murraysovereign

Anyone else notice the ad running at the bottom of this page? And how long will it be before we see the press releases from the "National Cutlery Association" claiming that there would be fewer stabbings if more people carried knives?

You're all assuming that this law is intended to protect hikers and such from being shot accidentally. Have you considered the possibility that this initiative is being promoted by the hunters, in order to make easier targets of all us tree-huggers?

Cuba! Sun, beaches, rum, and free health care. And because you're not American, you can travel there without having to worry about being imprisoned on your return.

You pretty much nailed it - handy and light. You lose a fair bit of speed and tracking with such a short hull, and it can get a bit squirrely when loaded down, but portaging is way easy. If you carry the canoe in one hand, and your four-pack of Molson Ice in the other, the load is almost perfectly balanced so it's easy on your spine. Just watch out for the headache the next day...

Clippers are great boats. In BC and Alberta if you see a FG or Kev canoe, chances are it's a Clipper of some sort. For tripping as you have planned, the Tripper or Tripper S are hard to beat. I'm not familiar with the Cascade, but the differences between models are pretty slight so it would probably be a good choice also. One thing about Clipper (all models) is their fixation with tractor seats. I'm a traditionalist, so prefer slat/webbing seats that sit a little higher and allow room underneath for your feet when kneeling. The tractor seats sit lower, and don't really allow for kneeling. I always feel like the gunwhales are too high as a result, and my legs are always just kind of sticking out in front of me because I can't tuck them under the seat. It's not a huge deal, but in a heavily-laden canoe that space in front of the stern seat is often used for stowing gear, in which case it could get a bit crowded for the helmsman, especially if they're long-legged. They claim their seats allow for lower centre of gravity than when sitting on a slat seat (true, but not so much if kneeling), and that with the footbrace ahead of the stern seat the paddler has a more energy-efficient paddling stance (I'm a bit dubious of that one). In any case, you can have slat/webbing seats installed at time of construction instead of the tractor seats if, like me, you can't stand the low-slung bucket things. In the important area - hull design - Clippers are as good as any I've found for versatility. Trippers in particular track beautifully, especially when loaded down, and they run easy-to-moderate whitewater like they were born for it. One difficulty I've encountered it's when soloing in wind. Because no Clippers have keels, they tend to get blown around a fair bit in the wind unless you've got two paddlers. In a light to moderate breeze they're fine, but around Squamish I have to pick my paddling times carefully or take the kayak if alone. It may just be my technique (I grew up with Frontiersman canoes, which are basically a big keel with some storage space above waterline) but I've tried pretty much every thing I can think of and still have a hard time keeping these things on course when it's windy. Again, it's not an issue with two paddlers - just soloing is tricky. I've got one here (and a couple of smaller models - Escape, Scout and Yukon) if you want to take it for a spin out on Howe Sound or the lower Squamish River to see how you like it.

Not a problem here: we been holidayin' and rummin' and cigarin' all these past 40-some years yeah, and with your ridiculous taxation, I am prone to not buy said beverages or smokes while visiting Kanuckistan due to the price. But if you didn't live under such a repressive regime, your government wouldn't make it against the law to go to Cuba (or anywhere else, for that matter), so you could take your vacation there, legally, and smoke your cigar and drink your rum, on the beach, in Cuba, legally. Just like we've been doing for 40-some years, perfectly legally. It's one of the benefits of living in what's called a "free" country: you can travel to any other country you want, any time you want, as long as that country is willing to let you in, without fear of criminal prosecution on your return home. It's strange to you Americans, I know, but you really ought to give it a try - you may come to like it, once you get used to it.

Neither that guy, nor his lawyer, will ever have to work another day. Probably his kid is set for life, too.

Not a problem here: we been holidayin' and rummin' and cigarin' all these past 40-some years Heck, we're hoping the embargo stays, else the beaches are gonna get all crowded and noisy. As it stands, it's one of the few places we can go to get away from you Yanks, and we kinda like it that way

Terry O'Reilly's "The Age of Persuasion" on CBC Radio 1, and on-line at http://www.cbc.ca/ageofpersuasion/index.html?copy-podcast is a really good program, ostensibly about marketing but actually touches on a wide range of topics over the course of each episode. It's not available as a podcast yet, due to licensing issues, but they have all 30 past episodes available as audio streams from their site. New series starting in January. That's all I've got right now. Most of my on-line "podcast" activity takes the form of recording programs on-line (like Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap also on CBC1) for listening/viewing later, or going to places like CharlieRose.com and digging around through the archives to see if anything catches my eye. Blogs... not so much.

Nah, most of the Olympic activity - all the alpine ski events - are at Creekside, on the far side of Whistler Mountain. All that's happening on the Blackckomb side is the bobsleigh/skeleton/luge and that facility is pretty self-contained & road-accessed. Still sucks, though, but it could have been a lot worse.

OK, just for the sake of argument - will pedestrians be next? After all, there's a Hell of a lot more sidewalks than there are bike paths - why should all those people walking all over the place get a free pass? I say we make 'em pay for their own damn sidewalks, maybe through some sort of licensing system, or how about toll sidewalks in heavily used areas? And kids' play equipment in parks - when's the last time I rode a swingset? Why should my taxes go to pay for that stuff? Let's license the kids to pay for all their slides and teeter-totters and monkey bars. And grass - all those guys throwing frisbees around at the park? All that grass is surprisingly expensive to plant, irrigate, fertilize and mow. Pay up, or STAY OFF THE GRASS!! dammit. And then... oh man, the sky's the limit...

Agreed - a favourite regardless of the season.

Simple - the US Navy has to kill whales with sonar because it's against the law to kill them with harpoons.

I thought this was going to be a NSFW Sarah Palin / Catherine Harris photo spread

Agreed, that is a classic ad campaign. It gets mentioned a few times in Terry O'Reilly's "Age of Persuasion". He uses all kinds of examples to illustrate different marketing principles - it's a really good program if that sort of thing interests you. The links under the "recent shows" heading takes you to audio streams for each program in the series.

Forty-Five Years - Stan Rogers

Hey - here's an idea. Why don't you guys try that in the States? You know, open up credit to "tens of millions of riskier borrowers". Think of the economic stimulus that would create. What could possibly go wrong?

Actually, Cromwell wasn't "unseated": he died of natural causes. It was Cromwell who unseated Charles I, and then beheaded him. I'm not sure if Charles' head was displayed on a stake afterwards, although it was a common practice. Some years after Cromwell's death, when the monarchy was restored, the Royalists dug up Cromwell's skeleton and symbolically "hanged" him for regicide.

How about a system in which the ballot is the receipt? That's what we do. We get a piece of paper with the candidates names on it, and alongside each name is a space where we make an "X" with a pencil if that's the person we want to vote for. Then we drop the marked ballot into a "ballot box". When the polls close, the boxes are opened up and all the ballots are counted and then they get put back into the boxes again. Then the boxes are sealed up and kept in a secure location. If someone challenges the election result, they can open the boxes back up again for what's called a "recount" which involves simply taking out all the ballots and... counting them again. It sounds bizarre, I know, but it actually works pretty well. You guys should look into it. You've got paper, don't you? And most people are pretty familiar with how to use a pencil, or at least they should be by the time they reach voting age. And I'm sure you can find at least a few people who know how to count - that's all you need.

In my immediate family, I can count a crack addict, as well as a BC Court of Appeals judge, along with the usual assortment of teachers and nurses and corporate personnel directors, and I think even one budding rock star. In my extended family there are all manner of people, many of whom I've never met, ranging from doctors and lawyers and clergymen to WalMart shelf-stockers and unemployed layabouts. Many of them, I'm sure, are fine upstanding members of their communities. Some of them, no doubt, have skeletons in their closets. Hell, some of them may have fresh bodies in their closets for all I know. What, exactly, does any of that say about me?

FW, do you know if the profit shown is before, or after taxes?

And let's not forget that Syria supports these types of missions as well, so long as they take the form of Assad's Hezbollah proxies lobbing missiles indiscriminately into northern Israel.

Acopas are also available through a certain shop I know of in Squamish

Bloomberg report on AP poll showing 44/43 split

This reminds me of an old expression my Dad used to use. Something about putting - what was it again? - oh yeah, lipstick... putting lipstick on something. Damn, I wish I could remember the whole thing... lipstick on a sack of hammers?... lipstick on a witch's tit? No, that's not it either. I think it was some sort of livestock thing, maybe...