Do they, or does the US have a tendency to get involved in world events?
In the past the US has actually overthrown democratically elected leaders and replaced them with vicious "US Friendly" dictators. Was the world in general better or worse off for this (naturally the US benefited). Once a dictator is installed was the net effect to stabilise or destabilize the area?
If the forces were pulled, some of the "meddling" might actually lead to reduced tensions (Sadam, good guy lets sell him weapons... opps, now he's a bad guy invade).
They have disputed ownership of those island for a long time now so clearly they have not "always belonged to japan" or they wouldn't be in dispute.
China claims they owned them since the early 1500's. http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/771456.shtml#.UpJ81rVDsic
There are always two sides to any story...
So taxpayers should pay to put people in jail to protect the entertainment industry's outdated business model?
The same group who often book their sales in tax favourable jurisdictions should also get to put people in jail at your and my expense?
I thought jails were for real crimes? Isn't copyright violation a civil matter in most nations?
Speaking about putting people in jail, how many times have the various recording industry's been charged with abuse of monopoly, price fixing, etc?
Those examples on the other hand are not CIVIL matters and the penalty can include jail time (again in most nations) but no one has ever served it.
Here (canada) they were charged with selling compilation CD's without paying the royalties. Now if a person does this it is considered piracy and in the US they charge you $20,000 per song but what do you think happened to them?
So yeah, lets jail people because laws to prevent people from doing some things always work (cough)Prohibition (cough)... Even the government realized it needed to update its business models....
Pass a new law that the current leaders are the first ones on the front line and all wars will end.
After all, if they "voted" to go to war why should they be exempt in dying for the cause they apparently believe in?
Presidents/prime ministers/kings are all replaceable as well.
Does that man all future presidents will start talking about the "drone gap", and how the US needs to double the defence budget to keep up and maintain its superiority?
Look at how the SSN is used in the US. Its a great identifier as there is a direct 1:1 mapping between a person and their SSN.
In the US almost everyone asks for it and they are normally given the number.
In Canada (and i lived in both countries for a while) I think the privacy laws are tougher to protect the privacy of the citizens. Look at all the fighting the Canada privacy commission did with Facebook, or other examples of US based services encountering problems with them.
Privacy commission vs Facebook: http://www.priv.gc.ca/media/nr-c/2009/nr-c_090827_e.asp
In Canada i dont have to give my SIN to anyone other then banks, employers and the government and i they normally cant deny servicing me because of my refusal to provide my SIN.
When I call any US credit card agency one of the first things they ask for is my SSN.
From WIKI:
Through functionality creep, the SIN has become a national identification number, in much the same way that the Social Security Number has in the United States. However, unlike in the US, in Canada there are specific legislated purposes for which a SIN can be requested. Unless an organization can demonstrate that the reason they are requesting a person's SIN is specifically permitted by law, or that no alternative identifiers would suffice to complete the transaction, they cannot deny or refuse a product or service on the grounds of a refusal to provide a SIN. Examples of organizations that legitimately require a SIN include employers, banks and investment companies, and federal government agencies. Giving a SIN when applying for consumer credit, such as buying a car or electronics, or allowing it to be used as a general purpose identification number, such as by your cable company, is strongly discouraged
I am not going to say Canada doesnt spy (we have CSIS, something like the NSA), but we also have a privacy commission with some bite.
When people do want to use electricty (say heating our houses in the winter while we are home and awake) its closer to 12 cents.
Out of interest, here is what it looked like in 2011 and the current rates (2013).
Use the CANDU design.
Its getting old and more prone to outages now but In 1994 Pickering Unit 7 set a world record for continuous operation (894 days) without a shutdown.
I think you are either lucky, or are missing some of the "add on" fees.
Looking at my bill (Veridian, for Durham region in Ontario).
I used $298 in electricity on my $492 bill.
After their "Time of use" calculations helps make sure the bill was sufficiently convoluted i have the following add-on "Charges":
- Debt Retirement
- Delivery - This is actually pretty steep at $138.
- Regulatory Charges
- 10% discount for "Ontario clean energy benefit". This is probably because everyone complained the bills were getting too high and nothing to do with "clean"
- HST (our wonderful blanket tax which covers pretty much everything).
Remember for the longest time we were the "proud" owners of Nanticoke:
The Nanticoke Generating Station is the largest coal-fired power plant in North America, delivering up to 1,880 MW[2] of power...
That is why they were given the job, think of the spin-offs:
- make work, how many new government employees were trained and hired? That probably required an entire infrastructure to be built out.
- Keep the "security theatre" front and centre. Every time you go to the airport you are reminded of what your gvt is doing to keep you safe.
- See, after all this there are no more bears in the streets (they lack of caught terrorists prove it works).
I'm with you, a lot of this "re-branding" is nonsense.
A few others which we can get rid of:
XXX provisioning (Over, under, etc)
Xaas (saas, haas, etc).
"Private cloud" remains my personal favourite. You take servers you own in your data centre, run a bunch of VM's on them and now its a "cloud". A few short years ago we would have just called by the setup a more accurate name (VM's on physical boxes).
When i lived in Calgary (AB) I went to some small city in Montana and was asked about living in an igloo, and about our brutally cold winters. Since we drove and it was only a few hours i was always curious where this extra "cold" came from.
It sure wasn't warm in Montana, just like it freezing cold back in Calgary at the time.
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Well, he was also famous and that seems to make a huge difference to some people.
All you hear about is "tragedy" and "life taken too soon".
What if he hit and killed someone else on their little "joy ride"?
So he had trouble making the turn at 45 MPH (the posted limit) due to the car being hard to drive?
LOVE the English/Spanish instructions... Well done sir.
Well, there was a time when the US was the worlds manufacturer. Perhaps there can be a revival?
Probably one of those "the job is really only a 4 month contract but we don't want to pay contractor rates so we do a 4 month probation" thing...
Do they, or does the US have a tendency to get involved in world events?
In the past the US has actually overthrown democratically elected leaders and replaced them with vicious "US Friendly" dictators. Was the world in general better or worse off for this (naturally the US benefited). Once a dictator is installed was the net effect to stabilise or destabilize the area?
If the forces were pulled, some of the "meddling" might actually lead to reduced tensions (Sadam, good guy lets sell him weapons... opps, now he's a bad guy invade).
So how does a localized dispute between Japan and China impact you?
Europe surpassed the US as China's largest export market.
Wonder what would happen to the US economy if the "full faith and credit" was questioned?
The US and China are both locked in pretty tight with each other and they both know it.
They have disputed ownership of those island for a long time now so clearly they have not "always belonged to japan" or they wouldn't be in dispute. China claims they owned them since the early 1500's. http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/771456.shtml#.UpJ81rVDsic There are always two sides to any story...
You mean their own "war on communism/drugs/terror"?
Sometimes those "wars" are on the other side of the world and don't really impact you?
Another classic. Disney raiding the public domain for movie ideas, then fighting to have the terms extended over and over again.
"Fair use" is a one way street for these guys.
So taxpayers should pay to put people in jail to protect the entertainment industry's outdated business model?
The same group who often book their sales in tax favourable jurisdictions should also get to put people in jail at your and my expense? I thought jails were for real crimes? Isn't copyright violation a civil matter in most nations?
Speaking about putting people in jail, how many times have the various recording industry's been charged with abuse of monopoly, price fixing, etc?
Those examples on the other hand are not CIVIL matters and the penalty can include jail time (again in most nations) but no one has ever served it.
Here (canada) they were charged with selling compilation CD's without paying the royalties. Now if a person does this it is considered piracy and in the US they charge you $20,000 per song but what do you think happened to them?
So yeah, lets jail people because laws to prevent people from doing some things always work (cough)Prohibition (cough)... Even the government realized it needed to update its business models....
Pass a new law that the current leaders are the first ones on the front line and all wars will end.
After all, if they "voted" to go to war why should they be exempt in dying for the cause they apparently believe in?
Presidents/prime ministers/kings are all replaceable as well.
Especially those in power (the ones who started the war) as they have their billion dollar bunker complexes to hid in while their "citizens" die.
Does that man all future presidents will start talking about the "drone gap", and how the US needs to double the defence budget to keep up and maintain its superiority?
I think a lot of this is consumer attitudes.
Look at how the SSN is used in the US. Its a great identifier as there is a direct 1:1 mapping between a person and their SSN.
In the US almost everyone asks for it and they are normally given the number.
In Canada (and i lived in both countries for a while) I think the privacy laws are tougher to protect the privacy of the citizens. Look at all the fighting the Canada privacy commission did with Facebook, or other examples of US based services encountering problems with them.
Privacy commission vs Facebook: http://www.priv.gc.ca/media/nr-c/2009/nr-c_090827_e.asp
In Canada i dont have to give my SIN to anyone other then banks, employers and the government and i they normally cant deny servicing me because of my refusal to provide my SIN.
When I call any US credit card agency one of the first things they ask for is my SSN.
From WIKI:
Through functionality creep, the SIN has become a national identification number, in much the same way that the Social Security Number has in the United States. However, unlike in the US, in Canada there are specific legislated purposes for which a SIN can be requested. Unless an organization can demonstrate that the reason they are requesting a person's SIN is specifically permitted by law, or that no alternative identifiers would suffice to complete the transaction, they cannot deny or refuse a product or service on the grounds of a refusal to provide a SIN. Examples of organizations that legitimately require a SIN include employers, banks and investment companies, and federal government agencies. Giving a SIN when applying for consumer credit, such as buying a car or electronics, or allowing it to be used as a general purpose identification number, such as by your cable company, is strongly discouraged
I am not going to say Canada doesnt spy (we have CSIS, something like the NSA), but we also have a privacy commission with some bite.
If his bill is like mine (Time of Use based) its 8 cents as NO ONE wants the power at that time.
http://www.ontario-hydro.com/index.php?page=current_rates
When people do want to use electricty (say heating our houses in the winter while we are home and awake) its closer to 12 cents.
Out of interest, here is what it looked like in 2011 and the current rates (2013).
2011
off peak 5.9
mid peak 8.9 (50% more)
peak 10.7 (20% more)
2013
off peak 7.2
mid peak 10.9 (51 % more)
peak 12.9 (18% more)
Use the CANDU design. Its getting old and more prone to outages now but In 1994 Pickering Unit 7 set a world record for continuous operation (894 days) without a shutdown.
I think you are either lucky, or are missing some of the "add on" fees.
Looking at my bill (Veridian, for Durham region in Ontario).
I used $298 in electricity on my $492 bill.
After their "Time of use" calculations helps make sure the bill was sufficiently convoluted i have the following add-on "Charges":
- Debt Retirement
- Delivery - This is actually pretty steep at $138.
- Regulatory Charges
- 10% discount for "Ontario clean energy benefit". This is probably because everyone complained the bills were getting too high and nothing to do with "clean"
- HST (our wonderful blanket tax which covers pretty much everything).
Remember for the longest time we were the "proud" owners of Nanticoke:
The Nanticoke Generating Station is the largest coal-fired power plant in North America, delivering up to 1,880 MW[2] of power...
That is why they were given the job, think of the spin-offs:
- make work, how many new government employees were trained and hired? That probably required an entire infrastructure to be built out.
- Keep the "security theatre" front and centre. Every time you go to the airport you are reminded of what your gvt is doing to keep you safe.
- See, after all this there are no more bears in the streets (they lack of caught terrorists prove it works).
I'm with you, a lot of this "re-branding" is nonsense.
A few others which we can get rid of:
XXX provisioning (Over, under, etc)
Xaas (saas, haas, etc).
"Private cloud" remains my personal favourite. You take servers you own in your data centre, run a bunch of VM's on them and now its a "cloud". A few short years ago we would have just called by the setup a more accurate name (VM's on physical boxes).
Because going to war to ensure profits has never happened right?
Oh wait, it has http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
When i lived in Calgary (AB) I went to some small city in Montana and was asked about living in an igloo, and about our brutally cold winters. Since we drove and it was only a few hours i was always curious where this extra "cold" came from.
It sure wasn't warm in Montana, just like it freezing cold back in Calgary at the time.
Had you clicked on the link for the article you would have found the heading "EPA Bans Most Wood-Burning Stoves"