Koyoto Accord

Wiki Entry



Under the Protocol, 37 countries ("Annex I countries") commit themselves to a reduction of four greenhouse gases (GHG) (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride) and two groups of gases (hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons) produced by them, and all member countries give general commitments. Annex I countries agreed to reduce their collective greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% from the 1990 level. Emission limits do not include emissions by international aviation and shipping, but are in addition to the industrial gases, chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which are dealt with under the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

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The only remaining signatory not to have ratified the protocol is the United States



Top-ten emitters

What follows is a ranking of the world's top ten emitters of GHGs for 2005 (MNP, 2007).[26] The first figure is the country's or region's emissions as a percentage of the global total. The second figure is the country's/region's per-capita emissions, in units of tons of GHG per-capita:

1. China1 – 17%, 5.8
2. United States3 – 16%, 24.1
3. European Union-273 – 11%, 10.6
4. Indonesia2 – 6%, 12.9
5. India – 5%, 2.1
6. Russia3 – 5%, 14.9
7. Brazil – 4%, 10.0
8. Japan3 – 3%, 10.6
9. Canada3 – 2%, 23.2
10. Mexico – 2%, 6.4



So. Why is canada so high , at 2% world emmissions but 23.2 rating for per capita ?

Because the whole measurement is slanted. It's including cow farts (no joke !) and biomass emissions (tree's rotting in the forest). The actual contribution by industry , the only part we can control ... is pretty slim.

It's also ridiculous that they're trying to control "natural emissions" (tree's rotting) in addition to industrial ones. And agricultural ones. You want people to stop farming ? Stop eating ?

Too many contradictions.

And on top of it all , we're right beside the worlds biggest industrial polluter and they refuse to sign the agreement anyways. And the stated reason is that it would hurt their economy to enforce pollution standards (ie: you go enforce it and cripple your economies, that's good for us)


This agreement sounds seriously broken . I doubt it's even particularly scientific.

Christmas Carollers

Christmas Carollers in the shopping mall. Authentic outfits.

Taken ... just because I liked it. Sorry , no political commentary today.

Passwords to avoid

25 worst passwords of 2011 revealed


Top 25:

* password
* 123456
* 12345678
* qwerty
* abc123
* monkey
* 1234567
* letmein
* trustno1
* dragon
* baseball
* 111111
* iloveyou
* master
* sunshine
* ashley
* bailey
* passw0rd
* shadow
* 123123
* 654321
* superman
* qazwsx
* michael
* football



out of personal experience, I would also like to add ...

* secret
* any variation of your birthday, husbands birthday , childs, etc
* your own name
* the name of where you work
* the name of the computer you're on



The "strong" passwords have at least 1 capital , 1 lower case , 1 number, and optionally one special character.


I always tell people , pick up a random book , fairly thick. Flip to about the first third no need to be accurate and stick your finger in the middle of the page. Pick the nearest 4 letter word, flip to the two thirds mark , about , repeat for another 4 letter word. Take the last digit of the page number and stick it in between.

If anyone can guess that password, we can just give it up.

Iran leader warns US, Israel against strike

Article


TEHRAN — Iran "will respond with full force" to any attack -- or even any threat of military action -- the country's supreme leader said on Thursday, after Israel warned the world must act to prevent Tehran getting nuclear weapons.

Iran "will respond with full force to any aggression or even threats in a way that will demolish the aggressors from within," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told students at a Tehran military college, according to his official website.

Khamenei said the message was directed at Iran's enemies, "especially America and its stooges and the Zionist regime (Israel)."



Ok. So. "supreme leader" you're a dictator.

"respond with full force" is kind of the point. Your full force will be diminished by such an attack (you won't have nukes). Other than that you lost against Iraq before the Americans crushed it , no one is worried about your full force.

And you have declared America and Israel your enemies. Oh , the usual twist, you refuse to acknowledge Israel is a country , you call it the "Zionist Regime" instead, with Zionism being an insult in your culture. Lots of silly stories about Zionists kidnapping and eating babies I believe you keep telling and re-telling yourselves.




Iran, which has long denied any military thrust to its nuclear programme, responded to the report by saying it would not budge "an iota" from its atomic course and asserted its could confront any attack.


I still recall several stories where by this same Supreme Leader promised to , what was it ? Cleanse Israel from the earth with holy fire ? Yeah , it's a little too late to be claiming your nukes are peaceful after threats like that.

Conclusion ?

This is the same game the Americans have been playing for decades. Some pipsqueak dictator goes for nukes, is allowed to blow his nations entire wealth on one or two factories producing them, and then those factories are destroyed somehow. Boom, you're broke, and you have nothing to show for it.

Americans love this game. They're quite good at it.

If he had a brain in his head he'd try training up his troops and getting them more than one rifle for every three soldiers. Instead he's like a beggar trying to buy a Lamborghini on the cheap. You can't even afford to buy gas for the thing buddy.

Judge videotaped beating daughter won't be charged

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/11/03/judge-video-charges.html


Police say a Texas judge who was secretly videotaped beating his teenage daughter seven years ago won't face charges because the statutes of limitations have passed.



Wow. So much outrage. You should read the comments , some people want to lynch this guy. Maybe we should have a look at the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl9y3SIPt7o

Well one thing is for certain , this guy doesn't know how to use a belt. Have you tried hitting someone with a belt while their wearing loose clothing like those track pants ? It don't make that snapping sound. It only makes that snapping sound when the belt hit's itself. You'll notice the belt is doubled over.

Wow she howls like anything, but the moment it's over , around the 7 minute mark , she just gets up and walks around as if nothing happened.

When I was a kid ,and I got a whipping , my rear was actually sore after wards. Obviously this was not the case here.

OMG. I got out the big thick belt and smacked my hand and my leg with it. You can make it snap really really loudly , but it doesn't leave a mark on me. And I was bare legged when I did it she had track pants on.

This is sad.

This guy needs lessons on how to use a belt.

Tories bring down debate-limiting ‘sledgehammer’ on gun registry

Article


“We have seen a more excessive use of closure, a more excessive use of the sledgehammer,” NDP MP Peter Julian told the House as MPs debated the time-allocation motion in the Commons Thursday. He said the government is showing an “appalling level of arrogance unparalleled in Canadian parliamentary history.”


Loosely translated : You can't just pass any bill you like ! Just because you're the formally elected ruling party of Canada is no excuse ! You have to listen to us !"

Umm... that's not the song the liberals sang when they were in power, as I recall. In fact they pretty much did anything they liked and told everyone else to go fish.

Question : Is it right for the ruling, duely elected party of canada to bring in legislation that those who lost the election have decided they hate and despise ?

Survey says ... well... survey is a kind of election , right ? So we already know the answer is YES.

The globe and mail is in full force today with it's anti Conservative rhetoric. Maybe I like the conservatives, sometimes I know I sure don't , but an unrelenting mud slinger who simply makes up any lie , or cherrie picks the facts to make them say anything they like ... I have no patience for that. The Globe and Mail has made my list of slanted and biased newspapers.

Quebec denounces, Western premiers praise plan to enlarge House of Commons

Article


The Harper government’s plan to enlarge the House of Commons has touched a raw nerve with Jean Charest’s Quebec government, even as Western premiers praise the idea.

With Quebec marginalized within the federal Conservative caucus, and with the Quebec government also vowing to take the Conservatives’ plans for Senate reform to the Supreme Court, the risk is increasing of French Canada becoming more estranged both from Ottawa and from provinces to its west.

Umm... you didn't vote conservative, and they got to form the government. What precisely do you expect. Besides , your share by population is 23% , and you seem to be demanding 25% , according to this artical. Thats hardly "marginalized", thats "over represented".


But the new legislation could see Quebec’s share of the total seats in the House of Commons drop below its current level of 24 per cent, which is slightly above the 23 per cent that is province’s share of the national population.
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Veteran NDP MP Joe Comartin argued that any redistribution must ensure that Quebec receives a minimum 25 per cent of the seats in that House, its traditional share. The NDP is now the dominant party in Quebec at the federal level.



This is a fairly slanted article by the globe and mail, that doesn't seem to depend much on facts, just on people shouting I WANT I WANT I WANT ...at the top of their lungs.

If I was a cynical man , I'd examine NDP MP Joe Comartin 's demands under a microscope, noticing that he seems to be saying Quebecers are special and need to be treated as such. I'm sure that will go over well in other provinces where the NDP is trying to get elected. I'd point out that if he gets his 25% , he'll say it was because of his hard work and you should elect him. Or if he doesn't get it , he will blame the conservatives for failing to agree with him that Quebecers are so special. Better people than those in any other province, apparently. Either way , there's no upside for the conservatives, no reason why they should give him what he wants. And thus he isn't really working for the benifit of Quebec, he's just slinging mud. Oh wait ... I am a cynical man. Maybe I will say that.

Let me tell you the truth about growing the house of parliament , as the Liberals (now out of power) have lead this time honored practice.

What they do is they find some riding's with a large population and a history of consistently voting Liberal , and they cut it in half and now it has two MP's. Both of which are most likely to vote Liberal.

It's one of the many many dirty tricks the Liberals used to insure their domination. The so called natural governing party used a bag full of dirty tricks , it seems.

You can bet the Conservatives are going to balance that out by splitting up large riding's with a history of voting conservative. And you can bet is going to be left out in the cold for the next few years, another time honored liberal trick. You don't vote for them, they don't give you crud. No shipping contracts. No representation above the 23% minimum required by population, no nothing.

Quebec to fight Harper government on gun registry

Article



QUEBEC — The Quebec government says it's fiercely opposed to the end of the federal long-gun registry and will fight to keep using its data.

Public Security Minister Robert Dutil says the province will do everything in its power to keep the information.

Speaking at a news conference in Quebec City, Dutil refused Wednesday to rule out legal action among his options.

Quebec had already announced months ago that it wanted to keep using some kind of long-gun registry if the Harper government killed the federal version, as expected.

But this week Ottawa made it clear that not only would it destroy the registry -- it would also destroy the data compiled over the past decade.

"We know that the federal government, in the last (Conservative) election campaign, said it would abolish the resgistry," Dutil said.

"We don't agree with that but we learned about it during the election campaign. But they never said they were going to destroy the records.

"We are formally, ferociously opposed to that."

The registry was created at a cost of more than $1 billion in the wake of Montreal's Polytechnique massacre in 1989.

Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20111026/quebec-to-fight-harper-government-on-gun-registry-111026/#ixzz1bvHxcS6c



A billion dollars to keep a list of who's got guns and where ? And this thing started with an estimated price tag of 2 million ?

This is a Liberal Boondoggle, and they're milking it for millions that go directly to their coffers.

Much as I think the idea of a gun registry is a good idea, I don't fancy writing the Liberals a check for billions.

Shut it down , and let the provinces make other registeries if they like.

Struggling Wikileaks stops publishing classified files

Article


The whistle-blowing website Wikileaks is suspending its publication of classified files.

Wikileaks said that it would focus instead on raising funds to ensure its future survival.

The announcement came after what the group called a blockade by US-based finance companies.

This followed its disclosure on the internet of hundreds of thousands of secret US government files and diplomatic cables.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said that since last December an "arbitrary and unlawful financial blockade" had been imposed by Bank of America, Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and Western Union.


The interesting thing about this is the american love / hate affair with "Natural Law". What is Natural Law ? It is self evident truths that need no evidence or explanation.

Unfortunately , one of the things we learn from our 10 years in Iraq and Afghanistan is that there is no such thing as Natural Law. Different cultures have different ideas of even the most basic ideas of whats right and wrong.

Americans love Natural Law, because it has no real definition , it's whatever they like. And they hate natural law, especially when it comes to wikileaks, because despite half the population of the western world disagreeing with them, they want this guy dead.

In other words, They follow Natural Law only when they feel like it, and toss it to the winds when they don't like it.

It is sad to see a democratic nation toss it's own principles to the wind the first time they get in the way. Sad sad sad.

Rest in Peace, Julian Assange. Like most great men who do great things, you will most likely pay the ultimate price for your heroics.

And it will dissuade no one from following in your footsteps.

ELECTRONIC ARTS PRIVACY POLICY

Article

One of my main amusements in life is to read contractual and privacy policies just to see how badly they are screwing you over.

Electronic Arts is producing a game called Star Wars The Old Republic, Due out Dec 20 of this year. And this is their privacy policy.

I warn you, this is bad.


When you use EA online and mobile products and services or you play our games on your PC or game system, we may collect certain non-personal demographic information including gender, zip code, information about your computer, hardware, software, platform, game system, media, mobile device, including device IDs, incident data, Internet Protocol (IP) address, network Media Access Control (MAC) address and connection. We also collect other non-personal information such as username, user ID or persona, feature usage, game play statistics, scores and achievements, user rankings and click paths as well as other data that you may provide in surveys, via your account preferences and online profiles such as friends lists or purchases, for instance. We may also receive either non-personal or public information from third parties in connection with market and demographic studies and/or data that we use to supplement personal information provided directly by you.




The MAC address (Media Access Control Address) is unique to your computer. So , they're listing personal information as non personal to begin with. And the list of items "includes" (ie: they may invent more) all the big ones they use to sell to advertisers to make a buck off of you.


We and third parties may also use tracking pixels, which allow us to advertise more efficiently by excluding our current users from certain promotional messages or identifying the source of a new installation.


Thanks for admitting up front you're making any advertising buck you can off of us.



EA’s websites, online or mobile products or services may employ third party ad serving technologies that use cookies, clear GIFs, web beacons, tracking pixels or other technologies to collect information as a result of ad serving through our products or services as well as to help track. Some third-party dynamic in-game advertisement serving technology enable advertising to be temporarily uploaded into your web browser or mobile device and replaced while you are online


Remember how you now have to pay for your bandwidth , and if you go over a certain amount they charge you extra ?

Yeah. EA reserves the right to rack up your bandwidth all they want for advertising purposes. They deliver ads and you pay to receive them. And we're talking multi-megabyte flash animations , not just little side notes here. Full video and all. Nice.


EA uses your information to fulfill your specific requests, purchase orders and to send you purchase confirmation and other account-related information. In addition, the personal information you provide will allow us to send you messages about things including new products, features, enhancements, special offers, upgrade opportunities, contests and events of interest. You may also later opt out of certain of these communications.

Translation : We mercilessly spam you for all we're worth to try and make a buck off of you.


Otherwise, EA uses personal and non-personal information, both individually and combined together, to better understand the behavior and preferences of our customers, to troubleshoot technical problems, to serve static and dynamic advertising, to enforce our Terms of Service, to ensure proper functioning of our products and services as well as to help improve them. In addition, we combine non-personal information with personal information, such as an email address, to administer loyalty programs, tailor our offerings, web pages or game play experience to you.


Targetted advertising. Catch you when you're weak , get you to buy something that's utter junk because they know you're into , say , star wars memorabelia. So they sell you a cool doll, or map , or book , and it's junk and falls apart a weak after you get it , and sorry no refunds thanks for the cash.


By playing an EA game through a social network or other third party platform or service or by connecting to such a third party network, platform or service via one of our products and/or services, you are authorizing EA to collect, store, and use in accordance with this Privacy Policy any and all information that you agreed the social network or other third party platform could provide to EA through the social network/third party platform Application Programming Interface (API) based on your settings on the third party social network or platform. Your agreement takes place when you connect with the third party network, platform or service via our products and/or services, and/or when you connect with, “accept” or “allow” (or similar terms) one of our applications through a social network, or other third party platform or service.
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EA will never share your personal information with third parties without your consent.


I love this combination. I see it everywhere.

They will never share your personal information without your consent. But by the way , by playing the game / using their product ? You consent to them doing this.


It goes on , and on , and on. But in the end the message of these terms is crystal clear.

They take whatever info they can. They use it however they like (usually to make a buck in advertising) and if you don't like it , get off the internet entirely because everyone else has the same terms and conditions.

Next time tells you "it's all spelled out in our terms and conditions" , you don't have to read them. You just have to remember "We do what we like and screw you buddy". It's much shorter and just as accurate.

Microsoft's Secure Boot Gambit

Article



1. Windows Secure Boot

Red Hat Engineer Matthew Garrett sounded the alarm bell this past week about Microsoft's plans for Windows 8. The upcoming Windows operating system will use the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) secure boot protocol in an effort to make Windows 8 more secure.

UEFI secure boot will require Windows 8 certified hardware vendors to digitally sign their hardware with keys to ensure that only signed applications can boot. That's a move Garret warned could severely impact the Linux ecosystem. Linux users might not be able to install or boot Linux on hardware that has been Windows 8 certified.

For the lay man , what does this mean ?

It means that if you want to run Windows 8 or higher on your computer, your computer must be built to run windows only , no other operating system will be permitted.

For most users, this really seems pretty harmless. Most users don't even know what an operating system is , let alone that there are many kinds, not just windows. But there is a hidden cost to this decision , that will hit them in the pocket book.


For technicians who know what they're doing , it means you will no longer be able to take a second hand machine and load it up with Linux. It will be locked to windows only. This is obviously intended to kill the Linux operating system , which is currently competing with Windows in many fields (databases, word processers etc) .

The part where you're locking out the competition is the part I was talking about for hidden costs. Now they can raise the prices and there's not much you can do because they have a monopoly.

However, I believe this will fail on several counts.

First you are enforcing a monopoly. You're not permitting people to put whatever operating system or software they like on their property. Thats not going to survive. Whatever copyright law that exists that enforces that is going to get altered after storm of public outcry.

That would be like saying you can only buy gas for your car at a special gas station , and no where else. And by the way the prices at the special gas station are triple that of anywhere else. Just because they can.

Second , you can't sue someone without actually being harmed by them. If I break the encryption on your hardware and put linux on my computer , I already paid for windows long long ago , you havn't been harmed by this action, you cannot sue.

This runs into problems with recent copy right legislation whereby breaking any digital lock , no matter how weak , is a crime. But I can see and end run around it (you broke the lock on your own door ? Who cares ? )

Again , a public outcry and you can bet any copy right legislation is going to be altered to allow you to do whatever you like with property you bought and paid for.

Third, microsoft already has one failed operating system. Vista. Flew like a lead brick. People wanted nothing to do with it, they wanted their XP machines, they just left it to die. People didn't want the new operating system and the limits it imposed under any circumstances. Sales dropped through the floor, and microsoft , starved for cash , had to relent.

They are risking the same fate with Windows 8 .

There is an upside to all of this.

More and more people are hearing the word Linux, and asking a few questions here and there. At least they know it exists now , instead of the strange attitude that all computers are windows computers.

An attitude they will lose when the price skyrockets.

Abbas asks UN for Palestinian 'freedom'

Article


Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has formally asked the United Nations to recognize Palestinians as a full member state, telling the General Assembly in New York on Friday that no one "with a shred of conscience" would reject the bid.

 So , I got two questions to ask. Maybe three.  Who is this guy ? How did he get elected , and arn't there a lot of terrorists over in Palistine ? Was it a real election or did the terrorists point guns at everyone and tell them vote for me or i shoot you !

Palestine (Arabic: فلسطين‎ Filastin/Filasṭīn/Falasṭīn/Filisṭīn),^[3][2][i] officially declared as the State of Palestine^[1] is a state that was proclaimed in exile in Algiers on 15 November 1988, when the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) National Council (PNC) adopted the unilateral Palestinian Declaration of Independence. At the time of the 1988 declaration, the PLO did not exercise control over any territory,^[4] and much of its claimed territory remains under Israeli occupation.^[5][6] It claims the Palestinian territories^[1] and has designated Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine,^[ii][2][3] despite Israeli control.


- wikipedia State of Palistine



So , a terrorist organization known as the Palistine Liberation Organization , with much blood on its hands, decided to declare a nation. Most of which was already part of some other nation (Jerusalem is part of Israel)




I can see why the Israeli's are upset already .

Ok. How valid is this "president's" election ?


Mahmoud Abbas (Arabic: مَحْمُود عَبَّاس‎, Maḥmūd ʿAbbās; born 26 March 1935), also known by the kunya Abu Mazen (Arabic: أَبُو مَازِن‎, Åbú Mázɩn), has been the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) since 11 November 2004 and became President of the Palestinian National Authority on 15 January 2005 on the Fatah (فتح Fataḥ) ticket.
Elected to serve until 9 January 2009, he unilaterally extended his term for another year and continues in office even after that second deadline expired


So we still don't know how valid those elections were, but we know his term of office is over. And he decided on his own to retain the title (being leader of a terrorist organization has it's perks) long after the term, extening it a few times and then not even bothering to extend it anymore , just self declaring himself some kind of president for life.

Speaking of elections. If some guy who's the leader of a terrorist organization and has been killing Israeli's for years suddenly declares him self president and holds elections ... who gets to vote ? You think all the Israeli's he's been killing will vote for him ? You think he'll even give them the right to vote ? And how's he setting up voting booths when the cops will arrest him and his people on sight  as terrorists ?

Obviously his election is entirely farcical.


In other words, a terrorist has declared himself president over some chunk of land he doesn't even have custody over , has zero mandate from any electorate over, and demands the UN recognize this.





Last time I checked, we shoot terrorists. We don't help them steal land from an ally and set up shop.

Cops promise more info after boy stunned by Taser

Article


PRINCE GEORGE, B.C. — The outside police force that cleared RCMP officers who used a Taser on an 11-year-old boy is promising to release more information about what happened.

So how big is this 11 year old child ? Precisely how big is the biggest 11 year old child you have ever seen ? Do you honestly think some cop couldn't smack down an 11 year old child no matter how enraged the kid may be ?




West Vancouver police concluded the officers acted reasonably and didn't break the law when they stunned a boy outside a care home in Prince George, B.C., in April.


Vancouver RCMP ? The same guys that tasered to death some polish guy at the air port and then were cleared of all hint of wrong doing ?


The more I hear about the antics of the Vancouver RCMP , the more I am convinced they are trying to give us all a message. And that message is ...

How to play online games on Rogers / Bell

CRTC tells Rogers to stop slowing down the speed of online games

Read more:

OTTAWA — Canada's telecommunications regulator on Friday gave Rogers Communications Inc., mere days to come up with a plan to solve a problem that could be unfairly slowing down the speed of online games.
In a letter to the telecom giant, the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission said the company's own traffic management policy states that online games, such as World of Warcraft, should not be throttled or slowed down, and would only be affected if Rogers misclassifies the games and other peer-to-peer applications were running at the same time.

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"We are currently getting reports from our members that Shaw customers are also affected by misclassification. The CRTC has also been aware for quite some time that Bell Sympatico members have also experienced similar problems," said Koblovsky.

So , how do you play your online games on these networks that are outright hostile to the activity. Oh they claim they want your business, they claim they're fixing it, but they want you to wait while they do this. And they want you to keep paying your monthly bill while they're fixing it , and you're getting poor service. 

The solution ? Switch providers. There are many many small local DSL internet providers that don't enact any kind of throttling of any sort. 

And, as an online gamer , I have to wonder. What use is Rogers if I can't play my favorite games on it ? What else to I use it for ? Surfing the net ? I can do that anywhere. You two Bell Sympatico. 

These two networks have suddenly stopped providing services that I need. At any price. It's no longer a matter of how much they charge. It's a matter of you aint getting it no matter what. . 

Time to switch.

Edit : Oh and seriously , stay away from Rogers. What is this nonsense that if you have bell , you can watch any TV show you like online, but if you have Rogers, you can't watch any rogers provided tv shows, because their internet and their television businesses would be competing with each other ? Thanks for telling me to stay the heck far away from rogers internet. 'Preciate that.

I do it for me

United States in last-ditch effort to set up Israeli-Palestinian peace talks

Article The United States, Europe and the Middle East quartet are engaged in a last-ditch effort to set up a fresh round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in an attempt to head off a major diplomatic embarrassment over the looming Palestinian request for recognition of statehood at the UN.

It will fail. It will fail for two reasons. One : Because they've been talking peace since 1948 , and not much has changed. and two :

Pretty picture. White woman . Unveiled. Very american. (Senator Hillary Clinton)

You sent a white woman with obvious western values to a place where woman are practically slaves .

The USA isn't making a serious effort at anything here. It's just a few politico's getting their pics in the news for a good but hopless cause, knowing they won't suffer for failure since everyone before them has failed as well.

Waste of our time.

Euro court rejects Inuit bid to challenge seal ban

Article


The European General Court, in a judgment released Wednesday, rejected a bid by Canada's largest Inuit organization to challenge the European Union's year-old trade ban on seal products.


Since when did permission to hunt seals to fulfill your tribes personal needs get transformed into permission to hunt the seals to extinction so you can sell the pelts to people on the other side of the world ?

Come on folks. You've either joined the modern age or you're living in igloo's with the eskimo's, but you can't have it both ways. If you're running a huge business, you're not native, you're not Inuit anything. You're a modern business man in a technological world.

And that means you gotta look at larger pictures, like not pissing off your customers, and like fending off the competition.

A good start would be some spy cams in the american cattle industry and show the world precisely what goes on in their slaughter houses. You thing beating baby seals to death is bad (they don't do that anymore , by the way, not in decades) wait until you get a load of that.

Quit ticking off your customers.
manage your herd so it doesn't get exterminated five years from now.
Rap on the competition a bit about their bad habits.

Understanding The Middle East

Two killed in Gaza after rocket hits Israel's Beersheba


The Israeli military has killed two Palestinians in Gaza Strip, one in an air strike and another as he approached the border fence, officials said.

Air force jets struck four sites in Gaza after Palestinians fired a rocket into the Israeli city of Beersheba.

Palestinian officials said one militant was killed and four people wounded, including a five-year-old boy.

Also on Tuesday, Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian man who entered a designated no-go zone along the border.

Palestinian sources said medics had retrieved the body of an 18-year-old civilian with multiple gunshots to the head and upper body.

An Israeli military spokesman said troops opened fire after the man had approached the buffer zone where militants frequently plant explosive devices.



So why are these people fighting ?

The answer is simple. Unpleasant , but simple. I really don't know why no one puts this in print but I guess I will.

Before the 1950's , before the invention of birth control , the world had a serious population control problem. A problem they had been living with for literally centuries. And how did they solve this problem , you may ask ?

They held summer wars.

They went to war with their neibours, and they pared off the population that way. And so the english and french had a hundred year war. And great britain drafted people off the street into their navy...yep. They deliberately went to war and killed each others young population off.

As Napolean once said , after witnessing a particularly brave charge by british troops into the teeth of french cannons "It was a beautiful thing that I saw. But it was not war. "

The middle east , locked into a religion that forbids birth control, already has a solution in hand for paring off their population. A solution they have used for centuries , and that works well , and that they see no need of changing.

Summer wars.

There will be no peace in the middle east. Not until they accept the pill or some other form of birth control. There's too many people and not enough food , and the rest is mere details.

Who hates who ? Who betrayed who ? Who shot first ? Not important. Not part of the equation.

Too many people , not enough food. Thats the problem.

North Korea seizes South's Mount Kumgang resort assets

Article



North Korea says it is seizing assets at a tourist site jointly operated with South Korea.

It has given South Koreans 72 hours to leave the resort at Mount Kumgang, which lies just inside North Korea.

The resort used to be a symbol of co-operation between the two Koreas and a key source of hard currency for Pyongyang.

But joint operations were suspended in 2008 after a South Korean tourist was shot dead by a North Korean soldier
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North Korea has been threatening action over Mt Kumgang for months, warning Seoul to restart the lucrative tours or lose its assets.
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It blamed the move on the South Korean government, saying it had ignored efforts to settle the issue through negotiations.


Sometimes , when you read a news article, you have to wonder whats going on in the head of certain people. They seem to have a wildly different point of view on human rights , for example.

You have a tourist resort, and you shoot one of the tourists. Of course the rest are going to leave and spread the word. What did you expect ?

Apparently , the North Korean Government expected them to come back and ignore the shooting. Apparently , they expected the south to herd them like chattel , into dangerous situations , and they simply don't understand why that isn't possible in a democracy.

It would seem the North literally doesn't care about the lives of ordinary humans. It sounds so trite and trivial , like a bad fairy tale. Like a plot line in a TV show thats been so over used you find it boring at not credible anymore.

But apparently , in the real world , the dictators of the planet arn't bored or finished with that plot line yet. It's still a favorite among them.

The Increadable Journey to Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

So , I have this lap top (Gateway model NCL20 , 4gig ram , 2x 1.3 GHz cpu's, 285g hard drive)

And I watch movies on it (mp4 files) sometimes at work late at night when things are quiet. And those movies stutter, and I mean a lot. And it's really annoying.

So I think to myself. This lap top has Windows 7 on it. The latest operating system from microsoft. And look at all the special effects. It's got to be a beast on the computer. If I were to put Linux on it , say Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (LTS = Long Term Stable ... they promise to keep supporting it for 3 years ) I could at least turn off stuff and it wouldn't stutter as much.

Now , before I go trashing my lap top , I did a couple of things first. One was to make sure I could find the windows back up disks I made. I aint toasting the thing if I can't put it back.

the second was a rather impromptu case study. What could I run on Ubuntu that wouldn't run on Windows ? What could I run on Windows that wouldn't .

In this case, my high priority applicatinos were games. Yeah I know , why games ? the answer is I'm a computer Tech. I get computers running. And now that we have a couple of computers running what are you going to do with them ? Yep. Play games. Someone else would load up accounting , or office stuff, but me ... my job is finished when you press the off / on switch and the thing turns on , so games it is.

and what games was I running on my lap top ?

Not a dang thing. The thing's graphics card didn't support very much at all. I just played video's when I was bored and listenned to music, and I already knew Ubuntu would do that.

And what could I run on Ubuntu ? There was a ton of free software that would cost hundreds of dollars , or more, to buy for windows. video Editing (just got a new video cam ..price is less than 100$ ) music editing (ok... gonna have to brush up on the guitar playing and the keayboard again ) all sorts of stuff .

Advantage : Ubuntu. At least for my lap top. For my desk top, Advantage : Windows. I'd lose my games and I aint doing that.

So I download the iso (disk image) for ubuntu 11.04 , which is in beta , and stick it in the disk drive, and reboot, select the dvd to be the boot device .... and nothing. Black screen. Give it 10 minutes. Not a dang thing.

Take the disk out , reboot , and up comes windows.

Ok, no damage done yet. Check windows ... figures. The lap top uses a 64 bit operating system and I'd tried to install a 32 bit operating system. *sigh*

The next day ... with the 64 bit version of 11.04 ... try it again !

Nothing. black screen.

Ok, there's an option to install ubuntu as an application , try that.

Permission denied.

I restrained the urge to throttle my computer.

So I have this old copy of ubuntu 9 kicking around , and I try that. And it installs and works beautifully. Wow.

except that ubuntu 9 is not supported, so it won't patch , it won't install additional programs , and by the way it doesn't recongize the network card so you can't get online.

Wonderful.

So I slip the windows seven restore disk in and away we go.

Restore failed. Didn't recognize the way the disk formatted.

*sigh*. I had a copy of XP at home, I could install that , let it reformat the disk , and then kill the install before it even finished, but I hadn't quite given up on Ubuntu yet.

Ubuntu 9 worked. so that meant ubuntu 11 beta was REALLY beta, as in buggy as all heck and probably the source of all my problems.  And looking on the ubuntu web page I see that the last stable version , the one with all the bugs worked out , is 10.04 LTS .

Down load the iso. download a special program that will install the iso on a memory stick (it's about 700 megabytes by the way, and it wipes any data on the memory stick ) and now I have a bootable memory stick.


Install that. Finally , the thing actually shows me more than a blank screen. I see it install , the network card works, it's a beautiful thing.

Now for the final part. The thing that started this journey.

I read on the ubuntu forums that the wind data stick I had would be automatically recognized and installed by 10.04 , even though it was normally a windows only device. Cool , I thought. (Huawei E181 Data Stick, proprietory to wind mobile)

Tried it out. Kicked it , tried a few things.

Finally. If you already are connected to the internet (through the regular network card) and stick the data stick in , It will search the internet automatically and find drivers , and the thing is up and running right away.

Except it has the wrong settings.

apn = broadband.windmobile.ca
pin = 0000
And leave any other fields blank.

And it works like a charm. And I'm online and everything.

And my movies still stutter.

Probably the dang cheap graphics card, the Intel one built into the motherboard. *sigh*. but I like Ubuntu , I like being immune to virii and stupid tool bars trying to auto install themselves , and every piece of mal ware in the world deciding your computer is their personal property. It's gotten so bad they now install stuff for firefox as well as internet explorer.

Well... my journey is done, and this old lap top is working once more.

Though no better than before.

Dang movies still stutter.

How Startrek should have ended

http://youtu.be/WbJ-y6BWfUc


I cracked up laughjing at the ending


And the starwars one. http://youtu.be/zzoeEdW-EDQ

Riots in Democracy

England riots: Weekend opening for riot courts


Courts in London and Manchester have opened over the weekend as the number of people charged for riot-related offences reaches more than 1,000.


Riddle me this , if you can.

Why do people riot in a democracy ? They have the vote, they have the right to peaceful assembly, these rights are protected , why the rioting ? And I'm not talking My Team Lost The Hockey Finals lets go riot for 4 hrs and then sneak out when everyone's sobre. Booze fueled sports fans are not the kind of riot we're looking at here. We're looking at stuff going on for over a week now.


The answer is ... wait for it...

They don't live in a democracy.

Think about it. Why are british sports fans banned so frequently from their "football" games (soccer to the rest of us) when they go international ? Because they riot. Why do they riot ? Because they live in a system where a dead end minimum wage job is all they can hope for. They are Peasants to the royalty, and no matter what trappings of democracy the country picks up, peasants they remain.

Alan Moore in his movie the Mindscape of Alan Moore talked extensively about his background growing up in england and the sense of absolute hopelessness , how one principle sent a letter around to all the schools and next thing you know he couldn't get a job anywhere decent, and he spent years in horrible jobs before he became a comic book artist and writer. He'd actually been a good student , but the school he'd gone to had been inferior and when he transfere3d to a real school he sank like a stone, unprepared for the higher standards.

why would anyone put their kids in a school designed to cripple them educationally ?

And now I see newspaper articles calling the rioters thugs and saying they should all be locked up , they're evil , etc etc etc.

You're going to lock up a large portion of the electorate ? In a democracy ?

Yeah. Um...hate to tell you this , that doesn't happen in a real democracy. That only happens in banana republics that make pretentions of democracy while oppressing their "electorate" in the most brutal fashion possible.

I think Jolly Olde England is back sliding into a Kingdom , and abandonning the few democratic ways it's picked up in the past century or two.

Off with the heads of those ruddy peasants ! We've had just about enough out of this lot !

USA Shed debt

U.S. debt vote highlights bitter divide


Now let me see if I understand the situation here.

Everyone and the dog bought up usa debt , and they're holding various treasury bonds that have a specific number of usa dollars on them. Say , 100$ bonds , as an example.

so , the USA decides it's spending too much money. More than it has. And it tries to cut back , but the two political houses fight and that doesn't happen, so they print more money.

And when they print more money , the value of the US dollar goes down.

so the 100$ treasurey bond you bought , is suddenly worth only 90% of what it was yesterday , even though it is still worth 100$ , those dollars are now smaller dollars so to speak.

And where did the 10% go ? The value that the bonds lost ?

Why , it's in the USA. The new money they printed has that 10%.

So , by printing more money , they have effectively "Shed" debt. Not payed it off, just dropped it in the trash like last weeks refuse.

And everyone in the world is holding those bonds , or at least their nations are.

so by printing more money, the USA has effectively reached into every bank account in the world and taken a little bit out, without bothering to ask anyone for permission. Because part of the value of *YOUR* currency is based on how many assets your nation has, and holding us debt is considered an asset. An asset that just shrank when the usa printed more money.

Welcome to world economics . Lesson 1: It's great to be the bench mark currency of the entire world.

Lets Start A Crusade Against Idiots

Norway attacks boost political parties' membership


All of Norway's main parties say they have seen a jump in membership since Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik killed 76 people last Friday in a bombing and shooting attack he saw as a "crusade" against Islam and multiculturalism.


He got 76 people ? And most of them I'm willing to bet are white caucasians ,not muslims , and he's on an anti-islam crusade ? Way to go , bozo. Shooting your own people because you're mad at someone else. (he shot up the Labour party for it's Treason, so he wasn't aiming specifically at middle eastern immigrants he shot anyone in the compound on the assumption they belonged to the labour party)



For Tunisian-born Norwegian Izzeddine al-Saweih, 57, change will not come soon enough.

"There has to be a debate on the right principles, an open debate, and Muslims must take part," he shouted at an outdoor gathering of Labor Party politicians in Oslo Thursday.

"The media writes a lot negative things about us, big and small. They put us under suspicion, and now we don't know our identity, despite us belonging to this land and its laws. Why?"


Could it be because you are part of a religion that has people shouting from the highest rafters that they want to kill all Infidels everywhere in the whole world ? I believe their exact words are "First the Saturday people, then the Sunday" (Saturday people = Jews, Sunday people = Christians)


(from the Quaran )
Fight against them until idolatry is no more and Allah's religion reigns supreme. (different translation: ) Fight them until there is no persecution and the religion is God's entirely. - Sura 2:193 and 8:39

Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it. - 2:216
(different translation: ) Prescribed for you is fighting, though it is hateful to you.

..... martyrs.... Enter heaven - Surah 3:140-43


You seriously need to disassociate yourself from these people if you want to avoid getting painted as just like them. The Catholic Church didn't get far with "Silent Consent" either.

You know what ? We need to start a crusade against idiots. Anders Behring Breivik is an obvious candidate , shooting up his own people because he disagrees with their policies. Hello ? Democracy ? Anyone ever hear about that thing ? People are allowed to hold different opinions than you , it's not supposed to be a death penalty.

As for Izzeddine al-Saweih, sorry buddy , but your religion openly has verses in it's holy book stating you got to go to war with the non believers whether you like it or not , and you're openly saying you believe in this religion. You're an idiot for thinking there are no consequences for that action.

And to all the other anti-muslim crazies out there , I have news for you. Not everyone in the world is a fanatic. If you read even the christian bible you'll see some rather outrages stuff (stoning people for working on the sabbath comes to mind ... so the cops can't stop a mugging on sundays? Sundays are a muggers delight ? I don't think so !)

Most people just want to get along with their lives with out any unnecessary drama , and they sign up for a religion just to avoid trouble , not because they actually believe. The world census states that there are several billion Muslims in this world, but really ? Are there ? How many signed up because someone held a gun to their head, or told them only Muslims are allowed to work at this job , or denied them services or payment until they converted ?

I think you're going to find that population wise, the number of true believing muslims is as few as the number of true believing christians.

And that means no going on a shooting spree. You want to beat this Islam threat thing, democracy and fair treatment of the population is the way to go. And thats what democracies are good for. And thats why Idiots like Izzeddine al-Saweih , despite his religious beliefs, should be treated fairly. Because odds are he's not interested in shooting anyone , he's just trying to hold down a job and feed his family. And such people are a benifit to most any society.

Cloud Computing

Microsoft: Cloud need only be open surface, not open source


Microsoft is more open — at least on the surface — and that’s all that matters in the cloud era, one company exec maintains.
At Oscon 2011, Gianugo Rabellino, Senior Director for Open Source Communities at Microsoft, said as long as the APIs, protocols and standards for the cloud are open, that is, open surface, customers don’t care about the underlying platform.


Being a huge computer nerd, and former computer programmer before all the programming jobs left town for china or other dollar a day countries, I have my opinions on Cloud Computing.

It's worthless.

Where to begin. What is Cloud Computing ?

Cloud Computing is a marketing term to take a very old idea , shine it up , and make it new and exciting. The idea itself is that all your data and computation goes on in some unspecified server on the other side of the world so you don't have to have big computers on site.

The problems are two fold.

First, you're no longer in charge of your data. It's now under the laws of some foriegn country that has a vested interest in letting it's home countries violate your privacy on a regular basis (Yes, I'm talking about the united states).

Second, computers are dirt cheap. So is storage space.

At christmas this past year I went and I bought a two tera byte (thats two THOUSAND gigabytes) drive that just plugs into my usb port on my computer. No special drivers or anything it just looks like a really REALLY big usb memory stick. It was about 120$ . Brand new.

I have a new lap top. Nothing special , it was 600$ brand new.

These prices may cause problems for a private individual , but we're talking shoe string budget for a start up business. A lap top and a back up drive and a desk in your basement and you're on your way here , no cloud computing required.


What exactly are you saving on , precisely , anyways ? Where's the benifit for you for going cloud ?

You can get free copies of office products ? Ever hear of open source ? They give away a copy of "Open Office" free these days. Word processer, spread sheet , the works. You wanna pay microsoft huge sums of money or you want the same thing for free ?

At most you'll need one computer with microsoft office on it for translation purposes for those die hard customers that demand you have everything they have (I've been on that treadmill before ...they upgrade, they scream at you for incompetence because you didn't upgrade ... then you wind up spending a fortune upgrading to get something that does no more than what you already had ... all so you can read stupid internal memo's ...bleh !)

Tech support ! They do your tech support for you !

Not these days. Every worker in your office still needs a desk and a computer , right ? You still got a lot of computers on site and they aint doing tech support for that. You're still hireing techies out of college or university or whatever to keep the place running. Exact numbers vary depending on whether people are just running word processers or doing something strange and weird on their computers. (I saw one place where there was one desk with a dozen computers and monitors, and one guy running the show ... lot of tech support needed for that one station ... lot of tech support)

Cloud computer is the old client server architecture and it died long ago for a very good reason. The price of computers dropped through the floor. It died, and it should stay dead.

Understanding the Honesty and Integridy of the Police Organizations

Stain From Tabloids Rubs Off on a Cozy Scotland Yard


LONDON — For nearly four years they lay piled in a Scotland Yard evidence room, six overstuffed plastic bags gathering dust and little else.


Yeah , it's too much effort to actually look at evidence.

Inside was a treasure-trove of evidence: 11,000 pages of handwritten notes listing nearly 4,000 celebrities, politicians, sports stars, police officials and crime victims whose phones may have been hacked by The News of the World, a now defunct British tabloid newspaper.

Defunct this very week , as the owner shut it down and tried to run and hide in an act of damage control.


During that same time, senior Scotland Yard officials assured Parliament, judges, lawyers, potential hacking victims, the news media and the public that there was no evidence of widespread hacking by the tabloid. They steadfastly maintained that their original inquiry, which led to the conviction of one reporter and one private investigator, had put an end to what they called an isolated incident.


"They steadfastly maintained..." has anyone ever dealt with the military ? Ever spent a summer in the militia ? One of the things the officers learn is leadership , which means speaking confidently to lead your troops and inspire them. Civilians , by the way , call this "lying through your teeth" .

It has been my experience most police organizations are built on military grounds. The problem is , unlike the military , when you lie to a private you can tell him to shut his mouth or he'll be horribly punished. When you lie to a civilian ... he generally makes a big stink about it.

These police have the wrong training , plain and simple. They're an organization tasked with finding the truth , and trained to lie.


After the past week, that assertion has been reduced to tatters, torn apart by a spectacular avalanche of contradictory evidence, admissions by News International executives that hacking was more widespread, and a reversal by police officials who now admit to mishandling the case.

Yep. Thats what generally happens.

why is this relevant ? Because police officers receive more or less the same training all across western society. And certain jail block video cams in ottawa , along with a dead polish guy at the vancouver air port , are giving impressive proof that it seems to be the same problem everywhere.


Assistant Commissioner John Yates of the Metropolitan Police Service publicly acknowledged that he had not actually gone through the evidence. “I’m not going to go down and look at bin bags,” Mr. Yates said, using the British term for trash bags.


After saying you were doing every thing possible you are now desgusted at the suggestion that you might have to do your job and go through some evidence, likening the process to rooting through the trash.

If you don't want to do your job , why are you still employed at it ?


At best, former Scotland Yard senior officers acknowledged in interviews, the police have been lazy, incompetent and too cozy with the people they should have regarded as suspects. At worst, they said, some officers might be guilty of crimes themselves.

“It’s embarrassing, and it’s tragic,” said a retired Scotland Yard veteran. “This has badly damaged the reputation of a really good investigative organization. And there is a major crisis now in the leadership of the Yard.”


There we go with that "leadership" term again. He means military leader ship , which civilians call "lying through your teeth". And he's suggesting that they return to their roots and show more leadership.

ha ha ha. It's so funny it's sad.


The testimony and evidence that emerged last week, as well as interviews with current and former officials, indicate that the police agency and News International, the British subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and the publisher of The News of the World, became so intertwined that they wound up sharing the goal of containing the investigation.


The police got cooped by the business men. Who weild substantial political power in the form of donations made to politicians. And the politico's , of course, yank the polices chains and get them to cooperate ... fascinating how the political angle of all of this gets ignored. Or are the British Bobbies that easy to bribe ?

Scotland Yard’s new inquiry, dubbed Operation Weeting, has led to the arrests of a total of nine reporters and editors, with more expected. And the police have opened another inquiry into allegations that some officers were paid for confidential information by reporters at The News of the World and elsewhere.


Apparently they are. I'm impressed by the display of "Leadership" these people are displaying.


The Metropolitan Police itself is now the subject of a judicial inquiry into what went wrong with their initial case, as well as into the ties between the department’s top officers and executives and reporters for News International.


I'll tell you what went wrong. They were trained to be soldiers , who routinely lie to their troops , tasked with the job of finding truth , and then set loose among a civilian population where getting caught lying isn't something you can bury with a few threats.

Wrong training. Wrong structure. Wrong organization.


It was not until last autumn that the police were forced to confront their own mistakes. By then, they were facing an escalating stream of requests by people who suspected that their phones might have been hacked. Two dozen people had also brought civil cases against News International, and that compelled the police to release information from Mr. Mulcaire’s files.


And this is the crux of the matter. Only when they couldn't hide it any more, only when it became blindingly obvious that their lies were no longer being believed, did the police decide to come clean.

Make no mistake about this. They don't believe they did anything wrong , leadership wise. They fully beleive that lying their behinds off is part of their job, and they are completely ruthless about it. And they have no intention of stopping.

The western nations have deliberately trained up and created a set of organizations that are trained to lie , and trained to fight, and then set them loose among the civilians they are supposed to protect.

This is the nature of all police forces, and indeed any organization with military training , any organization that uses the word "leadership" in a military fashion.

And when you understand this , then you will understand the Honesty and Integrity of all police organizations.

In the same fashion as a polish imigrant in the vancouver airport did.

In the same fashion as a woman in ottawa who was falsely accused of public drunkenness (they never found the bottle) thrown in the cell block , and then sexually assaulted in front of the cameras. Not by a single rogue officer, but by a gang of them that honestly believed it was their right to do this , they don't believe they did anything wrong.

This is their Honor, and their legacy.

Obama, lawmakers press ahead for elusive debt deal

article


(Reuters) - President Barack Obama and congressional leaders pressed ahead with private talks on deficit reduction on Saturday, seeking an as-yet-elusive way to lift the debt ceiling and avoid a U.S. default next month.


Ah , good old America, my most favorite country that I've never set foot in. Only in America do you elect a leader , and then black mail him with bankrupting the country so that he has to do what the opposition wants.

I'm sorry , was it Obama who got elected ? , or the republics that want to cut social spending but the people of privilege lose nothing ?

Anyways, ignoring the internal politics, it is obvious the Americans will not be able to get a hold of their current ballooning economic crisis , and they will in a little while be de-listed as the bench mark currency that the world pegs it's other currencies against.

Time to batten down the hatches and start investing in things people have to have no matter what. Shoes, grocery stores, people always have to eat , right ? Even in hard times ? Yeah. Time to attach yourself to some industry that isn't going to sink.

Bell Canada pays $10M over misleading ads

Article



In one example provided by the Bureau, Bell's website advertised a bundle for home phone, internet and TV services starting as low as $69.90 per month. The lowest possible price, after the mandatory fees, was $80.27, or 15 per cent higher.

Customers purchasing any of the services individually were also faced with the same misleading information, as additional fees were excluded from those advertised prices as well, the bureau said.


I found out all about extra fee's on Rogers as well. Did you know if your balance doesn't reach zero for a few months they tack on an extra 25$ a month ? I thought I was paying my bill off and then some, but because of this extra fee I was actually slipping farther and farther behind...

Bell wouldn't turn off the internet , so I had to buy a stupid 7$ / month internet fee for a connection that was totally worthless and not actually useable. If you had a data phone you were forced to take a data plan you could't turn it off.

Their cheap phone broke , and I still had to pay the monthly fee for four months while they took three tries to repair it.

They cut a hundred bucks off the price of the phone. In exchagne for making me sign a three year contract.

Yeah ... I've dealt with Bell before. And Rogers.

Never again.

edit : forgot to mention the oldest trickin the book used by both bell and rogers. You have 30 days to change your mind and cancel their services without being bound by their contracts. But it's usually closer to 60 days before you receive the first bill and find out about the extra charges that cannot be avoided.

Plus they make you stand in line to sigh up and shove a six page contract thats all fine print and demand you sign immediately while there's 10 people behind you impatiently waiting ...

How do these people get repeat business ? I can understand you were tricked the first time , but why do people go back ?

EA must die! Several reasons why EA is bad for gamers and the art of gaming.

One of the most amusing things you can do with a blog is find some artical that you totally disagree with , and tear it apart paragraph by paragraph. The blog in question where the artical was posted won't let you post on them , of course, but still , you can do it on your own and then just drop links everywhere.

http://www.gamespot.com/users/Lucavix/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25672615


Have you ever heard of the series Dungeon Keeper? Dungeon Keeper was a Bullfrog Studio's creation that was a cult hit in 1995-97. In 1999 Dungeon Keeper 2 made the game entirely 3D, and it still looks acceptably good by today's standards. The game was known for it's wickedly dark humor, it's interesting cast of creatures and heroes, it's humorous parodies, and it's dark yet fun atmosphere.

I played dungeon Keeper. Even in it's heyday it was a mediocre at best game. The reversal of playing the dungeon full of evil monsters instead of the hero's trying to fight their way in was interesting at first , but it didn't translate well into a game. And you can only slap chickens so many times before you become bored of it.

Dungeon Keeper 2 ended with a teaser for Dungeon Keeper 3, but Dungeon Keeper 3 was canceled. Because EA had limited sales of Dungeon Keeper 2 after their hostile acquisition of Bullfrog Studios, Dungeon Keeper 2 never generated enough revenue and most people obtained it through piracy. Dungeon Keeper 3 was considered too risky, and it was literally cancelled to free up the studio and funding for Harry Potter - Quidditch. This is but one reason EA is bad for the industry, but oh there are more. So many more.

I'm not following your logic. The game lost money , they stopped producing the series. Thats not "bad for the industry" , thats good. People vote with their pocket books, and they voted that game out.


I have no doubt the piracy issue could be fixed (most games require you to log on and registure before you can play them , thus getting rid of piracy and explaining why mmo's are so popular) but if the game was losing money , no one really wanted it anyways. I know I don't miss it.

Westwood Studios, responsible for such games as Command and Conquer: Renegade (believe it or not that game did very well online) fell into EA's clutches with it's ambitious Space MMO Earth and Beyond. Having the server power to host such a game, EA used Earth and Beyond to ensnare Westwood Studios. EA then moved on to lock Westwood out of making decisions effecting the game, and slowly destroyed it. All plans for PvP introduction, extended career paths, and so on were canceled, and then EA moved to cancel the game and abolish Westwood Studios. Earth and Beyond players had their accounts deleted, and critics often allege that the entire purpose of EA's acquisition of Earth and Beyond was to eliminate Westwood Studios as competition. But wait, trust me, there's much much more.

A nice conspiracy theory. Maybe even a few hints of truth. But Command and Conquer was a StarCraft rip off from the get go , and inferior in every respect (I've played both). The only thing that game ever did for me was convince me to go back to starcraft.

Played that horrible World of Warcraft clone Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning yet? It didn't start off the horrible unoriginal mess it is, it was initially an incredibly ambitious project and a full PvP experience that was supposed to cut out grinding all together. Electronic Arts thought the project was too ambitious, and forced Mythic Entertainment to go a different rout, copying World of Warcraft. EA then began cutting funding and putting increased pressure on Mythic Entertainment, eventually forcing Mythic to release Warhammer Online unfinished, with several playable classes removed. EA then moved to sell back the cut and unfinished content in an expansion pack. But wait, there's more.

Except that the "full pvp" experience generally alienates 90% of your paying customers , as they found out the hard way when Ultima Online first came out. After which you're desperately trying to salvage something by making an imitation game ... yeah it needed to die. Full pvp games have been tried, and have died for good and proper reasons.

Played the Sims lately? How about The Sims 2? Did you find it suspicious that after fleecing you on expansion packs for the Sims, they reset it all with the Sims 2 and began the cycle again? Now they're doing it with The Sims 3, which is actually a good game (that one out of ten EA games worth playing) but they're already going expansion crazy. This time with Micro Transactions but rest assured a full fledged Expansion pack in already in the works and will also come with a swath of "Pay to Access" content. Unfortunately for EA this financial model encourages piracy, and many gamers including legitimate customers who actually purchased The Sims 3 have already downloaded all of the Pay to Access content via third party sites.

Everyone is experimenting with pay to play (except TOR) in various forms.
And having seen wow with half the guild members at max level , maybe resetting it all when starting a new game is the way to go. Certainly the lower levels wouldn't be so completely empty any more.


And the phrase "financial model encourages piracy" is just blaming the rape victem for getting raped. It's a complete non starter. Pay these people to make games, or they will stop making them. It's just that simple.

Moral Outrage is not the only reason Spore is the most pirated and boycotted game ...

Due to moral outrage ,you will now commit immoral acts , like theft. Oh thats a good argument.

Moral Outrage is not the only reason Spore is the most pirated and boycotted game of all time though. With Spore EA decided to introduce invasive DRM policies, that limited Spore to three installations. This punishes legit gamers but it doesn't punish Pirates, who never have to suffer the effects of DRM. With no warning, EA also slips SecuROM onto people's computers, and while this doesn't cause problems most of the time it is known to make CD/DvD Drives, particularly writable drives, to stop reading properly. In fact, it's known to disable drives all together sometimes, though this is rare. My only experience with SecuROM causing me problems was when I tried to play the old game Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic. For some reason SecuROM seemed convinced I was using a virtual mount even after I had installed the game, and I was forced to download the version of the 1.3 patch that disabled the need for a CD check. Others have reported similar issues with other games, but the problem isn't so much with SecuROM, it's that EA installs SecuROM without warning or permission, which brings up a whole lot of legal issues. Since SecuROM has been stripped from most pirated copies of Spore, it also encourages Piracy. But wait, there's more.

This I will grant you. Loading up my computer with buggy software to crash it is now stepping into the territory of the virus writer. I don't care what you put in your end user agreement, I want that piece of crap off my computer and I don't want your games under any circumstances.

That being said, there must be a dozen different ways of securing a program from piracy , in this internet age, without having to load anything even remotely like malware on your computer. MMO's do it all the time. And new games typically are written with some kind of link to the internet so you have to have an account so you can't steal it. Think pokemon, essentially a single player game , but if you want to trade pokemon with other players ...

EA bought up exclusive rights to the NFL, no other gaming company can make an NFL game now. Without competition, EA released the same game over and over again with very minor alterations, often quite literally keeping all the same gameplay bugs with each season. Most gamers aren't football fans, I know, but this is an example of what EA does to the industry. It monopolized the NFL license and has since driven it into the ground.

A better explanation would be they bought up the rights to a game no one wants to play. Lets face it. Gamers want to kill dragons ,not toss around a pig skin. And most people who do like foot ball would rather watch reruns of the game and drink beer than fiddle with a joy stick. Or better yet, go play flag foot ball. Who really plays sports games anyways ? The used game shelves are full of them , meaning whoever actually buys one dumps it fairly quickly . How about the game flopped because it had no market ?

I'm not saying EA is a saint.
But I'm not saying it's a monster either.
EA is a business. It makes games. And if you want those games, they have to stay in business. And that means you have to pay up. This crap about "I'm committing piracy because I'm morally outraged .." is crap of the worst sort. Don't buy their games is your option. Maybe even protest their games. But don't steal them. That's you making up excuses for your crimes. That isn't moral anything.

It's just crap.

The Real G20 Criminals

Toronto police and their partner police forces during the G20 summit were sometimes overwhelmed and caught flat-footed by the "scope and intensity" of the "sustained, serious, and widespread criminality and public disorder" they faced, an internal force after-action review admits.

Postmedia News obtained an advance copy of the 70-page document, which was posted late Thursday afternoon on the police website.

The report, written by unidentified senior Toronto officers and civilians who reviewed extensive video footage and police files, paints a terrifying, almost minute-by-minute portrait of the modern mob in full throttle.

"Last June, we saw levels of violence we had never seen before in Toronto," Bill Blair, the city's police chief, says in a brief forward. "This report takes a hard look at what happened. Many things we did very well.

"Some things we did not."

Read more: http://www.canada.com/news/Police+overwhelmed+intensity+violence+Report/4995817/story.html#ixzz1Q8lP5s6d



Ok. So , what were these people rioting against ? Communists ? Dictators ? Who ? Who is this nefarious G20 that has incurred so much anger ?


http://www.g20.org/about_what_is_g20.aspx

The Group of Twenty (G-20) Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors was established in 1999 to bring together systemically important industrialized and developing economies to discuss key issues in the global economy. The inaugural meeting of the G-20 took place in Berlin, on December 15-16, 1999, hosted by German and Canadian finance ministers.


So the g20 are a bunch of elected ministors of democratic governments. And you are protesting against them ... why ?

You don't have a why. I have seen the reports on the way up to the summit , and after. Some organization for the poor wants money. Two idiots who think they're terrorists bombed a bank machine (bank machine , banker , finance minister ...you're destroying private property to protest a governments actions, and you don't even say which actions) in ottawa before the summit.

This riot had nothing to do with banking. It has to do with people trying to steal the stage for their own causes. Any stage. And these things always turn violent.

I give a little blame to Harper for deciding to hold an event with a history of violence in the down town core of any major city. I love the conservatives, but that was a real bone head move.

I give a little more blame to the police for acting under trying circumstances. It seems when the stress is on , we get to see their true colors, and that color is pretty ugly looking, and someone needs to start thinking about fixing that problem up before comments about Canada's police state stop being an exaggeration and start being truthful. Forbidding them to confiscate cameras and recorders would be a good beginning.

But mostly I blame the wacked out anarchists who live to start a riot over anything. The idiots who showed up to protest ...what ? Bankers are evil ? Do you have any specifics ? Or did you just sort of hear that somewhere and decided it sounded good ? Do you even know what you are protesting ? No. You're just stealing someone elses spot light for your own needs.

I blamed the wacko's for this fiasco. Couple of other groups helped , and should be taught not to help, but mostly , I blame the wacko's. Those are the real G20 criminals.

Anti- Islam Lawmaker Aquitted

Dutch far-right member of parliament Geert Wilders was acquitted of all charges in his hate speech trial in Amsterdam. Judges found the populist politician’s comments against Islam may be offensive to many, but that they fall within the scope of protected free speech.


Wasnt there a captured training manual from the terrorists that said they were to assassinate any politicians that are against their cause ?

And they already killed that cartoonist.

While I do not agree with Wilders crude style and certainly not all that he says, I cannot help but think he's about to get "taken out".

Which will only make a martyr out of him.

An Anti-Islamic Martyr.

And so the world goes on in it's insanity...

iPhones spy on their users

Phone Data Used to Fill Digital Map

SAN FRANCISCO — You may not know it, but if you carry a smartphone in your pocket, you are probably doing unpaid work for Apple or Google — and helping them eventually aim more advertising directly at you.

As those two companies battle for dominance in mobile computing, they have increasingly been using their customers’ phones as sensors to collect data about nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi hot spots.

A program that you dont want doing stuff to help someone else , running on your equipment , is considered mal-ware. (virus or trojen) and should be removed.

So when exactly did Apple gain the right to put mal-ware on the devices it's selling to you ?




Google and Apple use this data to improve the accuracy of everything on the phone that uses location. That includes maps and navigation services, but also advertising aimed at people in a particular spot — a potentially huge business that is just getting off the ground. In fact, the information has become so valuable that the companies have been willing to push the envelope on privacy to collect it.

Loosely translated : We can make money at this , so to heck with the customers were actually selling equipment to.



The use of this data by the companies has been under scrutiny since last week, when two technology researchers reported that a file stored on many iPhones and iPads keeps track of all the locations visited by a user. The file is unencrypted and is copied to people’s personal computers when they sync their devices.

Ever get the feeling you're being watched ? Do you mind that the next time the super attendant changes the light bulb in your bathroom he puts in one that tracks everyone's movement in there ? Really , it only uses a little extra electricity but it's worth so much money to people with certain ... tastes....


Ok, maybe a tasteless comparison , some would say. But certain things are indisputable. Advertising works. Otherwise they wouldn't be spending so much money on it. And Advertising makes you buy stuff you really shouldn't buy , so you can consider it a hostile activity.

And helping to construct an advertising system that's going to be aimed directly at you , using your equipment , and not telling you about it ... thats hostile. We have enough junk mail in our in boxes (and in our real mail boxes) We don't need to add to the load we need to subtract from it.

But they have decided there's money to be made , so they're gonna sneak this in and hope no one notices.

Just like a virus writer does.

And for exactly the same reasons too.

News or Propaganda ?

Liberal health care ads may be working


Liberal attack ads warning that the Conservatives harbour a secret agenda to cut health care funding appear to be having their intended affect.

A new poll that looks at how Canadians view the leadership abilities of those running for prime minister suggests that voters’ assessments of Stephen Harper have dropped since the Liberals went negative in their television advertising this weekend.

The survey of 400 voters conducted Saturday for Nanos Research, indicates that the Conservative Leader’s numbers on the leadership index score fell to 91.6 from 105.4.


In the globe and mail they ran a "news" article. And I question the news part significantly. The article basically picked a poll of 400 voters (a thousand is considered the requirement for reasonably accuracy) and trumpeted the results as if it were indisputable and inevitable victory for the Liberals.

What they should have done is lamented that dirty tricks like spinning baseless conspiracy theories have no place in an election.

What they should have done was point out the sample size of the poll was too small.

what they should have done was at least point out the poll is considered accurate to + or minus X % 19 times out of 20 , but they skipped that.

What they did was trumpet it as an inevitable victory for the Liberals , and made no attempt to paint the Conservatives as anything but villians secretly trying to destroy canada.

The Globe and Mail is not a neutril bystander. They have quite obviously picked a side.

And that is the true tragedy here.

This newspaper isn't selling us news anymore. It's now preaching and propagandizing to us , and expecting us to pay for it.