White Doors

excuse me?

They are all the same thing, how do you not get that? They certainly are NOT the same thing. how could you not get that? hahahaha!! They spy another meteor coming? what nonsense! Put the Star down and turn off the CBC. It will be ok.. there there..

Now I know who all the fat people on this board are.

Agreed 100%.

Another couple of elections and the Greens will have more of the popular vote than the NDP. And I know you are very fearful of that catchme.

from: U.S. Geological Survey http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Hazards/What/VolGas/volgas.html Yes, ALL human activities. She is trying to tie the first gulf war into global warming. Don't be obtuse, it doesn't look good on catchme, try not to catch it from her if you know what I mean.

HAHAHAHA!!!! ROFLMFAO!!! Is this what you have? haha That would be miniscule compared to a volcano erupting. Such a deep thinker! hahaha sad..

It's Vimy Ridge people. If you can't leave the politics out of the 90th anniversary out of it then how can you expect the politicians do the same. It is evident that we do get the leadership we deserve in this country. And August, becuase they did not 'exploit' the victory does nothing to diminish the victory itself. It forvever changed the tactics. It really was an epic achievement.

Vimy was an epic achievement to be sure. It was really the beginning of the end of trench warfare. Canadians changed the tactics of trench warfare forever with the rolling artillery barrage. The day of trenches as an effective defnce was numbered and KO'd by the advent of effective use of tanks.

Insurance and energy (where prices sky-rocketed after de-regulation) are two examples. Canada has extremely poor cellphone usage due to lack of competition. Prices are way too high. When I lived in the US for a bit, I had more choice and wasn't nickeled and dimed near as much. Perhaps that is true, but I am not sure that is due to government regulation of wireless? With the new 'local number portability' (LNP) being adopted in Canada, this should act to increase competition. For example, I am now seeing offers of no charge airtime if you call someone on the same network as you. I think the wireless industry has been behind that of the US, but there is not near the regulation of wireless as there is with wireline as the advent of wireless was largely after that of telco deregualtion in Canada anyways.

Energy is different from Telecommunications in that it went from 100% government owned to a regulated industry with private investment. As is often the case, the government had a massive infrastructure shortfall which required alot of private investment to catch up. So while there were some hiccups, especially in California, I'm not aware that my power bill is any higher now than it was pre-deregulation in Alberta. At least I cannot attribute it to deregulation. Telecommunications has not been government owned in decades.

Shaw is VOIP so it does not go through Telus at all, it goes through the cable line and in Calgary, uses Bell's switch. With Shaw you are completely bypassing Telus. 100%. There are some issues with local number portability, so the area you are in may prevent that as a technological impossibility. Barring that, Telus is compelled by law to give up the right to that phone number to shaw and ultimately, to you. If Shaw would not convert your business lines then that is their choice. I'm not sure that Shaw is handling business traffic. As far as I know, they only operate telephony for residential although I may be mistaken. It could be a non-compete agreement thay have with Bell to use their switches although that is pure specualtion on my part. Bell landline only sells to businesses in the west, not residential.

All the major cities have redundant networks. In Downtown Calgary for example, along with Telus, Bell, Allstream, Rogers & Shaw all have their own fibre that they use. In Telecom there are two major areas that count as 'infrastructure'. The network and the switches. In the above scenario, all those Telco's (except shaw) can provision telecommunications 100% on their own network with no help from Telus. This is called 'prime' (Shaw uses Bell for the switching aspect). In the outlying areas of Calgary and places such as Red Deer, Lethbridge etc, Bell, Allstream etc can provision via 'co-locate'. This means that they have their own switches there but are dependant upon Telus for the 'last mile' to provision a product for a customer. This is often referred to as the 'last mile' or the copper loop. With the advent of cable (VOIP) there is now another inlet to the customer's premise. Shaw has the monopoly on that in Alberta. Instead of getting their own huge switches they are doing that through others. It is the opposite of the traditional cooperation of Telco's. They have the last mile but rely on the traditional telco's to actually have the programming for the phone. In other regions it is not ecomically feasible to build any competing infratructure and the non-incumbent carrier has to 100% rely on the incumbents infrastructure. This is called 'rebilled' or re-sold'. Keep in mind that this is just for 'local' scenarios. In other words a company could 100% rebill a customer's rural site but then they could also bring the LD traffic over to their networks. LD revenue is considered 'gravy' nowadays and has a good return. Allstream, formerly AT&T Canada, formerly Metronet, inherited their nationwide network from CP Rail actually. It was built right along the railways so thay have a good 'backbone' infrastructure. The downtown cores were buil in the late '90's when it was metronet and it is in every major city right across Canada. This company is now owned by MTS. Bell/Telus are both former Ilec's (Stentor). Telus has the inherited network in Alberta/BC and Bell has it in PQ and ON. Also, trough Aliant, they also have it in Atlantic Canada. Telus and Bell provision the exact same way in each other's former Ilec territories. Rogers purchased Sprint and has a foot print similar to Allstream except they also have the 'last mile' in central Canada through their cabling infrastructure. Primus sells local. They resell from Allstream in the west. Not sure about the east. Vonage is a 100% resold product. They have no infrastructure at all. Not even for LD traffic. What this legislation is about is that currently the traditional ILEC carrier in a given territory, for example Telus, has to sell at a price that the government regulates. This was to encourage competition of the non-Ilec companies to set up in the ILec's territory. What the ILEC's were arguing is that telecommunications are no longer required to go on the ILEc's network and thus the regulated (ie higher) prices were not necessary to encourage competition. This is true as the VOIP scenarios can completely ignore the ILEC's footprint. It is a valid argument. The acceptance of this by the government will see lower prices for all as the ILEC's fight to keep traffic on their networks, either directly or through resellers. There are also new technologies comoing out that will allow both the residential and business consumer to bypass these networks as well. The former legislation was basically predicated on the technology that was available 10- 15 years ago and is no longer relevant in today's telco market. Technology changes fast and the CRTC has to keep up no matter how much they seem unwilling to. So, not sure if that answers your question, but perhaps it will give you some insight into what is going on here. Keep in mind, this is not even getting into the wireless aspect!

Unfortunately, that's what you are most likely to get. The telecoms are lobbying very hard for deregulation and the minister is listening to them. When he reverses CRTC decisions in favour of deregulation and you see them gloating, it's not because the customer is better off. Really? Competition is NOT good for the consumer? That's a novel concept! Have any proof to back that up?

Vancouver. As I said before, I could be wrong, but I've never heard of any companies other than Telus offering landlines. If there are, they need to do more advertising Residential I assume? You can try Rogers, Shaw and Primus for a few. Business? All those and Allstream add Bell. If you don't know, then you haven't cared to look - it's that simple. This is even discounting the cable reselleers such as vonage.

No, he admitted that he had not.

Catchme Nice that you are finally not pretending to be ex Canadian Forces any longer. What made you give that lie up anyways? Uhh.. we DO have remembrance day for a reason. Being a soldier and being in action makes you a VETERAN and yes we DO accord them special respect as it should be. Strange that you have an issue with that. Uhh, they always have been doing this. You just started to pay attention now it seems. But the world does not operate through your cloud of confusion about the issue. If you read SLOWLY you would see he is a reservist. Also, I imagine that there are other people that are qualified to do his job in the CDN forces, so just because he is a specialist does not mean he is the only one. You feel better now? War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873)

This I find to be mind boggling! Truly mind boggling! Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology...842.html?page=5

But is it 'boggling your mind'?

So much for learning histopry to learn from our mistakes... unbelieveable and sickening cowardice.

Zzzzz....

Poor Figleaf getting picked on...

Sorry, I was laughing AT you.

hahahaha oohh man, that is good stuff.. Thanks Margrace.

Isn't 1% a pretty good reduction? I mean our target is what 10%? Well Ethanol is a pretty painless way to get part way there. IF people already don't like this measure what will be their appetite for the truly painful reductions needed to get us over the hump? Also, besides reduced CO2, does anyone know if ethanol actually pollutes less with real pollutants?