Okay, if I was trying to visit my girlfriend, say, for her birthday, and she'd made all kinds of plans for the trip, and I got sent back to Italy and wasn't allowed to get through to see her, I think I might just respond with something like:

"Man, my girlfriend is totally going to kill me if you send me back to Italy."

The actual cause for his detainment, not given in the summary, is that the immigration agent suspected that he was coming to the US to work. Fuck, what bullshit. And that whole "broken english" thing? Get a translator there for him. The last time I was in a customs line in a US airport, there were calls for interpreters of at least five different languages over the space of ten minutes. Are you trying to tell me that there wasn't anyone there able to speak Italian?

I ate my liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.

@#16 - what if I voluntarily donated some of my own stem cells to be grown into delicious human burgers in test tubes?

@34:

I've been to the City Cafe Bakery. If you need change, you do have to ask one of the people working there. They'll give you whatever change you require, but you have to tell them what you want. Got $5.50 worth of stuff and you've only got a twenty? Tell the staff that you need $14.50 in change, and they'll give it to you.

You may have to wait a bit longer, because they're busy making the delicious stuff you're eating, but that's the price you have to pay for being able to get in and out in less than a minute if you've got the right change (or don't mind overpaying by a piddling amount).

@11:

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Who watches the watchers?

How would you know if the CCTV system were being misused? There is no public oversight of its use. There have also been many cases of the police fraternity covering for its members, protecting them. If you'd just had a nasty breakup with a police officer you were dating, would you want them to be able to follow your every move, find your bank card number, and even discover your PIN _without anyone knowing_?

People are arguing that the huge potential for misuse outweighs the small benefits.

@Disneyboy (#7)

As #9 pointed out, I don't think being homosexual will preclude you from joining the marrow donor list. I am not permitted to give blood, because I've spent too much time in the UK (moo! I've got mad cow! maybe). I put that information into my bone marrow donor application form, and the nurse that called me said that if a match is made, the recipient & their doctor will be made aware of that, and they'll be able to decide whether or not to take my marrow at that point.

I suspect that if someone had the choice between dying a horrible cancerous death, and accepting marrow from a guy who happens to have romantic relations with guys, they'd take the marrow.

And for those that live in Canada,

http://onematch.ca/

This is the Canadian bone marrow and stem cell sign-up site. Always has been free. Fill out an application online, someone will call you to confirm your address, then you'll be sent a cheek swab kit in the mail. Swab your own cheeks, drop the results in the mail, and you're on the list (and, in case you're worried, always free to decide once a match is made whether or not to actually donate).

@Lansell:

What on earth are you doing trying to drive a car on Queen street at rush hour? I have fond memories of walking west on Queen street, and passing three streetcars in the ten blocks I went, the traffic was so slow.

Rush hour would be much less extreme if people like you parked outside the city and took public transit, or, god forbid, a bicycle.

@ATOMISCHE:

They've got that kind of thing in our city. Try looking for "Doggie Day-care." Most of the time, it's a pack of dogs in some hapless human's house (always avoid annoying alliteration), rather than romping in a park.

For those asking about eligibility, I offer the following anecdote:

I am ineligible for giving blood, because I have spent more than three months cumulative in the UK between 1983 and 1999. I might be a carrier of vCJD (the human version of mad cow's disease). When I filled out the form, it asked if I was eligible to give blood, and if not, why not. I answered truthfully, and when I was talking on the phone with a OneMatch representative, I asked about that.

She said that if I were a match for marrow or stem cell donation, the doctor and recipient would be told about the risk of my having vCJD, and could make an informed decision as to whether or not to accept my marrow at the time. Personally, if it's a choice between dying of leukemia & maybe, _maybe_ getting vCJD, I know what I'd pick.

I would like to think that the same type of thing would apply to homosexuals that choose to join the program. If I were given the choice, I'd have to problem getting injected with gay marrow :) Of course, I'm assuming that the donor would be fully tested for any blood-borne diseases prior to donation, but I'd hope that's true of any donor, regardless of sexual orientation.

Signing up for the bone marrow and stem cell donor program in Canada is dead simple. Simply go to this website:

http://www.onematch.ca/

and fill out the application form. In a couple of weeks, you'll be contacted by phone to confirm your address and intent, then mail you a set of swabs. Swab your cheeks at home, drop the results in the mail, and that's it.

You will always have the chance to decline to donate at a later date if you decide that you're not able to do so.

Now, I don't know about the laws in the UK, but here in Canada:

1. It is illegal to build booby-traps. Period. End of discussion.
2. Trespass at Night is an indictable offense. If you are the owner of a property, or charged with protecting that property by the owner, you are allowed to arrest (via a citizen's arrest) someone who trespasses at night.

The biggest problem with this proposed legislation is that the funding can be withdrawn retroactively. Imagine this - you want to make a neat-o film. You pitch your idea to the government, and they think it's pretty cool. They give you a bunch of money to make your film.

You spend a few months of your life putting together an awesome film. You show it to the government, and they say "What? I can see a nipple there! That's offensive! You have to give us back all of our money now."

Where is that money going to come from? You've already spent it all. Now what? Re-mortgage your house? Sell your car? Sell all of your possessions? Declare bankruptcy? It's a pretty shitty deal.

I think the government should just review the script/concept a little more closely before issuing the grant (and perhaps, give the filmmakers some guidelines on what type of material cannot be used), rather than yoinking back money they've already granted after all of the work has been done.

To all those people asking why the tortures perpetrated by the Iraqis at Abu Ghraib are being ignored, and those perpetrated by the American military are getting all of the attention, I posit the following:

The American military follows a chain of command. At the top of that chain is their Commander in Chief, also known as the President of the United States of America. The position of President is a post which one attains after being voted in by the American populace. This means that, ultimately, the American populace is in some small manner _responsible_ for what the American military does.

If you were a citizen of the United States of America, would you want to be responsible, in any part, for any amount of torture?

Yes, the actions of the Iraqis in Abu Ghraib were also reprehensible. However, for the most part, the average first world nation dweller had no way to influence what was going on there. The actions of the Americans, however, well, it should be possible to influence those through several means. US citizens can protest, can write letters to their congressmen or senators, can vote out the politicians that allowed this kind of thing to happen, and can vote in people who promise to put a stop to it. Citizens of other countries can encourage US Citizens to do this, as well as encourage their own political leaders to talk to the leaders of the USA in an attempt to get the practices stopped.

Here's what's happening:

Most digital cameras will have a filter that will cut off long-wavelength IR light. However, since light is a continuous spectrum, and filters do not have perfect cut-off, some IR light, just barely outside of the visible range, gets through to the sensor.

The sensor itself is covered with absorption filters in a Bayer pattern, making different pixels sensitive to red, green, and blue light. However, these filters are often transmissive to IR light (they're only designed to filter visible wavelengths). Thus, every pixel thinks that it's receiving light of the colour that it's tuned to, even though it's just IR. That's why images overloaded with IR will appear white - all colours of pixels get saturated.

This will work for most visible-light cameras (as long as the IR LED is bright enough to saturate pixels after going through the cut-off filter and the bandpass colour filter), as well as for thermal cameras (which, of course, are designed to detect IR radiation).

Aim your digital camera at your TV remote, and watch the live viewscreen on the back while pressing the buttons on the remote. Do you see white? That's the remote's IR signal. I use this trick to see if my remote batteries are dying.

I'm going to echo a lot of the comments here, questioning how a big blob of water in the middle of your home is going to keep it cool. I see two possible explanations:

1. It's really just a big thermal mass. It gets cool overnight, and takes a long time to warm up during the day (ie, it can absorb a lot of house heat during the day).

2. Evaporative cooling. But given how the water is all stored in one location, and not spread out over the surface of the house, I don't see how this would work.

@ #6: Nope. The conservatives cannot pass a bill into law without the support of at least 50% of the house. Ratifying a treaty, though, is not passing a bill. Ratifying a treaty just says that we will agree to be held to the terms and conditions of that treaty.

The actual method of implementing laws to comply with the treaty would still have to pass through the normal channels.

So, there is value in fighting any unfair copyright legislation introduced. We can keep pushing back until someone gets it into their head to submit something which both complies with the conditions of the WIPO treaty, and does not restrict our rights to use copyrighted works.

Quoth the wikipedia article on Ed Stelmach:

Ed Stelmach's rise to power in the long standing Progressive Conservative government, and recent troubles have led to comparisons with historical political leaders. Stelmach has often been compared to Harry Strom due to common rural background, isolation from urban voters and the ability to decline the popularity of a long term ruling party despite record revenue and spending.

Hence the redirect. Though someone should tell Dave that he should be redirecting to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Strom

Svein@7: technically, what the courts decided was that kidnapping a person on foreign soil does not break any US laws, as US law has no jurisdiction on foreign soil. If the US government were to kidnap someone in the UK, that would still be breaking UK law.

And we all know how well NAFTA works. Just look at the softwood lumber dispute for proof.