Elections BC (Source: CBC) is having a tough time keeping up with all the bloggers "
publishing partisan messages during the current election campaign.". Under current law they are asking all bloggers to register as advertisers, while also going on record as being open to changing the law.
posted by futureproof
on May 15, 2005 -
14 comments
This metafilter
thread about the Golden Bridge suicide documentary stayed in my mind for weeks after I read it. It was haunting.
Yesterday the
Langara Journalism review from Vancouver published a
very interesting article about responsible coverage of suicide in the media, notably after a mediatic chaos ensuing the suicidal attempts of two persons wanting to jump off one of Vancouver's bridges last fall.
An excellent read for anyone tired of sensationalist horror stories, the consequences they can trigger, and the lack of taste they are treated with.
posted by Sijeka
on Mar 4, 2005 -
17 comments
LAWs instructions for starting criminal procedures against Bush Today in Vancouver, Lawyers Against the War filed torture charges against George W. Bush under the Canadian Criminal Code. The charges were laid by Gail Davidson, co-chair of Lawyers against the War--LAW, under provisions enacted pursuant to the U.N. Torture Convention, ratified by both Canada and the United States. The charges concern the well known abuses of prisoners held by US Armed Forces in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. The charges were accepted by the Justice of the Peace and referred for a hearing to decide whether Bush should be required to appear for trial. The Attorney General of Canada's consent is required within eight days for proceedings to continue, and the question of Bush's diplomatic immunity will have to be resolved by the court.
posted by sunexplodes
on Dec 1, 2004 -
66 comments
Join Canada? Okay, many of you feel you've been disenfranchised by the recent election, maybe even to the point of
hating the heartland. We've heard lots of "I'm moving to Canada" and discussion of immigration requirements. But some are now talking about a merger of the Blue States and the Great White North. Joining Canada isn't a new idea, either for
Americans or
others. C'mon, do you really think it would work?
posted by Turtles all the way down
on Nov 6, 2004 -
64 comments
Updating this mefi story
here where a set of extremely abusive parents who abused their children into their teens were sentenced to only 9 months prison. A judge now deems that sentence "demonstrably unfit" and resentences the mother and father to 5 and 4 years in jail, respectively.
Thanks to t r a c y for the update.
posted by shepd
on Nov 5, 2004 -
4 comments
Eun
oia ("beautiful thinking") is the shortest word in the English language that contains all five vowels.
It is also the title of a
poetry collection by Canadian author Christian Bok. In addition to writing each chapter using only words that contain one vowel, (
Flash presentation of Chapter "E") Bok also
greatly limits himself in other ways.
An amazing accomplishment that won the $40 000 Griffith Poetry Prize in 2002,
Eun
oia is best experienced in its spoken form. (
MP3 links)
(If you don't know Bok's poetry, you still might know his other work. He has also created artificial languages for two television shows: Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict and Peter Benchley's Amazon.)
posted by Jaybo
on Jul 22, 2004 -
18 comments
Canadian Tax Dollars at Work I am sure there are some hard
drinking working Metafilterites out there that could be Canada's official wine co-ordinator. You would have to give wine away to senior politicians and hard stuff like that.
posted by Coop
on Jul 20, 2004 -
9 comments
A Canadian Chinese Celebrity - (LA Times - reg required) Use
this to get login.
"The lanky Ottawa native, a virtual unknown in Canada, is most renowned for his Chinese TV appearances as the quick-witted foreigner who does amusing skits and the first Westerner to perform the ancient Chinese art of xiangsheng, or comedic dialogue."
posted by blahblah
on Jun 21, 2004 -
14 comments
Paul Martin, Canada's current Prime Minister, running for re-election for the
Liberal party, suggests that voting for him will prevent us from being like the US in his latest
television AD campaign (sorry, they only make a WiMP 9 version available). Will your country be next?
posted by shepd
on May 26, 2004 -
45 comments
Canadian expansionism: there's a
plan afoot for Canada to annex the beautifully sunny Turks and Caicos islands.
Why?
"Turks and Caicos would give Canada a warm, friendly 11th province - a southern destination where the Loonie could land without breaking a wing."
posted by moonbird
on Mar 30, 2004 -
20 comments
Halifax under curfew. The Globe and Mail and
the CBC are reporting that the Province of Nova Scotia has placed Halifax, Canada, under a curfew tonight. The city has taken this unprecedented peacetime action to allow the snow plows to deal with the 100cm (~50 inches) of snow that has fallen in the last 24 hours. Anyone caught on the streets between 11pm and 7am faces a CDN$1000 fine.
posted by tiamat
on Feb 20, 2004 -
35 comments
After reading that
beef has been recalled from my local grocery store, I spent some time reading
Mad Cow USA a book written back in 1997 but not widely published because of fears of repercussions under the Texas food disparagement act. AlterNet has an
article written by one of the book's authors summarizing some of the key points of the book. Some claim that only ground beef is infected, while
others claim that's bull.
mad-cow.org has a lot of good information on the topic, and it seems the powers that be are going to
blame Canada.
posted by woil
on Dec 30, 2003 -
14 comments
At least one person is dead when Toronto theatre The Uptown (a frequent haunt of my childhood)
collapses. The 2000 seat
Uptown was built in 1920 and closed in September of this year, right after the
Toronto International Film Festival, which regularly used the theatre for its screenings.
Ignoring a
Cinema Treasures'
petition, and heartfelt articles from
local media,
Famous Players, the theatre's owners, decided to sell the building to a condo developer after
losing a two year battle with
The Ontario Human Rights Commission, who were insisting that the venue be made wheelchair-friendly. Oddly, as I was walking past the site last night, I considered contacting the
demolition company about what was being done with the theatre's sign when it finally came down.
posted by dobbs
on Dec 8, 2003 -
12 comments
Are You, Deep Down, Secretly, Between-You-And-Me, Proud Of Your Country? Even if you're not
Canadian? Because
a lot of people in the world, no matter how badly run their country might be, seem to be just that. Isn't it weird, though - and, well, stupid - to be proud of something that just happened to happen to us and that we've done nothing to deserve, whether for good or for bad? A more telling question that occurs is: what nationality would you
choose to be, if you couldn't be the one you are? Here's
the menu.
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Nov 11, 2003 -
105 comments
There's a new elite force protecting the wilderness in Canada; a duo whose love of the bush has become more than a vocation, it has become a calling. This is the story of some rangers who, unlike Mounties, aren't interested in getting their man. Meet the
Lesbian Park Rangers.
posted by debralee
on Jun 18, 2003 -
7 comments
The Leading Light In Not Only Doughnuts: Canada! I don't know if any of you have noticed but Canada is becoming
fiercely fashionable in the rest of the world, perhaps as a model of an American-European fusion that everyone else can live with.
Paul Robinson's list of Canada's virtues is impressive and difficult to dispute. Perhaps the lil' ol' U.S. are lagging dangerously behind in the general rush to jump on the Canadian bandwagon? And yet... And yet... What
is it about Canada or, more to the point, about the dismissive attitude of that great country's neighbours?
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Jun 3, 2003 -
128 comments
WHO lifts Toronto travel ban.
And
Health Canada Recommendations:
Health Canada continues to strongly endorse travel into and throughout the GTA [Greater Toronto Area] as safe and encourages travellers to maintain their business and/or personal travel plans to the GTA.
That's just great. What, a week after banning all travel to Toronto because of SARS, it's on again?
That's bloody irresponsible, considering the damage it has done and will continue to do so to travel to Canada no less Toronto. [s'more inside]
posted by alicesshoe
on Apr 29, 2003 -
15 comments
The Massey Lectures are the CBC's annual effort to give exposure to eminent minds working on 'big ideas' in the realm of social criticism. This year's lecturer, Margaret Visser, undertakes a very engaging attempt to explain and undermine fatalism. The site links to transcripts and audio files of some past lectures. Some Canadian book-learnin' for those of you who aren't sleepily digesting your Thanksgiving turkey!
posted by stonerose
on Nov 28, 2002 -
3 comments
Canadian Prime Minister surprises with pledge to put Kyoto accord to Parliament. Until now, with resistance from the oil-rich western provinces, Canada has been luke-warm on Kyoto. PM Jean Chretien surprised all of us (a pleasant surprise, for many) by making the announcement today at the Summit in South Africa. The PM recently announced that he'll be leaving office in 18 months - leaving him with a lot of power and little accountability - possibly working on his own legacy rather than for the good of his country. So far so good.
posted by stevengarrity
on Sep 2, 2002 -
15 comments
i.heart.poutine. "Because everyone deserves to die of a heart attack before they hit forty, the Quebecois invented poutine. Poutine is the best thing to happen to the potato since just about....ever."
posted by jcterminal
on Jul 8, 2002 -
20 comments
"We think of an orange as a constant, but in reality it's not." Canadian study finds that fruits and vegetables have lost much of their nutritional value in the last decades--potatoes, for example, have lost 100% of their Vitamin A. The reason, it appears, is mass production and a market that values appearance over substance. Is this symptomatic of deeper problems within a system where produce travels so far before reaching the consumer? Here in B.C., for example, the stores are full of California produce, despite the fact that we grow much the same fruits and vegetables locally.
posted by jokeefe
on Jul 6, 2002 -
17 comments
Pimps and Gangs Subtracted From Math Test "Rufus is a pimp for three girls. If the price is $65 per trick, how many tricks per day must each girl turn to support Rufus' $800 per day crack habit?"
So reads a math test from a now suspended Canadian teacher, apparently modeled after this
joke.
posted by bloggboy
on Jun 14, 2002 -
13 comments
Controversial new bill to lay out reproductive technology guidelines. Canadian version of this battle doesn't seem to feature as many religious wackos. It's just not as fun without them.
posted by Leonard
on May 9, 2002 -
0 comments
Just a defacto "Nope". "Refugees" from the US seeking asylum in Canada will no longer have any hoops to jump through. The hoops are to be replaced by impenatrable legal barriers, otherwise known as "inking the deal".
posted by crasspastor
on May 7, 2002 -
6 comments
Operation Snipe: To rescue 76 US hostages? "Joined by the US and Canadian troops, more than 2000 British-led Special Commando forces under "Operation Snipe" are gearing up efforts to launch a major attack to rescue around 76 soldiers who were arrested by the Taliban and Al Qaida forces during the battle in the snow covered Arma Peaks of Paktia Province in March this year, highly credible sources have confided to PNS."
posted by crasspastor
on May 6, 2002 -
5 comments
Win a Trip to Bellegarde, Saskatchewan! No joke. And thousands of people will enter this contest. They're ingenious, these prairie farmers.
PRIZE INCLUDES:
Round-trip airfare for two to Regina from a major Canadian airport.
Three nights' hotel accommodation in Regina.
Limousine ride to Bellegarde.
An official tour of the hamlet by the president of the Bellegarde Rural Development Council.
$250 spending money.
All you have to do? Predict when a rusted out old car will crash through the ice and cause a local, and very minor, environmental catastrophe.
posted by Salmonberry
on Apr 9, 2002 -
21 comments
Writing about child porn/abuse is artistic. Robin Sharpe has successfully defended himself against child porn acusations; case went all the way to the SC in Canada.
In unrelated news (except that both stories are from the front page of the Toronto Star) a Taiwan scientist has
created a bubble (soap) that you literally can't burst, no matter how hard you try, for days.
posted by Why
on Mar 26, 2002 -
13 comments
Canada Wins Hockey After watching Belarus pull off a miracle, Canada joins in to see them in the semi final. Question is, who's gonna win? Wooooooooo...
posted by Dav0xor
on Feb 20, 2002 -
16 comments
The B-list of bad has an axis to grind -- According to one of
Canada's national newspapers,
Libya, China and Syria today announced they had formed the "Axis of Just as Evil," which they said would be way eviller than that stupid Iran-Iraq-North Korea axis President George W. Bush warned of in his State of the Union address.
Not only was this article in the paper today, it actually made the front page.
posted by heybate
on Feb 6, 2002 -
11 comments
Canadians figure out exactly how many nukes it would take. Using the software, researchers estimated it would take 124 weapons to destroy the U.S. and 51 to eliminate Russia as a country. The computer program mimics the U.S. military's SIOP, or Single Integrated Operational Plan, which outlines the targeting of America's nuclear weapons and the likely consequences of each attack. [via dailyrotten.com]
posted by skallas
on Jan 4, 2002 -
20 comments
