Free Riding on Carbon Emissions

Canada's environment minister says that he won't sign climate treaty without the United States inclusion. His justification: reducing Carbon emissions unilaterally would hurt the economy without significantly reducing global warming. From cbc.ca

Canada's environment minister has dismissed the notion of signing a climate-change treaty without the United States, saying it would handicap the Canadian economy without reversing greenhouse gas emissions.

As the world gathers in Bali, Indonesia, to work toward a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, the Americans are already making it clear they will not submit to binding emissions targets.

In an interview with the Canadian Press, John Baird said Canada hopes to reach a deal within two years — but only if it applies targets for the first time to all major polluters.

He used a military analogy to suggest that Canada would be handicapping its economy by adopting environmental restrictions without being followed by its closest neighbour and trading partner.

My first question is if you raise a tax on carbon emisions and then lower tax on everything else how does that hurt the eocnomy? My other question is if Canada can't have an effect on global warming, why do anything even if you have the United States on board. The best strategy for Canada would be to talk a lot about global warming but not actually reduce emissions....oh wait...that's what they are doing. Get the full version here

Economics of Textbooks

Students have much reason to be frustrated at the price of textbooks. If I had to guess, I'd say the average price of a book in a university book store is about double the local book store (also true for used books). The reason for this is that the people who are making the buying decisions (professors) are not the people who have to pay the bill (students). This causes book sellers to completely on quality and not price. If you are fortunate enough to be part of the population the buy textbooks you know that they are usually filled with glossy pages and pictures that are in no ways necessary to the subject. How do you fix this...it's hard. I think the most effective way would be to nag your teachers who make you buy unnecessary amounts of books. A textbook price ceiling might work, but then you eliminate books where it is necessary to charge the high amount.

Public Labour Action

The library workers in Victoria have been on a sort of strike for the last couple weeks. A.K.A no computer access, shorter hours. ect. This has been very inconvinent for me because my compuer in currently non-operational (I'm writing this on a university computer). With strikes at private compainies the public isn't inconvienced very much because there is almost always a subsitute. When public workers strike the public in inconvienced a great deal. Should there be different labour laws for public and private unions?

Are Canadian Bloggers More Convervative?

A trend I've noticed is that popular political blogs in Canada tend to be on the convervative side while their counterparts in the U.S. tend to be more left wing. It could be that Canadian Conservatives feel alienated politically along with left wing Americans, and alienated political voices turn to the internet. However, the governents on both sides of the border seem to be converging and this trend still exsists. If you don't believe me I would reccomend checking out blogging Candians, compared with something like Digg or the daily kos.

My Goal As A Blogger...

...check it out.

Step In The Right Direction

From the NY Times:

In-flight Internet access is finally taking off in the United States.

Starting next week and over the next few months, several airlines will begin taking the first steps toward offering Internet service on their planes.

On Tuesday, JetBlue Airways will begin offering a free e-mail and instant messaging service on one of its aircraft, while American Airlines, Virgin America and Alaska Airlines plan to offer a broader Web experience in the coming months.

“I think 2008 is the year when we will finally start to see in-flight Internet access become available, but I suspect the rollout domestically will take place in a very measured way,” said Henry Harteveldt, an analyst with Forrester Research. “In a few years time, if you get on a flight that doesn’t have Internet access, it will be like walking into a hotel room that doesn’t have TV.”

The goal is to let passengers use their laptops or smartphones to download e-mail and use the Web as they would at any wireless hotspot on the ground. Virgin America even plans to link the technology to its seat-back entertainment system, enabling passengers who are not traveling with their own hardware to send and receive messages on a flight.

-Get the full version here.

--This is a step in the right direction because the FCC finally realized that you can't interfere with a hundred thousand dollar communication system with something you bought at radioshack. Westjet also announced they'll be offering this service.

Kinda Scary

....Mr. Burns would be so proud:

The head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has blasted Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. for violating licence requirements at its Chalk River research reactor - a situation that has now led to an extended shut down and worldwide shortage in radioactive medical materials.

"You are and were in violation of your licence that was granted, in the eyes of the commission, in August ë06," said Linda Keen, the commission's president and CEO.

"The whole understanding of this commission was that that facility was being reviewed against modern standards and was up to date and was going to go forward to the licence period ó that it could operate," she said at a public meeting on Thursday.

Ms. Keen's comments came after an AECL official explained why the company is going ahead with upgrades that include the installation of two new motor starters for the reactor cooling pumps and connecting the motors to an additional backup power supply.

"The impression's been left here that this was an interesting, nice upgrade, that it wasn't essential. It was essential," Ms. Keen said.

In Canada, the shutdown shortage of a material used in tests for cancer, heart disease, arthritis, kidney disease and other health conditions has already caused cancellations in cities such as Toronto, Halifax and Saskatoon, but so far has only led to rescheduling at Ottawa hospitals. AECL official Brian McGee said there is a 75 per cent probability that the reactor will be in operation by the end of December, and a 95 per cent chance that the reactor will return to service by the end of the first week in January. He noted that once the reactor starts up, it takes at least a few days to produce isotopes.

-Get the full version here.

I'm Incrediably Jealous...

...of whoever gets to do research like this:

The dogs chose the appropriate image by pressing their nose against the screen

To the dog lover, the ability of man's best friend to bark at the postman and fetch a stick is proof of his intelligence. But they may be even brighter than that. Scientists have welcomed dogs into a select club of species capable of using abstract concepts. The research showed that dogs are able to mentally sort objects into categories, a talent for abstract thought that has only been shown in birds and primates before.

The researchers trained four dogs with a touch-screen test which involved choosing between two images which appeared simultaneously. One was an image of a dog, the other a landscape. The animals indicated their preference with a prod of their noses. When they chose the dog they were rewarded with food. If they chose the landscape they had to wait a few seconds before the same two images appeared again.

Next the team tested the dogs - two border collies, an Australian shepherd and a mongrel - with an unfamiliar set of dog pictures and landscapes. To pass they would need to realise that "dog" is a category of object that unfamiliar objects also fall into. Their success dropped slightly from about 80% to 72%. "It shows us that dogs are able to use more or less abstract concepts," said Dr Friederike Range, who carried out the work with colleagues at the University of Vienna.

Lastly, the experimenters used familiar landscapes as background with new dog images superimposed. Again the animals were able to choose the ones with the dogs. The research appears in the journal Animal Cognition and is reported today in New Scientist magazine.

--Get the full version here.