"It turns out, no other English-speaking nation with a system of government like ours -- not Britain, Australia or New Zealand -- has ever had its parliament prorogued in modern times, so that its ruling party could avoid an investigation, or a vote of confidence, by other elected legislators.

Only three times has this happened, all in Canada -- first in 1873, when Sir John A. Macdonald asked the governor general to prorogue Parliament in order to halt a House of Commons probe into the Pacific Scandal. Lord Dufferin gave in to the demand, but when Parliament reconvened Macdonald was forced to resign.

No prime minister dared use prorogation to such effect again, until Stephen Harper convinced Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean to suspend Parliament in 2008, so the Conservative party could evade a confidence vote.

A little more than a year later, he did it again."

"Instead of just complaining, let's take a look at the issue from another angle. Contrast these three situations: 1) you are sitting in a hotel bar in Mongolia and want to use your Visa card to buy a round of drinks for your friends, and; 2) your Mom is at the check-out counter at a Sears store when the clerk asks her if she wants to apply for a Sears credit card and save 10 percent on her order, and 3) a possible terrorist with a dubious travel record and suspected al-Qaeda connections is standing in line at a European airport waiting to board a flight to the U.S. that leaves in an hour. What happens in each of these cases?

In Mongolia the bartender takes your card and authorizes it in seconds across a 12,000-mile round-trip. At the Sears store the transaction is not only authorized in less than a minute, but a new account is created and both your Mom's identity and her creditworthiness are established and calculated on the spot, along with her discount. Meanwhile the airline, airport, local security, European police, Interpol, Transportation Security Administration, Department of Homeland Security, Customs Service, FBI, CIA, and NSA can't between them figure out in an hour whether this guy standing in line in Holland should be allowed on the plane or not.

How is it that we can run our credit card operations so well and our national security so poorly?"

"The Times Online article uses PayPal -- already a frequent phishing target -- as an example.

If the domain, created using Cyrillic scripts raural.com was registered, the way that Unicode-browsers will actually render that domain in latin is as paypal.com. In theory, phishers could pass around that link and set up a fake version of the PayPal site to harvest logins and credit card data."

2010: I plan to try some new things, earn a Business Analysis Certificate, and have more well-defined plans for Dec 31. :-)

My 2009th tweet: in 2009 we crossed the Pacific for the first time, got a dishwasher, and my Mom had heart surgery. Plus more, no room here!

My 2008th tweet: in 2008 we visited Hawaii, got a new bathroom, made Aeroplan Elite for the first time, and lost some dear friends.

My 2007th tweet: in 2007 we moved to Toronto, bought a house, and hosted New Year's in Ottawa with @petele ! (not in that order)

My 2006th tweet: in 2006 we visited Seattle and Las Vegas, I started acting with KWLT, and I got excited about the Ottawa Senators.

My 2005th tweet: in 2005 I spent New Year's in a cottage in Quebec, met a porn star in London, and started following @InklessPW 's columns.

My 2004th tweet: in 2004 we moved to Ontario (Kitchener-Waterloo), bought a condo, and I got my last speeding ticket.

My 2003rd tweet: in 2003 we found a snake in our apartment, and we met @jaredmacpherson !

My 2002nd tweet: in 2002 I went to Burning Man. That was incredible and I hope to get back there some year.

My 2001st tweet: in 2001 I was finally working fulltime (stupd dot com bust), and went to South Africa. Amazing trip.

My 2000th tweet: in 2000 I moved in with @leapfish , we bought out current mattress (ugh), and we went to Hawaii. Also moved to Halifax.

My 1999th tweet: in 1999, met @leapfish , worked for Corel, and I don't remember anything else. :)

My 1998th tweet: Moved in with Pete, worked for Nortel, more theatre, plus got on the executive at GALA (now SPECTRUM) at UNB. Stage set...

My 1997th tweet: Mega-theatre year, work term at Revenue Canada, and picked up on an SMT bus. Those were the days.

My 1996th tweet: in 1996 I got hired as a proctor at UNB, had my parents move to NS without me, & started working with Theatre UNB. MIss it.

My 1995th tweet: in 1995 I left high school, dove back into the closet in Neill House at UNB (then back out), & got in my only car accident.

My 1994th tweet: in 1994 I was finally figuring out my sexuality. I came out over IRC to a friend on Jan 2. Changed my life and freed me.

1. No car, live in central urban area, transit for all commuting when transit possible
2. Compost, recycle, and reuse (hoard? packrat?) as much as possible
3. Turn off and unplug almost all electronics when not in use (including half of home theatre), and measure phantom load to reduce or eliminate it
4.  Replaced windows, doors, added insulation, lowered furnace temperature
5. ?

The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful "deal" so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.

China's strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world's poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait.

Software patents insane. RT @aylab: Microsoft loses Word patent appeal http://tinyurl.com/yd4y7uz -- They are no longer allowed to sell it.

i4i prevails against Microsoft. Its check-writing time for MS, or injunction on Word sales http://bit.ly/7Uiegc

@c_9 Actually, Microsoft just has to pay the inventors a royalty. Its no big deal.

@Jugglenaut In this case yes there is a solution, but software patents in general R insane in my view. See Caldera/SCO for examples.

@c_9 Caldera/SCO was a copyright issue. Very different fact/issues were involved. I4i v. Microsoft predominately revolves around #patent.

@c_9 Incidentally, if software patents are all bad, how do U account for increasing employment? http://bit.ly/8OjyTd

@Jugglenaut agreed, SCO example not correct, wasn't thinking. Will find better examples. #patent

@Jugglenaut employment as a programmer & the existence of software patents are not necessarily correlated; also, Wolfram has boom yrs only.

@c_9 Yes, perhaps a boom, but computer implemented methods were alive and well during those years. & likely contributed to the demand.

@c_9 Look at it this way, how do you get more golden eggs? A: Raise more geese and keep 'em happy.

@c_9 How 'bout this? USA has strongest protection of SW IP of all nations .: we have the most talent focussed making SW products. #swpatent

@Jugglenaut re employment boom - I agree they probably contributed, but we have no evidence for this.

@Jugglenaut please see next several tweets for perfect example of why twitter is useless for debate. :-) #swpatent

@jugglenaut I'm not certain that all software #patent are bad, but they are not all automatically good either.

Fundamental concerns with software #patent idea:
1. Copyright protects work of programmers/biz against copying.

2. Mathematics and logic leads to algorithms, so I could review issue & invent solution that breaches #patent on software I've never seen.

3. CompSci prof Donald Knuth says #patent are trouble, wrote to USPTO to ask them to change their approach. [link I didn't include in tweet: http://www.scribd.com/Letter-to-the-Patent-Office-From-Donald-Knuth/d/29707]

4. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates says MS couldn't have grown as it did if patents had existed at the start of company. [link I didn't include in tweet: http://eupat.ffii.org/archiv/zitate/#bgates91]

5. USPTO has multiple examples of granting patents for non-unique, trivial, or prior-art-exists ideas. [link I didn't include in tweet: http://w2.eff.org/patent/wp.php]

@c_9 same could be said about pharmacological patents #swpatent

@c_9 Just like a sword... the good and the bad are in the one who holds it. #swpatent

So I think we need better approach. Not all software patents are bad, not all are good. @jugglenaut agreed on the sword.

@c_9 the ultimate decider in this is the #USPTO. If our patent office were adequately staffed then this debate is moot #swpatent

@Jugglenaut re pharm patents - true. And I have concerns re pharm patents due to cost/suffering in poor countries. No solution though.

@Jugglenaut agreed - the #USPTO needs knowledge/experience to judge, and clearly doesn't have it. #swpatent

@c_9 wether pharma or SW, U have to agree the carrot produces more innovation than the stick. #swpatent

@Jugglenaut LOL @ Spinal Tap! Agreed that carrot more effective than stick. But not all carrots equally effective.

@c_9 From personal experience, the #USPTO places far more limitations on patent claims than the patent ap has when starting #swpatent

@c_9 You should have seen what we wanted to have. Well, you should have seen the cover they *wanted* to do! #swpatent

@c_9 http://bit.ly/8vGzz0 ;)

Something about the patent claims U want versus what you get reminds me of Memorable quotes for This Is Spinal Tap

@c_9 Ah yes, your reward awaits in heaven . I'm not saying some SW shouldn't be passed around freely - just not all. #swpatent

Wanted: software that will give me the contents of an @-based conversation on twitter, but in chronological order, from all users. Possible?