JayB

Or perhaps the law outlawing the dissemination of what the government deems false news... "Criminal Code PART V: SEXUAL OFFENCES, PUBLIC MORALS AND DISORDERLY CONDUCT Nuisances Spreading false news 181. Every one who wilfully publishes a statement, tale or news that he knows is false and that causes or is likely to cause injury or mischief to a public interest is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years. R.S., c. C-34, s. 177."

Some of the comments in this thread are clearly prosecutable offenses under Canada's anti-sedition laws. Consider yourself forewarned.

I believe he is referring to a certain DNC Kool-Aid guzzler named Crux - who just recently proposed putting network executives in prison for a recent docu-drama written and produced under the protections of the first amendment. Actually talking about the current state of affairs in Canada for the benefit of the arboreal amphibian, who may not be familiar with his own laws. "In short, it was necessary for the Crown in this case to prove that the respondents, by communicating statements other than in private conversation, wilfully promoted hatred against a section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion or ethnic origin..." You can evidently say what you will in private, but if the government deems that you've said something in public that shows that you have "wilfully promoted hatred against a section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion or ethnic origin," then you could very well be fined or imprisoned. http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2005/2005scc7/2005scc7.html "Criminal Code PART VIII: OFFENCES AGAINST THE PERSON AND REPUTATION Hate Propaganda Public incitement of hatred 319. (1) Every one who, by communicating statements in any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace is guilty of (a) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or (b) an offence punishable on summary conviction. Wilful promotion of hatred (2) Every one who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group is guilty of (a) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or (b) an offence punishable on summary conviction. Defences (3) No person shall be convicted of an offence under subsection (2) (a) if he establishes that the statements communicated were true; (b) if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text; © if the statements were relevant to any subject of public interest, the discussion of which was for the public benefit, and if on reasonable grounds he believed them to be true; or (d) if, in good faith, he intended to point out, for the purpose of removal, matters producing or tending to produce feelings of hatred toward an identifiable group in Canada. Forfeiture (4) Where a person is convicted of an offence under section 318 or subsection (1) or (2) of this section, anything by means of or in relation to which the offence was committed, on such conviction, may, in addition to any other punishment imposed, be ordered by the presiding provincial court judge or judge to be forfeited to Her Majesty in right of the province in which that person is convicted, for disposal as the Attorney General may direct. Exemption from seizure of communication facilities (5) Subsections 199(6) and (7) apply with such modifications as the circumstances require to section 318 or subsection (1) or (2) of this section. Consent (6) No proceeding for an offence under subsection (2) shall be instituted without the consent of the Attorney General. Definitions (7) In this section, “communicating” « communiquer » “communicating” includes communicating by telephone, broadcasting or other audible or visible means; “identifiable group” « groupe identifiable » “identifiable group” has the same meaning as in section 318;" Some other eye-openers for TT: "PART II: OFFENCES AGAINST PUBLIC ORDER Sedition Seditious words 59. (1) Seditious words are words that express a seditious intention. Seditious libel (2) A seditious libel is a libel that expresses a seditious intention. Seditious conspiracy (3) A seditious conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to carry out a seditious intention. Seditious intention (4) Without limiting the generality of the meaning of the expression “seditious intention”, every one shall be presumed to have a seditious intention who (a) teaches or advocates, or (b) publishes or circulates any writing that advocates, the use, without the authority of law, of force as a means of accomplishing a governmental change within Canada. R.S., c. C-34, s. 60." "PART V: SEXUAL OFFENCES, PUBLIC MORALS AND DISORDERLY CONDUCT Offences Tending to Corrupt Morals Corrupting morals 163. (1) Every one commits an offence who (a) makes, prints, publishes, distributes, circulates, or has in his possession for the purpose of publication, distribution or circulation any obscene written matter, picture, model, phonograph record or other thing whatever; or (b) makes, prints, publishes, distributes, sells or has in his possession for the purpose of publication, distribution or circulation a crime comic. Idem (2) Every one commits an offence who knowingly, without lawful justification or excuse, (a) sells, exposes to public view or has in his possession for such a purpose any obscene written matter, picture, model, phonograph record or other thing whatever; (b) publicly exhibits a disgusting object or an indecent show; © offers to sell, advertises or publishes an advertisement of, or has for sale or disposal, any means, instructions, medicine, drug or article intended or represented as a method of causing abortion or miscarriage; or (d) advertises or publishes an advertisement of any means, instructions, medicine, drug or article intended or represented as a method for restoring sexual virility or curing venereal diseases or diseases of the generative organs. Defence of public good (3) No person shall be convicted of an offence under this section if the public good was served by the acts that are alleged to constitute the offence and if the acts alleged did not extend beyond what served the public good. Question of law and question of fact (4) For the purposes of this section, it is a question of law whether an act served the public good and whether there is evidence that the act alleged went beyond what served the public good, but it is a question of fact whether the acts did or did not extend beyond what served the public good. Motives irrelevant (5) For the purposes of this section, the motives of an accused are irrelevant. (6) [Repealed, 1993, c. 46, s. 1] Definition of “crime comic” (7) In this section, “crime comic” means a magazine, periodical or book that exclusively or substantially comprises matter depicting pictorially (a) the commission of crimes, real or fictitious; or (b) events connected with the commission of crimes, real or fictitious, whether occurring before or after the commission of the crime. Obscene publication (8) For the purposes of this Act, any publication a dominant characteristic of which is the undue exploitation of sex, or of sex and any one or more of the following subjects, namely, crime, horror, cruelty and violence, shall be deemed to be obscene. R.S., 1985, c. C-46, s. 163; 1993, c. 46, s. 1." "Criminal Code PART V: SEXUAL OFFENCES, PUBLIC MORALS AND DISORDERLY CONDUCT Offences Tending to Corrupt Morals Immoral theatrical performance 167. (1) Every one commits an offence who, being the lessee, manager, agent or person in charge of a theatre, presents or gives or allows to be presented or given therein an immoral, indecent or obscene performance, entertainment or representation. Person taking part (2) Every one commits an offence who takes part or appears as an actor, a performer or an assistant in any capacity, in an immoral, indecent or obscene performance, entertainment or representation in a theatre. R.S., c. C-34, s. 163." Plenty more where these came from: http://canlii.ca/ca/sta/c-46/ Those who live in glass houses......

Pretty soon the government's power will grow so unchecked, and the populace so complacent, that the government will be able to come up with a scary-sounding term like "Hate Speech" and grant itself the right to fine or imprison anyone who expresses convictions that the government deems unacceptable in public. Pretty frightening prospect...eh.

such a connaisseur of the TR! do you have a computer or a snifter over there JayB I thoroughly agree. It's a shame that anyone has to justify their actions when they didn't really do much wrong. What I wanna know is anyone going to attempt OS during the rope-up...could be entertaining There's just such a difference between the way things happen and the retrospective picture that people construct afterwards. This is hardly a defect that's unique to this sport or to this site - I'm as guilty of the practice as anyone, but I appreciate it when people are brave enough to be honest, and hate it when the folks that offer up neon-lit-insecurity-masquerading-as-superiority make them all the rarer. I'm not sure that everyone pouring their hearts out all of the time, and I appreciate irony and humor as much as anyone, but one the rare occaisions when someone is honest, I wish that folks would show some class.

Crosspost from elsewhere: "I also think that if people were honest about their experiences and emotions, quite a few of the TR's here would read quite a bit differently. There's clearly an editing process that goes on in people's heads in order to ensure that they don't expose too much of themselves and leave themselves vulnerable. That's certainly understandable, but I really think it's a shame, as the experiences that people have are way more interesting, varied, and genuine than the subtle-chestbeat-with-just-a-touch-of-faux-modesty-and-self-referential-irony that's emerged as the default tone for any TR here."

I also think that if people were honest about their experiences and emotions, quite a few of the TR's here would read quite a bit differently. There's clearly an editing process that goes on in people's heads in order to ensure that they don't expose too much of themselves and leave themselves vulnerable. That's certainly understandable, but I really think it's a shame, as the experiences that people have are way more interesting, varied, and genuine than the subtle-chestbeat-with-just-a-touch-of-faux-modesty-and-self-referential-irony that's emerged as the default tone for any TR here.

So many dimensions to the lameness here. To restate some other points and make a few of my own: 1. OS on a Saturday. Get there first or expect crowds, and either be prepared to wait, be prepared with the basic social skills necessary to engage the slower party and work out a plan for passing them, or climb elsewhere. With respect to basic social skills - I've passed other parties and have been passed. Whenever I've seen this situation coming, I've always been able to either look up at the belayer and say something along the lines of "Hey - looks like we're moving at different paces and I know it sucks to have someone on your tail all day, would you be cool with us climbing through at the next ledge?" and I've never had a problem. I really dislike feeling pressured to move faster by another party, so whenever a group is clearly moving faster, I let them know that I am aware of the fact that they are faster and talk the situation over, and have never had a problem - even when I've asked if they'd mind waiting a bit until we got someplace where the process would be easier for both parties. Failing to do any of these things and then opening up with a bunch of hostility and insults on the internet is the ultimate in lameness, but if you haven't got the common sense required to make the right decisions at the base of a crowded route, or the common courtesy necessary to interact with other humans in a constructive way when you are on the route, I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised by the retro-spray.

The only thing that I find odd about the response from Pelosi and Rangel is that they would rebuke Chavez for making statements that really aren't terribly different from the rhetoric and arguments offered up by members of their own party, and sound relatively mild when compared to what passes for sober analysis on the likes of the Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, etc, and were probably perfectly in tune with a the thinking of a significant percentage of their party. Were they having a Dr. Frankenstein type moment "Hey the Fahrenheit 911/loosechange/Daily Kos types sure are spunky and energetic, and can man the keyboards and phone banks for weeks on end, without food or water so long as we've got a tape of Janine Garofolo reading Chomsky playing over a techno-beat in the background, but now...they're....coming....for....us...." or perhaps they were just peeved at him for upstaging them and stealing their thunder. Hopefully someone in the Chavez fan-club will stop casting misty-eyed glances at the signed, 8.5x11 glossy that they got after registering on chavista.com, hit the minimize button on the window that's playing a continuous loop of the loosechange/chomsky/Farhenheit911 multimedia edit that they found on YouTube, and hammer out something on the special impact resistant keyboard that'll help the rest of us understand the infatuation.

And yet... latest Economist has Venezuelan GDP up 9.2%, industrial production up 13.7%, in latest quarter. (US figures are +3.6% and +4.9% respectively for comparison) That's some diminishment and nonstate damage when it pushes Venezuelan increases to roughly 3x American increases, almost to the level of China. That has everything to do with macro-conditions outside of Venezuela, and nothing to do with Chavez's economic policies. This is probably a revelation to you, but sustained economic growth requires sustained capital investment in the sectors which are responsible for the said growth, or other sectors which promise to to the same. As a whole, actors in the marketplace have a considerably better record at conducting this kind of analysis and making capital allocations which generate more income than they consume than states do, and populist governments in Latin American rival only sub-saharan warlords in their capacity to missalocate capital. At the moment, every sober analysis of Venezuelan production capacity indicates that the government is not even allocating enough money to exploration and maintenance to maintain production, much less expand it. Given your faith in the long-term prospects for the Venezuelan economy under Chavez, perhaps you can invest in some 30-year bonds backed by Venezuelan oil revenues to augment the private-placement shares in the company that sponsored the fat-virus paper. "Venezuela's oil model: Is production rising or falling? High oil prices keep profits up, but output may be down. By Danna Harman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor CARACAS, VENEZUELA – In recent weeks, both Bolivian president Evo Morales and Ecuador's president Alfredo Palacio have taken a page out of Venezuelan populist president Hugo Chávez's natural resources manual. It's the page that features politicizing the oil and gas industries and nationalizing them - keeping more of the petro dollars at home but alienating longtime foreign investors. A good model? Many oil industry analysts are skeptical. In the Monitor Friday, 09/22/06 While the government denies it and high oil prices mask it, analysts say Venezuelan oil production is declining. Since Chávez took over in 1999, production in the state-run oil fields has fallen almost 50 percent, say analysts at PFC Energy, a global energy consulting firm based in Washington, D.C., who spoke on condition of anonymity rather than risk the wrath of the Venezuelan government. During the same period, no new significant oil reserves have been discovered. And with new, smaller profit margins for outside companies, foreign investors are now slowing the rate of investment in the jointly run oil and gas fields. "The outlook for increases in the future is starting to go up in smoke and we see a petroleum industry in contraction," said Luis Giusti, the former president of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), in an interview earlier this month with Venezuela's Union Radio. "The day the prices change, the situation is going to be evident once and for all," he said" Rest of Article

The amount of oil that he has, as in is able to extract, is steadily diminishing due to gross mismanagement on a number of fronts. Couple that with the damage he's inflicting on the nonstate sector, and I suspect he'll be long on rhetoric and short on cash rather sooner than most people think, and Venezuela will be emulating Cuba in ways than that her citizens may not have anticipated. Fighting Yankee imperialism by inflicting poverty and repression on themselves is a curious, but time-tested, strategy for those wily South Americans. They'll show us. "The Latin Americans," by Carlos Rangel - himself a Venezualan, is as good a guide to understanding that continents tendency towards political and economic masochism as any. Probably out of print, but worth a read.

Interesting responses from Rangel and Pelosi, of all people.

Glad to see that we've stayed on topic here. Chickenheads to chickenfat. I think I still have the PDF of the original paper, and if you use your vaunted Canadian education in conjunction with the search function I'm sure that you'll be able to dig out the thread that contains my critiques of it. "If it was correlation, not causation, the chickens would have been fatter to begin with. They weren't." Not necessarily. You could take your favorite hypothesis about bacteria living beneath the earths surface, and claim that they harbor a virus that causes obesity, and then argue that the tight connection between per-capita crude-oil consumption and obesity proves your claim that the said virus is the causal agent for obesity. More crude oil a society consumes, the fatter it gets, so....this must mean that crude oil consumption causes obesity, right? HIV often produces dramatic weight loss in the people who get infected with it, so per-your logic (Infect with virus -----> change in weight) you could argue that the simple presence of the virus in their system is what mediates the weight loss, rather than the opportunistic infections that occur when a specific subset of white blood cells is depleted. Let me know if you need any more examples, otherwise I'll be busy getting ready for the rapture and saluting the flag.

Still worse, imagine if he often showed an inability to distinguish between correlation and causation, and couldn't spot some of the glaring methodological flaws in the original study either. If only he'd attended Canadian schools....

We only provide transition assistance - you should talk to your exit coordinator about what we provide. There's no extraordinary rendition here! My personal data is being handled the RCMP prior to my transfer, so everything should be okay.

Just imagine if he knew so little about biology that he fell for bunch of bogus claims about a fat-virus on the basis of some pop-science articles in publications like "Men's Journal."

Besides, in between using what little math we learned to calculate the precise arrival of the rapture, and how the fossil record was created by larger and more nimble creatures climbing uphill to avoid the Noachian floods, there really wasn't any time for much else.

"We learned that in highschool. Maybe while you were taking a class in saluting the flag?" The inclusion of that topic is clearly responsible for the string of scientific triumphs that you and your countrymen have been responsible for. I wasn't aware of the LIA until a couple of years ago, and kind of assumed that most Alpine glaciers had been undergoing a steady decline, with brief periods of relatively insignificant advance and retreat, since about 10,000 years ago.

What do they TEACH in American schools these days "There were no substantial advances from 10,000 until 5,000 years ago. That is when the neoglacial began. The neoglacial has featured advances at 3000 years ago and during the LIA that were nearly identically sized. You can see the moraine overlap from these two by Lyman Glacier for example." "Glacial History According to Madole (1976), during the latter part of the Pleistocene (~1.8 million years before present - 10,000 years BP) and into the early Holocene (10,000 years BP - present) large valley glaciers were present across most of the higher mountain ranges of Colorado and a small icecap even formed in the northwest part of Rocky Mountain National Park. Valley glaciers in the Front Range were typically 15-25 km long and 1-3 km wide, reaching down to elevations of 2440 to 2745 m. These valley glacier ranged in thickness from 215 to 460 m and the longest was 45 km long (located in the valley of the Cache la Poudre River and fed by the icecap). In Colorado only two Pleistocene glacial advances are recorded on the landscape: Bull Lake and Pinedale (The names come from the Wind River Range where these glacial advances were first identified.). The Bull Lake glaciation is thought to have occurred 125,000 to 50,000 years BP, while the Pinedale glaciation has been dated to 29,000 to 7,600 years BP. Generally the Bull Lake glaciation was more extensive. Additionally there have been three small Holocone (10,000 years BP to present) glacial advances termed, from oldest to youngest, Triple Lakes, Audubon, and Arapaho Peak advances. Collectively these minor advances are termed Neoglaciation, and the largest glacier during these advances was only 1.6 km long. The Arapaho Peak advance is local evidence for the Little Ice Age (the popular name for a period of cooling in the northern hemisphere lasting approximately from the 14th to the mid-19th centuries). Most of the glaciers and perennial ice patches in Colorado today are the tattered remnants of these small Little Ice Age glaciers." I'm new to the topic, but the term "advance" in conjunction with the Little Ice Age seems to suggest that glaciers were adding, rather than losing, mass relative to some interval of time that predated the LIA.

I'm holding out for the right severance package.

Ask Mauri Great info at his faculty website about North Cascades Glaciers. Especially the stuff about the chronology of glacier advance and retreat from the time of the continental glaciers onward. I had no idea that the Little Ice Age was a period of significant glacial advance relative to proceding 2,3,4 eons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_America_Radio Just thought I'd check the Wikipedia entry to get a summary of the manner in which AAR is making use of this "process by which successful businesses adapt to growth and changing opportunities."

I take it you haven't spent much time in the Skokomish flood plains. White, yes. Rich, no. There's lots of rich white people on the coasts, but most of their homes are worth considerably more than what they'd get under the maximum payout, so The Man is actually doing a pretty poor job of taking care of his own, if that's the case.* As far as river floodplains go, being a flyfisherman and a kayaker, I've seen quite a few, and just about the only time you see expensive looking homes along the shore is when there's either elevated land close to the river, or the flows are dam-controlled and the risk of a catastrophic flood is low. Anyhow, back to the original question. Looks like the NFIP was originally passed in 1956 but never funded, then revived 1968 in response to the damage that Hurricane Betsey inflicted on Mississippi.

Does Canadian government provide flood insurance? I know that the Australian government doesn't, and I have no idea why our government thought that this made for sound policy.

This guy has his head up his ass. New home construction is down in most areas and as intrest rates rise people will be sqeezed out ot thier overpriced new homes. Also existing home sales are down. Lots of people could be hurting soon and maybe they will blame Bush..... Still going strong here but for how long? Good question. Superimpose this: Net change in median household income,1999-2005, in 2005 dollars. On This and then factor in this and take a look at the real-estate valuation figures here: Global Insight Q1 '06 House Price Report. Seattle 34.1% Overvalued Somewhere there's a chart that shows the percentage of all private sector jobs created since 2001, and real-estate, construction, mortgage-lending, etc adds up to a significant percentage - like a third or higher - since '01. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that increased capital spending by corporations will help out on the jobs front and mitigate the impact of the slowing housing market, but if domestic consumption goes down then the only reason for them increase capital spending and hire more folks will be to sell things to consumers abroad. Thankfully for Seattle, most of the major industries seem to be in reasonably good shape, so hopefully the impact of an RE slowdown will be muted by positive developments elsewhere. For places like Phoenix and South Florida, the future looks a bit rougher.