Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

CBC News: At least 5 dead in Greyhound bus crash

This crash renews my interest in the reasoning behind not offering seatbelts to commercial bus passengers. While the high-back seats might offer compartementalization for head-on crashes that a bus would win most times anyway, the wide windows make a bus extremely dangerous in a rollover situation. It may be time to make seat belts for busses, and leave it to the passenger whether or not they use them. In this crash, it sounds like lives would have been saved had there been safety belts.

I took particular interest in this bus crash, because I was on the bus route back in 2002, although headed to New York from Montreal. Mind you, there’s hardly a major Greyhound route I haven’t been on in Canada, or the northern USA. I was last on a Greyhound to Toronto just two months ago, and my girlfriend was on a Greyhound returning to Saskatchewan when it broke down in the middle of the night for 6 hours with an annoying alarm sound going off until it was repaired.

Here’s a mostly random picture of me a few days after I was on that Greyhound bus route. I’m sure someone will start ranting about the UN now…

I am reproducing the full story from the WoW forum where the author “Stupid” wrote it.

The story is linked to newspaper writings that seem to confirm his version of events. Of course there are clever Slashdot readers pointing out they don’t see proof from the newspapers that the author isn’t simply a clever writer taking credit for the scare, but I believe him at this point. It’s just too nutty, to NOT be true ;-) if you know what I mean.

I can’t believe the time wasted on this accident after the owner of the “package” in the toilet admitted what it was and what had happened.

Blow this line is the author Stupid writing:

This … is going to be a long one. And believe it or not, it’s a 100% true story. Its relation to World of Warcraft will not be immediately apparent. Anyway, the gist of what happened is here [in the Ottawa Citizen].

It all started when I got out of my seat to go to the bathroom. I went to the bathroom, washed my hands, and returned to my seat. A little while later the two stewardesses on the flight crossed each other in the aisle. They had a quick conversation that I was in earshot of.

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Ther other day before going to sleep I realized that Saskatchewan desperately needs a red tiger named Lilly as its mascot. Maybe for the Saskblog’s Aggregator, since an alligator with a ballcap is already taken?

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Ashley mused the other day, “What if cats aren’t saying ‘meow’ and are actually saying, ‘me-now’?” That would make a lot more sense, wouldn’t it?
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From YouTube: “If I had eight treadmills, this is EXACTLY what I’d do first. :D” -starspeckled

Quickly greening your new home

Here are some handy tips to reduce, reuse, and rethink your consumer goods around the house.

And this story of a Solar Tower in Australia I thought was interesting too. It sounds as cool as a Space Elevator.

I checked my pay stubs for June 2006 and July 2006, and my federal income tax deduction went up. Apparently the Conservatives income tax hike went into effect when the GST cut of 1% did. The tax hike is costing me $87.60 more per year, while the GST cut only saves me that much if I buy $8,760 worth of GST taxable goods in the year.

Click to enlarge.

Here’s an interesting link at StatCan which explains low income wages, and average wages in Canada for 2002 and earlier. It looks like I may even be below the so called poverty line today taking inflation into account. It makes me wonder why personal income tax exemption isn’t closer to $20,000 instead of the pathetic ~$8,700 it is now. I have a university degree in computer science, and fortunately don’t have a loan or children yet to worry about, otherwise I’d probably be in financial do-do even with the full time job I have now.
Jeff at BCinTO did a story on the tax changes, and along with my Dad’s suggestion to double check my paystubs, it was the inspiration for this demonstration of how Conservatives say one thing, and do another.

I encourage other people with jobs to share their figures with Canadians, so we can get a personal sense of how the Tories are taxing earnings from different levels of income.

Dr. Michael Geist has been fighting the reckless inclusion of Digital Restrictions Managment (DRM) protection into Canadian law, for some time now. During the last election he helped put the spotlight on Ms. Bulte’s campaign contributions from copyright based industries. She ended up losing her seat, and power to change copyright law in the Heritage department.

Now Dr. Geist is setting his sites on Conservative MP Bev Oda. What evidence does he have that something fishy is afoot? Well it turns out Minister Oda has taken contributions from various copyright lobby industries and orgnizations, when they haven’t given contributions to any other riding in Canada!* I guess they know where to target their money.

Why should you care about this apparently unethical, yet legal acceptance of funds from groups the Minister is apparently going to make very happy in the next sitting of Parliament? DRM will make your everyday life more difficult, expensive, and do nothing to improve the quality of materials laced with it.
* Blogger Left of Center claims Charlie Angus got money from some of the copyright groups as well.

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More on the topic of DRM, Dr. Geist is also featuring a special information webpage called 30 Days of DRM. It shows what exceptions the government must put into any DMCA type law they enact in Canada, or we will face the grave consequences seen in the United States due to their copyright legislation.

Slashdot.org in the USA mentioned his project.

Green Party of Canada

The Greens have elected Elizabeth May to lead the party into the next federal election where we hope to improve on our 5% popular vote, and elect the first Green MPs in Canada. With the right celebrities, I think Canadians are ready for an alternative to the parties that say they care about our environment, but have a track record of hurting it with every descision they make.

Rod Pedersen, the voice of the Roughriders on 620CRKM.com, has a blog that I found recently through the Saskblogs Aggregator. (I have the Aggregator listed on my blog under the Saskatchewan flag.) Rod says, “Danny [Barrett] knows he has a $350,000 QB on the bench in Kerry Joseph who should be ready to play by Sunday. I say give Rock the ball. If he falters, throw in KJ but Butler doesn’t deserve to come out.”

I agree with Rod. Butler played against Winnipeg years ago in a Labour Day game, and absolutely crushed them. He was the third stringer back then too, and I see no reason to change what’s working, until it doesn’t work. Danny never changes quarterbacks in mid-game, and so I expect he’ll put Joseph in to play, but if we start losing, don’t expect to see Butler come in to save us. If Danny really wanted to stay true to form (not changing quarterbacks), he’d stay with the quarterback he has giving us a winning streak now, and leave Rocky Butler in to knock the Bombers around on Sunday.

There’s just no comparison between Joseph’s and Butler’s records this season. You go with the quarterback who is moving your team down the field, and not with the ego/money/recovering QB sitting on the side. Last night Rocky more-than-crushed the dead Hamilton Tigercat team 51-8. Six of the Tigercat’s points were conceded by saftey touches. I feel badly for Ron Lancaster, but not badly enough to not enjoy another Rider win in what has been a lackluster season until Butler stepped up to the plate and hit two home runs. You just don’t pull the star of the season, unless you’re looking to lose.