Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield shows what happens when you wring a wet towel in zero-gravity.
The first Canadian to lead an ISS expedition, he is probably one of the most charismatic astronauts of our time. He’s very active on social media, with a huge following on Twitter and Tumblr.
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When it became a British colony, the majority of Canada’s population was of French origin — and the French inhabitants hated the British government.
So to keep the colony firmly within the Empire, British policymakers steered toward a government structure that would limit the power of the French-majority while also giving Canada more and more self-government. The eventual result was a highly-centralized federal government which controlled economic policy making and had built-in buffers for banker interests against populist forces, the paper argues.
That anti-populist political system — known in political science as liberal constitutionalism or liberal democracy — is a key ingredient in Canada’s stable banking track record, Mr. Calomiris contends in his paper, which is a summary of a much longer book he’s written with Stephen Haber due out in September. That’s because this kind of political system makes it difficult for political majorities to gain control of the banking system for their own purposes, the authors contend.
Populist democracies like the U.S., on the other hand, tend to create dysfunctional banking systems because a majority of citizens gain control over banking regulation that steers credit to themselves and to their friends at the expense of the citizens that are excluded from the banking system, he said.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Downtown Toronto, by Tom Ryaboi.
9Seventeen-year-old Rehtaeh Parsons’ suicide was the harrowing end to a story involving not only sexual assault, but also the issues of harassment and victim-blaming that are problematic symptoms of rape culture. According to her mother Leah Parsons’ post on her Facebook, Rehtaeh was subject to significant bullying from her peers, who labeled her as a “slut”:
“The [p]erson Rehtaeh once was all changed one dreaded night in November 2011. She went with a friend to another’s home. In that home she was raped by four young boys…one of those boys took a photo of her being raped and decided it would be fun to distribute the photo to everyone in Rehtaeh’s school and community where it quickly went viral. Because the boys already had a “slut” story, the victim of the rape Rehtaeh was considered a SLUT.”
Parsons didn’t know about the assault until days after it happened, when Rehteah broke down in the kitchen crying. At that point, it was too late for a rape kit — which may have contributed to the fact that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) dropped their investigation after a year without charges.
But there were other issues with the investigation as well, Parsons told the Halifax Chronicle Herald: “[t]hey didn’t even interview the boys until much, much later” and “nothing was done about [the photos] because they couldn’t prove who had pressed the photo button on the phone.” She was told that even the distribution of the photos was “not really a criminal issue,” despite the fact that Rehtaeh was 15 at the time, meaning the photos constituted child pornography.
While the investigation was ongoing, Rehtaeh struggled with anger and depression leading to her hospitalization on one occasion. She also moved to a different city to avoid harassment of her peers, including a barrage of texts asking “Will you have sex with me?” and telling her “You’re such a slut.” The Steubenville victim similarly faced harassing text messages after her identity was revealed by news coverage, including threats resulting in charges against two teens.
7 International students are allowed to seek part-time employment off campus after six months of full-time study, as a way to help them defray costs. They can also obtain foreign work credentials: After earning a four-year undergraduate degree, they can apply to work in Canada for up to three years.Miranda Cheng, director of the Center for International Education at the University of Toronto. ‘‘International students bring cultural and academic diversity to our university,’’ she said.Other nations are not as generous: In the United States, international students are eligible to work only on campus, and many struggle to stay in the country after graduation. Tough visa rules have led to a foreign student “brain drain,” prompting both lawmakers and members of the technology industry to appeal for a change in immigration law.
In Britain, international students can work no more than 10 hours a week and need an endorsement from their school to work after graduation. Its government came under fire over what critics called an overzealous immigration crackdown after London Metropolitan University was stripped of its right to host non-E.U. students, leaving thousands in limbo last autumn. For a while, it seemed as though those who could not quickly secure school space would face deportation.
Overseas study is generally expensive. As with most British, Australian and state-funded U.S. universities, most Canadian institutions have one rate for domestic students and a much higher one for international students.
If all goes well, I may soon be one of them :P
5 Pierre Trudeau, former Prime Minister of Canada.
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Toronto, Canada is one of the world’s most diverse and cosmopolitan cities: around half the population was born outside of Canada, the second-highest percentage of foreign-born residents of any city in the world (although my hometown of Miami is first, most of these are Cubans and other Latin Americans, whereas Toronto isn’t dominated by any one ethnic group.)
By 2030, 63% of Toronto’s population is estimated to comprise “visible minorities” from over 150 different countries. As a multicultural-buff with aspirations of living in Toronto (or elsewhere in Canada), this has me pretty excited.
Forbes, a prominent business magazine, published a report on the world’s best countries to do business in. Nations were measured in 11 different factors obtained from 9 different sources. The countries are as follows:
The US places 12th, after Australia. This isn’t too bad, but it’s down from 10th place last year. Note how the majority of the countries at the top have such policies as high income taxation, subsidized education, and universal healthcare. The article details how some of them pull if off.
Every time a discussion of rape happens, it’s a sure bet that the conversation will eventually turn to what the victim could have done differently. Even when the specific topic at hand is rape culture, and the ways that sexism and misogyny and sexual shame and entitlement and attitudes about masculinity and other toxic elements of the culture can make rape more likely and less likely to be punished… the conversation will eventually get turned to “what should rape victims do to keep from being raped.” Even when the topic at hand is ways that rape victims routinely get blamed for their rapes, the conversation will still eventually get turned to “what should rape victims to to keep from being raped.” And when this happens, and when people speak out against it, it’s almost certain that someone will say, “But that’s not part of rape culture! That’s just practical common sense! We want people to not get raped — and telling likely targets of rape how to keep themselves safe is the only effective way to do that!” (As happened in this comment thread. [UPDATE: Forgot to include the link. Here it is.])
I don’t ever want to hear this again. Not just because it’s part of the exact victim-blaming rape culture we’re talking about. Not just because this business of rapists being just a handful of sociopaths — as opposed to active members of society who you might know — is bullshit. I don’t want to hear it again… because it’s just flatly not true.
Have you heard about the “Don’t Be That Guy” campaign in Edmonton?
The “Don’t Be That Guy” campaign is a public service rape prevention campaign launched in Edmonton in 2010, and adopted by other cities in Canada, which took the radical step of aiming its message, not at potential rape victims, but at potential rapists. It took the radical step of educating potential rapists about what rape actually is. It recognized the role that alcohol commonly plays in rape — and it educates potential rapists that having sex with someone who doesn’t consent, or who is too drunk to consent, or who is passed out and therefore unable to consent, is rape.
The campaign didn’t target the stereotypical media image of rapists, the drooling psychopaths springing on suspects in a dark alley with a knife. It targeted ordinary folks, frat boys and partiers and bar-hoppers and folks who just like to toss a few back now and then… who have been brought up in a culture that teaches that drunkenness equals consent. It was influenced by astudy out of the U.K. showing that 48 percent of men ages 18 to 25 did not consider it rape if the women was too drunk to know it was happening. And it teaches them that no: drunkenness does not equal consent, being stoned does not equal consent, being passed out does not equal consent. It had slogans like, “Just because she isn’t saying no… doesn’t mean she’s saying yes.” “Just because you help her home… doesn’t mean you get to help yourself.” “Just because she’s drunk doesn’t mean she wants to f**k.” It had slogans on every poster saying, “Sex without consent = sexual assault.”
6 According to this joint report by 3 libertarian think tanks, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Canada, Australia, and Ireland are all freer than the US. Apparently, universal healthcare, high taxes, and high minimum wages hasn’t stopped these countries from being free.
Of course, like any index, there are disagreements about the methodology and data.
4 Maclean’s found once again when researching this project, whether it was Ottawa, the provinces, municipalities or the organizations they oversee, governments couldn’t help themselves when it came to doling out cash. What follows is but a fraction of the foolish, wasteful and blatantly stupid ways governments found to spend taxpayers’ money. To uncover this year’s 99 items we pored over press releases and auditor generals’ reports, sifted through proactive disclosure statements and delved into media databases across the country, ferreting out examples of spending that occurred in 2012 or came to light last year. There will be those who take issue with some items on this list, arguing, for instance, that funding rock concerts boosts the economy. But the reality is that at every level of government, we’re in far worse fiscal shape than we were even a year ago, despite all the talk of cutbacks and austerity. And as this list makes clear, those who control the public purse have yet to really change their ways.
Mind you, Canadians, your country still ranks pretty high on most metrics of government transparency, economic freedom, civil liberties, and the like. Assuming you believe such studies, you can only imagine how much worse things are elsewhere.
2 Surprise, surprise.
One of the biggest challenges is that we lacked long-term data,” said John P. Smol, the paper’s lead author and a professor of biology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. “So some in industry have been saying that the pollution in the tar sands is natural, it’s always been there.”
The researchers found that to the contrary, the levels of those deposits have been steadily rising since large-scale oil sands production began in 1978.
Samples from one test site, the paper said, now show 2.5 to 23 times more PAHs in current sediment than in layers dating back to around 1960.
“We’re not saying these are poisonous ponds,” Professor Smol said. “But it’s going to get worse. It’s not too late but the trend is not looking good.” He said that the wilderness lakes studied by the group were now contaminated as much as lakes in urban centers.
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The Tar Sands Blockade has launched a “die-in” at the TransCanada offices in Houston, Texas to protest the Keystone XL pipeline.
Activists in Massachusetts have also engaged in direct action in TransCanada’s office telling stories of the Keystone’s destructive consequences.
Solidarity actions are currently taking place all over the country today, including right now in Detroit & tonight in Austin.
From the Tar Sands Blockade: “This action kicks off a new phase of the Tar Sands Blockade targeting the corporate and financial infrastructure behind the Keystone XL pipeline. TransCanada’s pipeline uses seized land to transport toxic tar sands oil through Texas and Oklahoma communities, in order to export it from Houston ports. These dangerous business practices and the backlash from communities across the country make this pipeline a toxic investment for our state and TransCanada’s corporate lenders.”
Commendable.
(via george-allan)
1. Two-four (24 beers)
2. Loonie (and, of course, toonie)
3. Toque
4. Klick (kilometre)
5. Toboggan
6. Peamealor back bacon
7. Washroom
8. Serviette
9. Chinook (the wind, not the helicopter)
10. Mickey (e.g. a mickey of vodka)
11. Knapsack
12. Kerfuffle
Please feel free to add to this list :P
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