Given that he can't be re-elected no matter how well or poorly he performs ... no, no one you can hold accountable.

And my other link got squashed. Another time chip-and-pin was discussed here.

Why do you think chip and pin would be an update to security practices? We've had that discussion before. Multiple times. It's more security theatre, and I doubt that this attack would have been much more difficult to co-ordinate with chip/pin cards.

Have you seen some of the real stop signs out there? I'd say many of them were arbitrarily placed by untrained, though authorized, personnel. Seriously, most of them could be replaced with yield signs, which is what they effectively are since few people do more than roll through them, and allow our traffic enforcement to focus on issues that might actually make a difference.

Until this got leaked out into the public sphere, they were gagged by the same surveillance orders. They couldn't say anything without admitting they were served with secret subpoenas. Now that this is public knowledge, they can refer to those that were leaked and say this is bad for business/citizens without breaking the law on any further subpoenas.

So, maybe they didn't care. Or maybe they did and just couldn't say anything about it due to the same evil law. From this vantage point, we still can't tell for sure.

I don't get it. Why do they need to change around the cause? Is it to make it more plausible or something?

You're talking about a superhero. There's nothing you can do to make that plausible. However, there is a lot you can do to screw with your most loyal fanbase, the fanboys who know the story better than you do. So, really. Just don't.

What you're still missing is that if you do not have fear of someone wielding a knife at you menacingly, either you're Jean-Claude Van Damme, or you're irrationally not in fear.

I know my reflexes are not fast enough to avoid a knife. To me, there's not a significant difference here.

Yes, if the person is 30 feet or more away, a gun is far more menacing. But inside that threat range, there's not a significant difference. Which is why police officers are trained to treat a knife-wielding person within 21 feet (or maybe a bigger circle) as if they were immediately beside them. And why "paranoid" people will carry a gun so that if they're threatened from that larger distance they stand a reasonable chance of survival.

I think you underestimate knives.

The major difference is that you will live in abject horror for a little while longer, and then slowly bleed to death, when confronted by a madman with a knife.

If someone intent on harming you with a knife is 21 feet away from you, and you have a holstered gun, you stand a pretty good chance of being dead.

I think you may be overestimating your ability to defend yourself should someone try and physically attack you.

So, you're justifying preferential treatment for women to gain "equality" on... let's see now ... the fact that men and women are different?

Ok, so men and women are different. Remind me again why they should be treated the same?

Instead, I would suggest that we, as a society, should embrace our differences. As long as jobs are given to those who best have the skills for them, who cares if one job category hires predominantly men or predominantly women? And as long as the pay is what the market will bear, which is necessarily influenced (but not dictated) by how difficult it is to procure people with the appropriate skills, who cares if one gender is paid more than the other?

I suggest that by removing quotas and other artificial barriers to people embracing their talents and skills we may end up with a more equitable and happier society, though we won't end up with equal pay across the board because people are different.

By the way, this would also mean that jobs with physical requirements (soldier, police, fire) would not be allowed to have different entrance requirements based on the applicant's gender. However, they can have different entrance requirements based on the job to be performed. A beat cop may require more physical strength than a detective, for example. An analyst may not require any physical attributes, only mental skills, so it doesn't matter if s/he is a 400lb gorilla of a person, as long as they can analyse appropriately as per their actual day-to-day job requirements. And some of those may pay better, and get more women, than some of the more physical jobs. And a firefighter needs to be able to carry a 250lb person over their shoulder out of a burning building, regardless of their height (obviously, taller/bigger people can do this easier, which naturally makes it harder for average women to perform this duty, but that's biological, not discriminatory).

"Legible" may be sufficient at Podunk University/College/Pub, but in the Ivy League, you better have everything perfectly pristine using ink made of virgin's blood on 30lb paper stock with a brightness rating of no less than 110.

Personally, my professors were fine with chicken scratch, and bonus points for chicken blood, too.

Note that "not resuscitate" and "not using medical devices" are already legal. So is "sufficient pain medication to keep pain at bay, even though it may end my life earlier than not using it." Meanwhile, things like "starving to death" (withholding food, water), which, I'm told, is much more tortuous, or KCl, are not legal, as they have no purpose other than causing death, and, in the case of food, is not considered "extraordinary" effort - because we all eat, every day (for most of us), that's quite ordinary. Most of the discussion about assisted suicide is already moot, because a) it's legal, and b) it's not suicide (refusing extraordinary care is already legal).

I would suggest that emphasising, and strengthening, normal palliative care, would take care of almost all "assisted suicide" requests. Education about what are already legal options would then neuter most of the assisted suicide arguments, especially the ones that seem to be most persuasive.

Writing grant proposals is my hobby, you insensitive clod!

No, not everybody is covered in Canada.

You have to prove residency. Some people, especially the homeless, don't. (Though even the homeless can - they have to simply jump through hoops not dissimilar to those proposed by your Republicans for voter identification - which also is not a problem in Canada, I don't understand what your Democrats have against it.)

I also have lifetime and yearly caps on my employer-provided insurance in some areas (orthodontics, off the top of my head, would be the first one).

And health issues is the third leading cause of bankruptcy even in Canada. Sorry to burst that bubble. As to the question of dying due to breast cancer, or, really, any cancer, because they can't afford insurance? I don't have anything directly relevant, but given that people do file bankruptcy over health issues, I'd say the answer is probably yes. In fact, since cancer treatments likely involve expensive drugs, and drugs aren't covered by provincial plans, but by your private insurance, I'd say that it's almost impossible for people not to be dying in Canada due to being unable to afford insurance. And "thinking you're insured" only to have the insurance company deny the claim is not unique to the US, either. It happens even here in Canada, for the same reason: it's profitable to let people die.

Seriously, Canada simply is not all sunshine and light, it's not a magical land of milk and honey. We don't have the magical answers. Our governments are struggling with huge healthcare costs that are spiralling out of control, and are looking to divest themselves from as much health care as possible while still claiming to have that mythical "universal health care" (which, as I stated earlier, we don't actually have).

It's universal only in that even if you had enough money to pay for your procedure and the next person's procedure, you still can't get the line moving any faster. The rich and the poor have the same waiting period for procedures that are covered by the province. Only procedures that are not covered (orthodontics, vision, dentistry) generally move quickly.

You're entertainingly deluded if you think Canada is a single-payer system.

We have a tiered healthcare system, it's just that most people don't seem to acknowledge it.

I have partial coverage from my province. I have partial coverage from my employer. And I cover the rest out of pocket.

My mother-in-law, having turned 65, but is still working, has even more payers: the province, her employer's health care coverage, the provincially-mandated health care coverage (different pocket, not sure if she pays for it or not), and then the rest out of pocket.

There are health-related items that are fully covered by provincial plans, some that are partially covered, and many that are not covered at all. For the last two categories, private health insurance can cover all, some, or none of the extra costs. If you have multiple health insurance providers (e.g., two different employers for a household, usually they cover the employee and their spouse and kids, so you have two insurances covering the household), there is some sort of duking it out for who covers what, but, in the end, you usually end up with the higher percentage of the choices being covered somehow. And then, whatever is left, is your responsibility.

I go to the doctor with a cold. The province pays the doctor for my visit. He wrongly prescribes me some antibiotics. I go to the pharmacy, get the pills. The province doesn't pay for any of that (though they play a role in regulating the drug costs). My employer's health insurance pays some of the drug cost (the percentage widely varies on which drug it is) and none of the pharmacy fees (other insurances do pay for pharmacy fees). I then pay the rest, never less than 10% due to the plan I have with work.

If I then spend more than a certain percentage of my pre-tax income on health expenses, I can submit them against my taxes for a further refund, though I've never hit that amount, personally. I'm sure lower incomes could easily hit that.

If I go to the optometrist's, the province pays nothing for my visit, but all of my children's visits as they're all under 18 years of age. I submit to my employer's health insurance for my visit and any and all prescription eye wear that results, including for my children.

If you cannot get health insurance from your employer, or you cannot afford to get insurance on your own (here in Alberta, there is a cheap provincial-run insurance available for purchase, not sure about other provinces, and no idea what kind of coverage it gets you), you get to pay full costs for chiropractic and vision care. Dental visits are also not covered, or any orthodontic care. If you're poor, you're going to be stuck with bad eyes and bad teeth. Even in Canada. Because you're in the bottom tier of health care. Which itself is because we have tiered healthcare.

Sure, emergency access is paid for. But same in the US - effectively. If you can't afford it in the US, the hospitals eventually absorb the cost, by law. In Canada, the government absorbs it. However, if you can't produce your healthcare card, you're still responsible to pay for it - tourists and out-of-province patients don't get free rides. (However, when I was in Toronto a couple months ago, had I required health care during that time, my home province would have covered the costs same as if I were at home. Which, again, means not everything is covered.)

(*) unless it gets cancelled on you, forcing you to buy a more expensive, more comprehensive version with features you neither want nor can afford.