If I run a business and pay for health care for my employees, can I choose not to pay for blood transfusions for employees? What if I think blood transfusions are wrong?

I agree with parent's last paragraph. Health insurance is a form of payment, employers should have no say whatsoever.

You may have been confused by the naming. The city of Vancouver, BC is not on Vancouver island, it is on the mainland. You can see Vancouver island from parts of the city however.

Alot of things are named Vancouver in that region, including Vancouver, WA, all named for the famous explorer George Vancouver. Understandably it leads to some confusion.

Oops, accidental mod. Good point. In Canada flu shots are convenient and free, and most people still do not get them.

You can already get what is basically the Galaxy S3 with Windows Phone, its called the Samsung Ativ S. I think Samsung makes it as a concession to Microsoft, as they seem to sell very few of them. I would love to see smartphones become more PC-like, with multiple OSs available on each model and more hardware standardization, so custom ROMs become simpler.

I'm pretty sure Microsoft means this as a one-way-street, though, don't expect to see a Lumia running Android any time soon. Too bad, the Lumia product line had excellent hardware (I bought a 620 for a Mac-user non-techie family member's first smartphone, we're both extremely happy with it) and I even came to like some things about the OS. However, WP is such a loser in the market that going exclusive killed Nokia.

Its actually a little worse than that, not a single WP7 handset could be upgraded to WP8. In fact MS' requirements called for single-core processors only for WP7, and only dual-core for WP8, so any upgrade is impossible by definition.

I think Windows 8 is actually worse than Vista, in the sense that it won't be fixed because Microsoft does not want to fix it.

Vista was fine in concept, just incredibly buggy and half-baked when it was released. The SP1 update was a major change to the kernel and was the first version that was mostly usable.

Windows 8 just has a terrible concept for the UI and they're running with it. I've followed the 8.1 changes and they are mainly focused on improving the Metro part of it. Granted, the Metro stuff needs work as it is absolutely terrible, hands down the worst touch OS out there, but basically no one cares as no one is buying Windows 8 tablets. If you use the desktop, 8.1 brings boot-to-the-desktop and basically nothing else.

The best case is that the major pushback makes them reconsider, and make Metro optional. I think they actually truly believed the whole world would follow them to the Windows App store and Metro apps, and the desktop would just be a legacy mode needed for Win8, probably to be gone in Win9.

After seeing your anonymous posts in this story, I have to agree with whoever banned your account. You sound like a damaged person who is not capable of contributing to this or any other discussion.

No, the ACs are absolutely right. Your posts are vacuous and insulting. You should be modded down so other readers don't waste time on your tantrums.

And now the Zune hardware and online service have been replaced by Xbox music, which despite the name has nothing really to do with the Xbox. I've been listening to it on my Windows 8 install as you get to listen to a certain amount for free.

There's nothing really wrong with it, it has a good selection of popular music and seems to work. It is however only available on Windows 8 and Windows. It's also identified on your metro start screen as "music" and a solid green square, so even people who use Windows 8 (the few, the proud, etc.) can be forgiven for not knowing it exists.

Not really. The Canadian Telecom sector is similar to the American one, except a bit worse in every way. As in the US, unless you go with a MVNO (reseller) you pretty much get screwed over by the cabal's conspiracy of crappiness. Even the MVNO's are not ideal, as they are the same thing but cheaper, and the cabal is still getting your money.

I also find it abit ethically problematic to reward someone financially for this kind of recording. I also this its a waste of money to pay for this video because:

1) The public discussion of the video has already been as bad as the release would have been. His reputation is so bad that even his supporters don't find these crack allegations farfetched. It's already been reported that he is an alcoholic, and he has ruined his reputation by being drunk and abusive in public. My opinion of Ford did not decrease at all when I heard of this video as it was already at rock bottom.

2) Ford has very little actual power as mayor, basically he just gets one vote in council and is in a position to influence the other councillors. Ford was already isolated on council before the crack story came out, making him a lameduck mayor for the rest of his term. For example, just recently the council voted 'no' to a downtown casino, something the mayor himself wanted. Politcally he is not likely to cause any more damage.

That said, the Rob Ford Crackstarter is at $137 000, I have a feeling we will all get to see the video some day.

I wrote "and" instead of "not", reversing the meaning of my comment. Just to be clear, all the people who have expressed interest in buying this video want to upload it to the web for all to see. Rob Ford has no reason to buy the video at this point as all the discussion has been practically as damaging as the release of the video would be.

This scenario is more like the opposite of blackmail. If they aren't paid then they will keep the video secret. It would be blackmail if they tried to sell it to Ford himself, and to people who want to put in on the web.

Funny how you don't actually discuss any data. That was the whole fucking point of this post, that the data and the opinions of the majority of scientists both agree.

I'm sure it's just a wild coincidence, though. Why don't you explain your argument so we can pick it apart?

I'm guessing it goes a little something like this: "I have shit for brains and lead in my ass, and I will never inconvenience myself to prevent any kind of problem."

Actually, there is quite a bit new in mechanical engineering. You may not be aware of these advances because these things to do not necessarily translate into consumer products or marketing, despite the fact that they solve useful problems and improve our lives.

In materials we have composites, which are extremely strong for their weight. Tough to design, though. Like computing, this started around the 60s and has become more and more sophisticated. The Boeing 787 and other planes use modern composites to greatly reduce weight and save fuel. We have much better steels and other metals than a generation ago, for example google dual phase steels.

Biomedical engineering is mostly mechanical engineering; it involves the design of medical implants. Modern materials can make stronger and lighter replacement bones such as hips. Artificial organs are on the horizon, a real artificial heart has been built and used successfully.

In fluids, we have much better and more optimized airplanes. With computers and the Finite Element Method (FEA), aerodynamics has become much more quantifiable and less model testing is needed. I'm actually glad that aircraft have not been sold at the amateur, consumer level. The way people drive in North America, flying cars would end our so-called civilization. Fluids has also helped design more efficient engines and generators.

All the things I mention solve real problems, and may be classified under the umbrella of mechanical engineering. Its a broad field, so abit hard to define, but in my view anything that requires non-trivial application of mechanics, materials, or thermodynamics can be called mechanical engineering.