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OT: The News Thread

Yikes, that's a little overboard. It's tough to take it seriously. I mean that's worse than JFk, John Lennon, Elvis and Micheal Jackson all dying on the same day.
 
BCE Inc. said Monday it will end the practice of "throttling" or slowing down bandwidth speeds among certain heavy Internet users, citing a boost in network capacity as well the effective implementation of usage-based billing practices.

In a regulatory submission with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the country's largest Internet service provider said the measure - which had been derided by consumer advocates as violating so-called "net neutrality" principles - would be discontinued for the time being.

Bell will end the practice by March 1, it said.
The surprise decision falls squarely on users swapping large amounts of data through "peer-to-peer" filesharing technology such as BitTorrent, a minority using "torrent" files to download movies, television shows and music. BCE and other network operators blame torrent trading for congesting their broadband networks and degrading service across the system.

The manoeuvre likely will play well with the CRTC, which has clashed with BCE of late, and has urged the company to move away from traffic-restriction practices.

"The primary driver in this is the massive investments we've made," said Mirko Bibic, BCE's senior vice-president of regulatory affairs. Another, however, appears to be the falling into place of the right billing methods.

"This is not to say that (peer-to-peer swapping of large files) no longer has an impact on network congestion.

"Nevertheless ... in light of the extensive investments made in additional network capacity, and given economic ITMPs (Internet Traffic Management Practices) in the marketplace, the companies will withdraw the shaping of P2P traffic on the companies' networks, with regards to both retail and wholesale traffic," Bell said a letter from Bell to regulators.
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Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/tech...t+throttling/5884904/story.html#ixzz1h3p862XZ

Translation: "You convinced the CRTC to stop us from throttling, so we convinced them of our plan B - UBB - instead. Thanks."
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yuck.

Is there any out from this beyond legislation away from usage-based-billing (not happening under the conservatives) on the horizon?
 
Hey, it's no problem if Bell and Rogers want to use usage-based-billing.

The problem was when they wanted to apply UBB to third-party companies leasing "space" on their networks like TekSavvy, in order to force them to drastically lower their internet caps or adopt UBB themselves. But since they can't do that now, Rogers and Bell can do whatever they like with their internet plans, and I can flip them the bird and enjoy my 300 GB/month plan with Tek Savvy.
 
LeafGm said:
Hey, it's no problem if Bell and Rogers want to use usage-based-billing.

The problem was when they wanted to apply UBB to third-party companies leasing "space" on their networks like TekSavvy, in order to force them to drastically lower their internet caps or adopt UBB themselves. But since they can't do that now, Rogers and Bell can do whatever they like with their internet plans, and I can flip them the bird and enjoy my 300 GB/month plan with Tek Savvy.
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I don't see where it says that they aren't going to continue the practices that were undermining Teksavvy though?
 
johnunit said:
I don't see where it says that they aren't going to continue the practices that were undermining Teksavvy though?
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Well, they can't continue what they were stopped from doing in the first place. The telecoms went whining to the CRTC a while back about extending UBB to the third party providers, and the CRTC in its infinite wisdom agreed to do this. After a massive public backlash, Harper had Tony Clement step in personally and basically order the CRTC to reverse their ruling. So, they can't apply UBB to third party providers unless they can somehow get their case back in front of the CRTC, and get the Harper government on board.

For their own customers though, Bell and Rogers have been using UBB for as long as I remember.
 
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he has warned American officials that his government is "serious" about selling Canadian oil to Asian markets, after a U.S. political fight put the Keystone XL pipeline project on hold.

Harper made the comments in an exclusive interview with CTV News Chief Anchor and Senior Editor Lisa LaFlamme, which will air in its entirety on Boxing Day at 7 p.m.

Harper was also joined in the interview by his wife, Laureen, who talks about the challenges of raising kids at 24 Sussex Dr. in the age of social media.

When asked how serious Ottawa is about selling oil to China, and run the risk of compromising Canada's relationship with the United States, Harper replied: "I am very serious about selling our oil off this continent, selling our energy products off to China."

But the prime minster also said that on a recent trip to the U.S., he was told by a number of senior officials that the Keystone XL pipeline will be approved, thereby opening a new route for Canadian oil to be sent to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

"I ran into several senior Americans, who all said, ‘Don't worry, we'll get Keystone done. You can sell all of your oil to us.' I said, ‘Yeah we'd love to but the problem is now we're on a different track.'"

The pipeline has been delayed as U.S. President Barack Obama seeks more environmental assessments before deciding whether to give the project the green light. He has put off making a decision until after next year's elections.​
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Harper deserves credit for this one. The oil should be for sale, and if the Americans can't get a pipeline approved, he should find another market for it. We can't just sit waiting for them.
Give them first dibs, sure. But if they hem and haw about it, move on without delay.
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I'm a bit torn on this. There are reasonable questions concerning the transportation of DilBit in a pipeline. The amount of sedement in DilBit is unheard of for any pipeline product that I'm aware of, and there is a significant possibility that granular sedement in DilBit could act like a sandpaper on the bottom of the pipeline interior and over time, grind it's way to a rupture. So the Americans have every reason to want to study this effect on a pipeline before approving it's construction. Shell must have some sort of solution for this though, as they don't have an upgrader facility at their Albian Sands facility, and ship DilBit straight to their Scottsford facility just outside Edmonton. FWIW, most of the plants up here have upgrader facilities that turn out a clear synthetic crude oil. This pipeline would, as far as I'm aware, ship DilBit (Diluted Bitumen) direct from smaller SAGD facilities (the huge plants are going to be a relic of yesteryear within 20-30 years imo, replaced by smaller, more remote SAGD facilities) while the larger facilities with upgraders (Suncor Main, Syncrude Base, CNRL Horizons) would continue producing synthetic crude.

With that said...**** everything about shipping it to the U.S, when what we should be doing is building our own refinery capacity in either the Lethbridge or Red Deer areas and selling the finished product, instead of selling DilBit.
 
oh f*ck off, sheep. you would have been one of the mint-munching loafer-wearers who would have screamed at yelled at mulroney for bringing dirty, environmentally-unfriendly refineries into canada.
 
No, YOU **** off, KrauthammerBoy. If we had our own refineries, we could A) enjoy a lower pump price B) not have to depend on the U.S. to refine it and C) create a **** of a lot of jobs. Hell, we could be almost completely self-sufficient in our oil industry, if we had the refineries.
 
QUEBEC — The Quebec government, which said Tuesday it will allow Muslim women working in provincial jails to wear a hijab head scarf, has been accused by the Opposition of caving in to an "excessive" demand.

The Quebec Public Security Department passed the new rule after reaching a deal with Quebec's human rights commission, following a complaint made four years ago.

The ministry chose to enforce what it calls an "accommodation" rather than take the matter before the provincial human rights tribunal.

The Parti Quebecois lambasted the government Tuesday for caving in to this "excessive" demand.

"This is completely unacceptable," said PQ critic for secularism issues Carole Poirier.

"The guards are state employees and should not wear any conspicuous religious symbols, especially not in a jail where the neutrality of the state should be obvious," added Poirier.

The decision stems from a 2007 incident when a then-19-year-old Islamic Montrealer abruptly terminated training to become a Quebec prison guard after she refused to remove her hijab — a garment that covers the hair but leaves the face revealed.

The woman had passed all preliminary tests and was about halfway through a training program at Bordeaux jail in Montreal when she was told she couldn't wear her hijab on the job, for safety reasons. Citing her religious beliefs, the woman challenged the ban and eventually filed a complaint with the human rights commission.

After a lengthy process, the commission found the Public Security Department rules were discriminatory. The body announced Tuesday it has reached a deal with the government to allow Muslim women to wear the hijab at work.

In order to comply with safety regulations, the department will provide a Velcro-fastened hijab to its staff upon request for religious reasons.
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Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/life...slamic+hijab/5892011/story.html#ixzz1hBaGiGUi

A velcro-fastened hijab. **** me.
And this was not a fight over religious clothing. This is a fight over SAFETY. Any loose clothing on a person in prison is dangerous. Wait till some prisoner grabs her hijab and she ends up suing the Province. Why can't they see that coming already?
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An Ontario Conservative MP says Parliament must take another look at whether unborn babies deserve to be treated as human beings, a move that could ultimately challenge the ability to terminate pregnancies with abortion.

Stephen Woodworth, the member for Kitchener Centre, said in a news release Wednesday that a majority of Canadians wrongly believe the law protects the fundamental human rights of children before birth in the later stages of gestation.

“In fact, the opposite is true,” Mr. Woodworth says in his release. “Canadian law provides no human rights protection whatsoever for children before the moment of complete birth.”


He added that an unusual Canadian statute defines a human being as a child who has completely proceeded in a living state from the mother’s body, whether or not the child has breathed. “This means that in Canada a child is legally considered to be sub-human while his or her little toe remains in the birth canal, even if he or she is breathing.”


Mr. Woodworth points out the statute was crafted hundreds of years ago when medical science and principles of human rights were not sufficiently advanced to challenge such a law.


“The important question is whether this 400-year-old Canadian law is supported by 21st century medical science and principles of human rights,” the MP said. “Perhaps Canadians should at least examine this question.”


Mr. Woodworth said Parliament has a responsibility to lead that examination.


Reports out of the federal Conservative caucus after Prime Minister Stephen Harper won his majority government in the spring said Mr. Harper had warned his MPs he did not want backbench moves to reopen the abortion issue.


But many Conservative MPs remain strongly opposed to abortion.
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Under the category of things that will not end well, Woodworth shows his true Tory colours. Well done.
 
It's not exactly a secret that Harper's got a caucus that includes plenty of whacko ex-Reformers that would like to slowly chip away at abortion until it's gone, or end legal abortion altogether in Canada. But as long as Harper's in control of the party, I'd be pretty confident that he'll crush any attempt from within his party to bring up abortion. He knows the issue's a big electoral loser for him, and would pretty much end his goal of turning the Conservatives into the new "natural governing party".
 
Given that the guy is from southwestern Ontario, not exactly rural Alberta, I don't really think that you can chalk this up to a "Reform element" as much as it just being one stupid MP who needs to be reigned in.
 
LeafGm said:
Why doesn't somebody build refinery capacity for our oil in Canada?
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Huge dollar investment. Refineries are multi-multi billion dollar facilities. There's nobody who really needs one who is big enough to do it imo.

Syncrude was recently purchased by Exxon, but they have full upgrader facilities to turn out synthetic crude

Suncor also has an upgrader

CNRL....Ditto

Shell/Albian Sands has Scottsford in Edmonton.


The DilBit heading towards Houston in the Keystone XL will be from sites like Conoco Phillips, Nexxen's Long Lake project, Cenovous, Kearl Lake, Total, Husky, etc, etc, etc. The public image of the oil sands are these huge open pit strip mining operations, and the 4 big boys mentioned above do major strip mining. They all have in province upgrade/refinery capacity. Like I said in my earlier post, the real expansion in the oil sands are in these 30-65K barrel per day SAGD projects in the middle of ****ing nowhere. They're small facilities with only primary upgrade facilities (they basically heat the bitumen, add diluents and some naptha to it and done...just do enough to it to make it able to flow...secondary upgraders *SUG in oilsand parlance* remove the coke and basically produce a synthetic crude oil when all is said and done) and use directional drilling and steam injection to basically suck bitumen from the ground...all they need to do is shift their drill pads around from time to time and run the steam and product piping to the new drill pad location....the sites basically run themselves.

None of those sites are big enough to justify it....a company like Total, one of the biggest energy companies in the world, could afford to spend 20+ billion on a refinery...but why? When you can get a pipeline company to spend their own coin to build you a pipeline to Houston.
 
blacksheep said:
No, YOU **** off, KrauthammerBoy. If we had our own refineries, we could A) enjoy a lower pump price B) not have to depend on the U.S. to refine it and C) create a **** of a lot of jobs. Hell, we could be almost completely self-sufficient in our oil industry, if we had the refineries.
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i call BS. if you were:

A) old enough to have been around and aware when mulroney was PM, and
B) had seem him, a conservative PM, try to bring oil refineries here,

you would have screamed like a little girl and called him a pollution-spewing dinosaur.
 
JaysCyYoung said:
Given that the guy is from southwestern Ontario, not exactly rural Alberta, I don't really think that you can chalk this up to a "Reform element" as much as it just being one stupid MP who needs to be reigned in.
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There were plenty of Reformers in Ontario too, just not enough in any one riding to ever get a Reformer elected. My grandfather was one of them, actually.

But yeah, "stupid" is an even better description of this particular guy than "Reformer" is.
 
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