+space/2991042/story.html

This would be all well and good, if not for the problem that in another month it will cost an American twice as much to buy Canadian.

Really?
Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Quiet Manitoba Town, Toronto, Montreal,
and Snowstorm

So, we have shootings AND snowstorms in April.

I'll keep visiting Mexico during the coldest part of our winter.

Really?
Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Quiet Manitoba Town, Toronto, Montreal,
and Snowstorm

So, we have shootings AND snowstorms in April.

I'll keep visiting Mexico during the coldest part of our winter.

Really?
Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Quiet Manitoba Town, Toronto, Montreal,
and Snowstorm

So, we have shootings AND snowstorms in April.

I'll keep visiting Mexico during the coldest part of our winter.

I thought the discussion was about liquor, not beer.

I usually buy my liquor in handles. These traditionally contained half a gallon, but have been abbreviated to 1.75 liters.

Meanwhile, actually in actuality, the fifths sold here in Ohio are 750ml, not 757.082357ml. Canada is no different -- your 26'er, at 25.360517 fluid ounces, is a lot closer to being a 25'er than its name would imply.

There are also 1-liter bottles available (often referred to as a quart, even though that's also wrong).

Further, from Wikipedia:

A 375 ml bottle of liquor in the US and the Canadian maritime provinces is sometimes referred to as a "pint" and a 200 ml bottle is called a "half-pint," harking back to the days when liquor came in actual US pints, quarts, and half-gallons.

Besides, everyone knows that a pint of beer is either 16 or 20 ounces in this hemisphere, though nobody can agree on which ounces to use. Except in Canada, where a pint of beer might be 500ml, or might be 20 imperial ounces.

(Just because it's true, doesn't mean it has to make sense. I, for one, was simply satisfied to finally understand that the reason there are 18 shots in a fifth is only because there's 18 holes on a golf course -- the logic seemed so infallible. And then you had to show up and make a scene of things...sigh.)

It'd be nice if sit-down places made nutritional facts available easily, like the fast-food places do, since most of them are fairly asssembly-line cooking now anyway.

The restaurant industry is strongly against this stuff. Because if people actually knew, they'd be shocked. Like dishes containing easily 2000+ calories (basically, an entire day's intake for the average person). Or salt content of 2000+mg (one should limit intake to about 2500mg).

Especially since they can't cheat like the processed food industry where a "portion" can be stupid things like "1 chip" or "1 cookie" or "1/2 cookie". Or single-serving containers that look good, but the nutrition facts saying that single-serve container really is 3 servings.

In Canada, limits placed on sugar intake on cereals had manufacturers complying. Some did reduce their sugar content per bowl. General Mills, did the easy thing - the serving size was reduced - 2/3rds of a bowl, half a bowl...

In Canada:
http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/calorie_confidential/ - Restaurant "nutrition facts"
http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/2009/lawless_loans/busted.html - Is there less sugar in kid's cereals?
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/food/rate-your-plate/fatabase.html - Analysis of Canadian restaurant meals

Vancouver was supposed to do that with a portion of the village to go as low-cost housing but last I heard the new plan is to sell it as expensive condo's.

It's all up in the air again because the venue is bankrupt and goes on the auction block in a week.

WILMINGTON, Del. - Whistler Blackcomb won't go on the block in a foreclosure auction on Friday as scheduled, winning a one-week reprieve from creditors, a source with direct knowledge of the talks said on Thursday.

Creditors of Intrawest Holdings, which owns stakes in Whistler Blackcomb resort, the site of downhill events during the Vancouver Olympics, agreed to delay the auction from Friday until Feb. 26, two days before the end of the Olympics.

The agreement delays the auction until after the marquee men's combined downhill event at Whistler, which will feature American Bode Miller. That event is scheduled to end on Feb. 22.

Intrawest and its owner, U.S. private equity equity firm Fortress Investment Group LLC FIG.N, have been haggling with creditors over refinancing the $1.7 billion of debt Fortress took on in buying Intrawest in 2006.

Intrawest holdings also include Squaw Valley in California and Steamboat and Winter Park in Colorado, and it has sold off other resorts in recent months as it reorganizes its finances.

Olympic officials have dismissed talk of a foreclosure as nothing more than a minor distraction and they are not worried that Intrawest's financial situation will disrupt Olympic events at Whistler.

"For the athletes it would be a non-issue. It would be an esoteric business issue beyond anything they would think about (on the hill)," said Chris Rudge, secretary general of the Canadian Olympic Committee.

Vancouver Games Organizers say it was unlikely any of the parties involved in the financial discussion would try to disrupt the Olympics or the Paralympics in March, because that would only reduce Whistler's potential value.

Games organizers have an agreement to compensate Whistler for any business lost because of the Games, which utilize only a small portion of the resort. The amount of compensation has yet to be determined.

Okay, then how about complaints from the folks up in Canada? http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Scientists+using+selective+temperature+data+skeptics/2468634/story.html

This is not an isolated incident, Climategate just opened the door and started the revelations.

Otherwise I'd just take a month off of work and buy a ton of food and go wilderness camping somewhere (Canada would be nice, but not in Feb)

Given the weather you guys had this year in the states, I would rather stay here in Canada (Calgary). Other than a couple of cold days in December (-30 C), its been a relatively balmy winter (near melting temps throughout January). I pity the people in Vancouver though as they don't have much snow for the Olympics.

http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Vancouver+Olympics+could+face+lack+snow+Accuweather/2102994/story.html

No big progress in space travel in 40 years.

Sir, I disagree.

I suffer from diabetes. One of the side effects of diabetes is depression. So my doctor gave my fluoxetine (Prozac) for depression. One of the side effects of fluoxetine, in addition to the diarrhea, dehydration, sweats, and flushing (all of which I've been experiencing lately) is that it... (wait for it!)... raises your blood sugar! No, really... the drug given to combat the side effect of diabetes makes the diabetes worse!

Then of course there is this study, which shows that the effects of most major "antidepressants" are indistinguishable from that of placebos!

Now I'm really depressed!

...that the same country that told him to go take a hike when he complained about Americans printing copies of his book without paying him royalties is now battling so hard to prevent on-line piracy. What goes around, comes around I guess.

Neither crime requires "profit". The crimes entail forcing an outside party to take an action. There is no requirements on what those actions are in most Common Law jurisdictions other than that the victim has been coerced into them.

Here is an example of such a case within the US armed forces:

http://www.armfor.uscourts.gov/digest/IIIA55.htm

A English example would be Jean Violette's extortion conviction. In this case the victim was using the Hell's Angles name. Mr. Violette wanted him to stop using the name. You can read a bit more about this case below (or do web search):

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Crown+seeks+year+prison+sentence+Hells+Angel+convicted+extortion+weapons+offences/2188869/story.html

For the US Government (Fed.) you can find the actual statue under 18 USC Chapter 41:

http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/41

The meat of the issue is in the passage, "...demands or receives any money or other valuable thing..." "Other valuable thing(s)" has been interpreted multiple times to include non-monetary services. For example, a politician can be blackmailed or extorted to vote a certain way. An attorney can be coerced into not prosecuting a case with due diligence (look into the history of the Mob for many such examples).

Here would be I belive the relevent law in Texas:

http://law.onecle.com/texas/government/432.162.00.html
 
 

432.162. EXTORTION. A person subject to this chapter
who communicates threats to another person with the intent to
obtain anything of value or any acquittance, advantage, or immunity
is guilty of extortion and shall be punished as a court-martial
directs.

Acts 1987, 70th Leg., ch. 147, 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1987.

Last I checked, most places won't extradite you for things that aren't crimes in their legal code, especially when you did the deed in that country in the first place.

Tell that to Marc Emery.

be careful what you wish for

The anti-climate people are anti-science and just use enough of it to further their anti-science Faith that humans are not harmful and environmentalism is communism.

Tell this guy that he is "anti-science"

Plimer is a geologist, professor of mining geology at Adelaide University, and he may well be Australia's best-known and most notorious academic. ...
But Plimer shows no sign of giving way to this orthodoxy and has just published the latest of his six books and 60 academic papers on the subject of global warming. ...
Plimer presents the proposition that anthropogenic global warming is little more than a con trick on the public perpetrated by fundamentalist environmentalists and callously adopted by politicians and government officials who love nothing more than an issue that causes public anxiety.

While environmentalists for the most part draw their conclusions based on climate information gathered in the last few hundred years, geologists, Plimer says, have a time frame stretching back many thousands of millions of years.

The dynamic and changing character of the Earth's climate has always been known by geologists. These changes are cyclical and random, he says. They are not caused or significantly affected by human behaviour.

Polar ice, for example, has been present on the Earth for less than 20 per cent of geological time, Plimer writes. Plus, animal extinctions are an entirely normal part of the Earth's evolution.

(Plimer, by the way, is also a vehement anti-creationist and has been hauled into court for disrupting meetings by religious leaders and evangelists who claim the Bible is literal truth.)

Who am I kidding? You'll just dismiss his credentials say that he's a "anti-scientist" because he doesn't buy into the whole "man is causing the sky to fall" bit.

Who the fuck cares about the history of ? Just like the history sections of Linux HowTos: who fucking cares? I'll be surprised if this shitty post breaks 100 comments.

P.S. - Global warming is the new religion of the 1st world urban elites:

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Global+warming+religion+First+World+urban+elites/1835847/story.html

Dont forget this is the same state that just got national headlines for getting all worked up about pot smoking swimmers.

Maybe SC's stay motto should be changed to "Come down south, we have a jail cell just for you."

Not sarcasm. See the first paragraph of this.

Grab a java, it's good for your brain

(As a Ruby and Perl programmer I have to disagree and state that Java is very bad for the health of your brain but I could be wrong and/or hallucinating ;-) )

Back to my Gaggia.

how many cookies does one site need?

The Vancouver Sun needs as many cookies as it can set. Considering the subscription base consists mostly of Wasps in a sushi based economy!

A biggest black eye for IT is the ease with which criminals can use zappers to dupe accounting packages.

Here's an article from the Vancouver Sun with some additional details.

As a Canadian who has been to the states often enough to understand mass transit in both countries, I quickly realised that mass transit ONLY works in huge cities: Toronto, Vancouver

You may be interested in this nice piece of work that Sears pulled this week then. Pretty disgusting.

• There is something to be said for a guarantee of free speech.. (try going into canada with safer-sex pamphlets targeted at a non-straight audience and enjoy entertaining threats of prosecution for smuggling and obscenity-- whether or not the court has ordered an improvement on this long-standing issue the border-guards still routinely harass and hold-up shipments (and for that matter, visitors) with materials already judged 'not obscene' after being held by the local office of the purolator) (or for that matter, look to censorship in a variety of locales.. not to say that factions in the US of A don't try..)
• Goverment subsidies of some industry (let's say dairy) makes for both an unhealthy industry (insofar as competition with extranationals goes) and a situation where the government is forced to suppress competition from within the state to avoid payment increase (alternative being a collapse of the industry to supportable levels)
• There is the point that media 'bombardment' can go two ways (check out AdBusters for a bit of Canadian infiltration into the American meme-space).. but honestly, it doesn't seem as though non-Québécois Canadians have much of a distinctive culture to 'jam' with. (ok.. it was petty and misleading.. and the Canadian modern/post-modern dance scene is great.. but the 'artifact producing' media definitely seem under-represented.) (let's not debate whether American culture is any better)

On the other hand, the users who don't know to fix this without having to be told are the most at risk. Given that MS claims to be the OS for ignorant users ("linux is for experts") this is kinda like the pesticide manufacturers promoting cherry and bubble-gum flavoured pesticides (I kid you not!)

It also sounds like the SQL server may CREATE an user with a blank password. If this is the case, the it would become a case of a login that didn't previously exist suddenly gives remote users the ability to seriously 'own' your machine.

In any case, this is rather like Linux installing with a blank root password. (or MySql installer adding a root user with no password, if that's what this bug does). Any half-ass distribution source should know far better than to do something like that.
You can blame the Royal Swiss Navy for not replacing the screen doors on their submarines, but it was a stupid manufacturer who installed them in the first place.

It's still a censorship issue.

As merger-mania continues and the clout of companies sometimes exceeds that of small governments, their ability to 'do what they want' becomes more ominous. I have seen the the coverage of majour issues strongly warped in the dominant newspaper in the area by pressure from large businesses affected by the {,would be} news.

At some point people really do need to stand up and say something about such pressure. This is what hardocp did. They did it a lot sooner than many other people. I have to applaud them for that. I also applaud him for giving the background to his anger. It allows us to make a reasonable judgement on why he's saying what he is.

That's why I'll encourage people to read things like the Marxist-Lennist Journal. It's not that they are less biased than the Globe and Mail, but they don't pretend to be unbiased. They say "We're gonna give you the leftist spin on this", and then they do precisely that. Far easier to apply counter-spin that way.

Smoke on the water, flames licked at the sky.
No-one yelled fire; no-one wondered why