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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.
He wrote an entire book about that incident. It is called
It's a great read, and a great introduction to Ebert if you would like to know more about him.
I think your first point is fair; there are Muslim/Arab Israeli citizens, and they have representation in their parliament as well. They are very small in number, though, so the net result is the same as South Africa: a single ethnic group that dominates the country.
Your second point I don't agree with. The SA authorities considered the African National Congress to be a terrorist group. There was violence committed by black South Africans and it was called terrorism. Mandela himself was jailed for allegations of terrorism, and not officially for his political ideas. In both cases the violence is only one-sided if you fail to consider the actions of the police and army, who I consider to be perpetrating violence on behalf of the majority and powers that be.
I would like to see one of two things happen in Israel:
1) The Palestinians get a real, viable state. There's different options here, like a demilitarized state, and different possible partitions but it should be a real state and not a bantustan. This option is favoured by some former Israeli intelligence officers as it basically maintains the status quo, but reduces the instability of the conflict.
2) The whole territory becomes part of Israel, and everyone who lives there is an Israeli citizen. Everyone is allowed to vote and has equal protection under the law. Jews would not be a strong majority under these conditions, as the current split in the former British Palestine is about 50/50 Jew/Arab, with more growth on the Arab side.
Right now Israel seem to be combining parts of 1) and 2) to their advantage, which is hardly fair and not sustainable.
Clue time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantustan
The South Africans claimed that blacks, coloured, Indians, etc., were not their citizens. They were in fact citizens of powerless, discontinuous territories that were basically controlled by South Africa. Since there was no work in these bantustans, the majority of their population commuted through South African checkpoints each day. They also claimed increasing amounts of territory for their own minority, ethnically defined population.
Also, Israeli's dominant, "centre right" party Likud claims that God wants Jewish Israelis to have all the territory for themselves (all of what was previously British Palestine). South African Boer culture included similar thoughts.
The parallels are not unreasonable.
I have been playing with Windows 8 since late summer 2012 and I have also run into reliability problems. I get free copies of 7 and 8 pro through school, so the OS I use is completely my choice. Twice (out of 3-4 installs) win8 was just completely murdered by a windows update. Booting would fail, it would bluescreen and reset the computer. Both times the startup troubleshooter just failed with an 'unknown error' kind of message. (I used the troubleshooter in Vista/7 a few times, and it seemed to work well for corrupted bootloaders/MBR and similar issues.) I just formatted, reinstalled, and restored from backup, as these Windows installations were totally hosed.
I have done many Vista (post SP1) and 7 installs and have literally never had major startup issues. Next time I need to reinstall my school laptop I'm going back to 7, 8 just adds so little that is worthwhile compared to the problems it has.
I use Windows 8 on my school laptop (grad student in materials engineering) and I am not thrilled with the news of this update. Everything they mention is related to metro, the touchscreen interface for Windows 8, with nothing on the desktop/laptop side. The main complaint with Windows 8 was that the metro stuff should have been optional, as it is not needed or wanted on a normal PC. With the Blue update we see that after hearing the criticism and commentary from the release of Windows 8, MS' only response is a few tweaks here and there.
I'm worried by MS' attitude more than anything else, like the idea that the desktop is just for legacy software, and that metro is the future. Metro or whatever you want to call is not the future of the PC. It not even the future of touch. It's an also-ran, second rate touch OS, and it continues to sell poorly next to iOS and Android. I've used all 3 OS' on touch devices, and even there metro is not great. Alot of buttons and controls are hidden by default, so you are always trying to toggle between different views. Maybe someone spiked the water in Redmond, because I never imagined that after winning the desktop OS wars they would just lose interest and abandon their users.
I have to respond to this as it is the most iditiotic and obnoxious uses of the "argument from hypocrisy" that I have seen.
What is the "argument from hypocrisy"? Well, its my name for what is really a sort of ad hominem, specifically the constant calling of "hypocrite!" to every single political argument I see. If you support the criminal acts commited by Nixon, Bush, or Cheney (this appeal is for everyone, and not just the piece of shit AC I'm responding to) please make your best case why this so. Instead we get personal attacks, and unrelated issues wielded like weapons. Instead, we get conversations like the above:
A: It was bad when Richard Nixon dishonestly prolonged a war for personal gain.
B: So you're against bad things, eh? Well, I had a bad egg sandwich this morning, and yet you say nothing about this. Funny, isn't it? You hypocrite!
Now we have a post P that criticizes GP, and calls him a hyporcrite for omitting a totally different and unrelated opinion, which he even responded to with agreement. Actually, come to think of it maybe this was the plan. Any actual discussion of this crime against humanity is basically impossible now as this comments section has been totally poisoned.
+ 1 Informative
Grandparent's horse is fucking arrogant.
You make a very good point. We have this conservation all the time in Canada when our government tries to bend the country over for Washington. The Americans deal with Canada because they need our resources, not because they like us. (Although I'm pretty sure the average American does like us, and New Zealand, too). They won't take their ball and go home because our courts ignored their inappropriate political pressures, as they should.
Americans do business out of self-interest, not out of charity.
Old mail has arrived.