ZenOps

I don't think the people of Alberta actually own it either. Remember - Constitutional Monarchy - not Democracy. http://www.servicealberta.ca/pdf/ltmanual/FOL-1.pdf If someone understands full legalese, feel free to explain. The Crown corporation of course has control of the "Crown in Right" over Crown land. Mines and minerals are considered different, IE: Surface rights are different laws, which of course allows farmers to farm, but they usually must get a seperate mining permit. Homesteaders (1800's) were given homesteading rights, but not water or mineral rights. Which is also why you cannot build a fence on a beach. I'm not sure if British mineral rights were ever repealed for Canada. I would laugh my ass off if someone built a 10 billion dollar pipeline only to have the British take it a few years later. Or setup a wireless network only to have to shut it down. Much like the GG, I believe the Queen has a public trustee representative which has power of taxation in the Queens stead (usually a provincial magistrate of some sort) But I don't think the resources are actually owned by Albertan citizens.

All I know is that Britain got half a metre of snow, which very well may trigger a mini-recession. And Florida is on the edge of losing another Orange crop due to freezing. The world needs a couple degrees of global greenhouse warming right about now.

Hmmm. Maybe it is time for a revolution. Dibs on the cutlery and dinnerware.

I'll make this short: Target demographic for ultra highend "3D TV" Males 35 to 50+ (18 to 35 males cannot afford high end TV's or Hummers, etc) Most common complaint from 35 to 50+ males "The image is too dark" (Probably due to increasing weakness and cloudiness in the eyes as one ages) Most 3D technologies halve the brightness as they flip from one eye to the other. 3D technologies that halve brightness are doomed to utter failure as the image is "worse" than without.

This doesn't shake my confidence in any of the political parties. It shakes my faith in the entire Canadian government regardless of which party is actually in power. Care must be taken to not bring down the publics faith so far - that we give up on the government (some say we are already long past that point)

Hehe. Charles is going to be interesting all its own. Proroguing to Queen Elizabeth II - is somehow nobler in my book. I don't even see Charles as coinworthy - nevermind a prime minister running to Charles to save his job. To be honest - I think QEII has done a great service to the commonwealth.

Yes. Exactly. Prorogueing is sometimes referred to as a "failed local government", which it is. It weakens Canada overall as a sovereign and a democratic nation. If thats Harpers intention... well... But I personally think (and many others think) its just to save his own ass so that they don't vote him out in a no confidence vote. Its a sad day when you can't democratically remove your leader. All hail Kim Jong Harper, our glorious Prime Minister Dunsel.

*cough* Well the first enacted act the Canadian parliament in Canada (not the British in Westminster) was in 1952, a change in the number of seats in the House of commons and gave the Yukon one representative. Up until that point, every change to the "Constitution" was done by the British under British Law. For all intensive purposes - the Canadian government could not have been concieved up to that point and nothing at all would be different in Canada. Nothing, absolutely nothing. That a government can say "Well we USED to prorogue all the time way back when, why can't I do it now?" is weaksauce. The Canadian government DID have little to no responsibility back then. If they want to keep the power to prorogue, I want the power to not have to pay them for the time they are not working. It is a little about growing up, I wish the government would get out of its baby crib and stop crying.

I think you hit it right. Noone cares. Do I really care or does anyone else really care say that Rob Anders is one of the most racist men and MP left in North America? Not really because we all know that the Canadian Government is just cerimonial with no real power. The odd time the Canadian government is working - they are repealing laws and not making them. There are some legitimate political people who understand how it all works, and know how backwards the whole system has become and want to change it so that at least *something* gets done. These politicians can at least feign working for the sake of employment morale in Canada though. These guys are setting a worse example than Cheech and Chong (Rob Anders is the laziest racist of all time? Sure.) Not that I can really blame them - If I could self appoint myself month long paid holidays I sure as heck would do it as well.

Noone cared when parliament was prorogued before 1975, because back then the Canadian govt really didn't have to do anything. Our laws were ironclad taken from the British North America Act. If the goverment went years sitting on their asses doing nothing - it was just par for the course. Canada really only gained partial control of its own destiny in 1982 with the Canadian Constitution, about the time you could say that Canada had some semblance of "Democracy". To Prorogue government at this point in time and for such petty reasons is irresponsible to every Canadian citizen. I could tell Rob Anders (MP Calgary West, formerly Harpers riding) - But he doesn't listen to people who aren't white, and I'm not joking about that.

You better bow the Queen, you better bow to your Saudi oil king masters too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd425zfw5Ew Really though, its a sign of respect not deferrence of power. I yell "Wassup" to my peeps on the cellphone too... Sign of respect.

Just to add: Tibet is prime prime wheat growing country. They actually sheaf wheat by hand (scythes) and still enjoy a certain amount of prosperity (at least for the ruling class). Alberta is horrible wheat growing land by comparison. As with most African nations, water is usually a problem as well as political and pure will.

I've always though it harder to be loyal and upstanding when the names of provinces are decidedly exclusionary. IE: British Columbia. Sure, everyone in Canada knows the British own our asses - but do you really have to keep the name? Plain Columbia will do just fine. I can only imagine the uproar if a religious group or other empire tried to setup a naming scheme like that. French Quebec or Chinese Alberta anyone, How about Islamic Winnipeg? I think the naming still puts Canada in a colonial subservient state (which it is mind you, we are still very dependant on external countries for military support)

The Mackenzie natural gas pipeline is currently designed as a pressurized 1200 kilometer transport system of 1.2 Billion linear cubic feet of natural gas... per day. This will meet about half of the expected capacity of the area it is intended to connect to (the amount of natural gas that we as humans can reasonably expect to be able to tap into during the lifetime of the pipeline, there is actually much more natural gas up there that that.) I don't think any non-pressurized system would be able to handle that type of flow. Luckily the cold weather will make it much easier to compress the gas to start with - Liquified Natural gas requires a temperature somewhere around -183 degrees to liquify without compression. The biggest issue to me has nothing to do with capacity or the ethics of carbon fuels. It has to do with who the heck are they going to find to build this beast. Arguably - it will be as dangerous if not more dangerous to build than the railroads. I'm pretty sure that they will probably have a minimum weight requirement (or risk death from freezing in sub zero temperatures) The terrain is flat thankfully, but if you thought Winterpeg was cold - Just try Northern Alberta which is equally as desolate. This project is *vital* to the growth of Canada. Natural gas is what keeps us all warm 9 months of the year, and cold weather is a major barrier to Canadas growth. With this project Natural gas could be subsidized back to under $1 per GJ (if there is enough political will) which could easily create a mini-boom. This is 10 billion or so dollars much better spent - than a theoretical oil refinery. The Chinese man in me tells me that the natives in those areas would probably give a thumbs up if you could halve their heating bills - all the way to giving them a complete subsidy of any personal home heating natural gas coming off the Mackenzie in exchange for using the very small land footprint that it requires.

Oh comeon. Did any Christian ever really forgive Jimmy Swaggart? And for that matter is anyone totally sure that he actually stopped doing what he was doo-ing?

That landed immigrants actually want the vote in Canada shows how uninformed they are... "This is Canada, we don't pledge allegiance to the flag. You bow down and pledge your allegiance to the Queen."

Not rechargeable. Its not really a battery then. You might as well just use kerosene lighter fluid and run a laptop off of that (which you can)

I like how people champion democracy - until they are no longer on the winning side. What would a world with democracy look like? China and India voting themselves into leadership every time. I don't think Canadians are ready for that. When people champion democracy - they better be careful because they just might get it. Canada is fine the way it is, Constitutional Monarchy where the Prime Minister runs like a bitch to the Queen to retain his power.

Ethical banking is just another word for no growth. Really you could live that way... But would you really want to do without the supermodels, the fast cars. Fortune favors the bold, in investment and banking. If you got burned on a risky venture - its your fault for not keeping the money under your mattress in the first place. You can only place so much blame on the banks.

Yup, it would actually be cheaper to mine an asteroid, but would take slightly longer. Moon is still 1/6th gravity of earth, and it takes two million pounds of rocketfuel to lift a decent sized object off of the earth. A large asteroid would be well under 1/1000th the gravity of earth.

Hey. Billions of Chinese believe that internet porn doesn't exist. The media can be very pervasive. IMO, its just a matter of time (and figuring out how to bond ultrathin solar panels to titanium sheets) before any nation (US, USSR, China) decides to put up a square mile sized satellite relay style dish on the moon. I mean really - the logistics of it are simple by comparison (needs only be in the 100 kilogram range) if you've already sent a man to the moon seven times. Added bonus is of course anything 1 square mile or larger would be visible from Earth. Its one of Republican US greatest fears to have another nations flag (or even perhaps a corporation like Sony) visible on the moon from the Earth. Edit: For all practical purposes if there was a tiny bit of will... Canada could easily be the first nation to fund a satellite dish on the moon (Say running 100 1 Gbit transponders at something newer than Ka band.) Hell of a lot more useful than the outhouses and human poop that the US left on the moon.

So goes the conspiracy of course - that the Russians were in on the hoax as well. OR The US probably did have the capacity to send up a 10 pound satellite relay around the moon at the time, which could have been rebroadcasting a bounced video feed from that hoaxlovers California movie studio. The wonderful thing about satellite transmission and rebroadcasts is that you never know exactly where the origin point is... In North America today if you are watching Al Jazzera TV - are you sure its the real thing? China is considering dropping a satellite-like antennae on the moon too... There is a huge potential upside to this as regular geosynchronous satellites usually run out of fuel after 12 years or so trying to stay "in box". An information relay placed on the moon would be accessable as long as you have the ability to track it (and physically have line of sight to it) and about 8 second delay instead of 250 millisecond delay. But it more or less would be permanent as it requires no fuel to maintain. The moon is a perfect satellite too, in that same side always faces the earth. A satellite relay properly made could be slammed into the side of the moon at several G's of force (would not require tens of thousands of kilograms of fuel to slow down) A satellite relay on the moon would probably consist of a gigantic micromillimeter titanium plate sheet that would unfold from suitcase sized like a flower to at least the size of a football field.

Well.. you do have to ask yourself what have we done in the last 40 years, and what is our capability today... http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html The most advanced imagery we can get from Nasa 40 years later as "proof" of the moon landing is a 5 pixel high greyscale image. Now - Do you really want to believe that a nation can have regressed so much in the last 40 years - or that it never happened at all? For the sake of future generations and not to totally dishearten the next generation - I think its better that they think it was all a hoax whether it was a hoax or not. Sort of like how the history books all say that the Aztec/Incan/Mayans were savages that sacrificed themselves in the millions on top of pyramids, and not by European conquistadors. Some things people just need to believe.

Not really useful for vehicles. It must be compressed, and will not be able to fuel anything other than incity commuter cars much like electric cars. Electric cars are fine in California, where you do not need the energy for heating. But in Canada you will freeze to death in an electric car before you get to your final destination. For incity commuters - Maglev trains are proabably the answer. Permanent Neodymium magnets can reduce the weight of a train to 1/10th of the energy needed to move it.

Chemistry lesson. Natural gas = mostly Methane. Methane = CH4. One carbon, four hydrogen. The least amount of carbon without going completely carbon-free which is of course hydrogen. Coal is black because it is majorially carbon, with usually 4 sulphur in the mix (acid rain when released into the atmosphere) When burned its basically the same as grinding up the coal into a superfine powder and then throwing it in the air (at least from a greenhouse perspective) Natural gas = by far the cleanest of the carbon fuels on earth without going to hydrogen which does not occur anywhere naturally.