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Monday, May 4, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Property seizure by provinces OK
Robin Chatterjee, a former student at Carleton University in Ottawa, was en route to his home in Thornhill, Ont., in March 2003 when police pulled him over because his car was missing a front licence plate.
They discovered he was breaching a court order to live in Ottawa and upon searching his car, found a light ballast, one light socket and an exhaust fan -- items commonly used for marijuana grow operations. He also had $29,000 cash.
Police did not charge the young man because they said they did not have enough evidence.
Ontario's Civil Remedies Act, however, does not require a criminal conviction, so the province moved in and seized the goods after receiving judicial approval. A judge can give permission based on a balance of probabilities that the goods were proceeds of crime, a standard that is not as high as the criminal test of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
'Each level of government bears a portion of the costs of criminality and each level of government, therefore, has an interest in its suppression,' Justice Ian Binnie wrote in the 7-0 decision.
Property seizure by provinces OK: court
They discovered he was breaching a court order to live in Ottawa and upon searching his car, found a light ballast, one light socket and an exhaust fan -- items commonly used for marijuana grow operations. He also had $29,000 cash.
Police did not charge the young man because they said they did not have enough evidence.
Ontario's Civil Remedies Act, however, does not require a criminal conviction, so the province moved in and seized the goods after receiving judicial approval. A judge can give permission based on a balance of probabilities that the goods were proceeds of crime, a standard that is not as high as the criminal test of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
'Each level of government bears a portion of the costs of criminality and each level of government, therefore, has an interest in its suppression,' Justice Ian Binnie wrote in the 7-0 decision.
Property seizure by provinces OK: court
Sporting Life 10K Results
woohoo, my first timed race run ... 2,454th place!
Sporting Life 10K
Place 2454/10762
Chip Time 49:35.8
Pace 4:58
Gender Place/Total 1892/4857
Category M45-49 206/543
Sporting Life 10K
Sunday May 3rd, 2009
Toronto, ON, 8:00am
OBRONT, DAVID Toronto, ON, 8:00am
Place 2454/10762
Chip Time 49:35.8
Pace 4:58
Gender Place/Total 1892/4857
Category M45-49 206/543
Da Russophile
Their Thesis
The Western media tells us Russia is in a death spiral, its economy is one giant oil bubble, suffers from endemic corruption, inequality and lawlessness and is presided over by a KGB kleptocrat dead-set on resurrecting the USSR and launching Cold War II.
Our Antithesis
Russia is a normal country with a booming non-hydrocarbons economy underpinned by a well-educated and secular workforce. The Putin administration has affirmed democratic values, worked to improve human rights and pursued Russia’s national interests abroad.
Your Synthesis ?
Core Article: Welcome to Da Russophile | Sublime Oblivion
The Western media tells us Russia is in a death spiral, its economy is one giant oil bubble, suffers from endemic corruption, inequality and lawlessness and is presided over by a KGB kleptocrat dead-set on resurrecting the USSR and launching Cold War II.
Our Antithesis
Russia is a normal country with a booming non-hydrocarbons economy underpinned by a well-educated and secular workforce. The Putin administration has affirmed democratic values, worked to improve human rights and pursued Russia’s national interests abroad.
Your Synthesis ?
Core Article: Welcome to Da Russophile | Sublime Oblivion
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Insulin, Blood Sugar & Type 2 Diabetes
We all know by now that type 2 diabetes is an epidemic. Here’s my ultra-simple explanation of the entire insulin/blood sugar/type 2 diabetes mess. Big Agra could really care less about you. That’s just business.
The Definitive Guide to Insulin, Blood Sugar & Type 2 Diabetes (and you’ll understand it)
Mark's Daily Apple4 excerpts from Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman.
a vision of the hereafter from a new book by David Eagleman
Seven hours of vomiting. Fourteen minutes of pure joy
Today's story is entitled 'Sum.'
Tuesday, April 28, 2009The great TV in the sky
Today's story is entitled 'Will-o'-the-Wisp.'
Wednesday, April 29, 2009The Technician's warning
Today's story is entitled 'The Unnatural.'
Thursday, April 30, 2009-
The many versions of you
Today's story is entitled 'Prism.'
Friday, May 1, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
Bank PPEs ample cushion against rising loan losses
Bank PPEs ample cushion against rising loan losses - FP Trading Desk: "The pre-provision, pre-tax earnings (PPE) of Canada's banks are more than ample to cushion the impact of rising loan losses, says UBS analyst Peter A. Rozenberg.
'We think that PPE are the most important line of defence against projected credit losses, he said in a note to clients. 'We project significant PPE of $34-billion in F2009 compared to $9.3-billion in projected provisions.
Mr. Rozenberg said Canadian banks have historically enjoyed strong provision coverage with PPE:PCLs no less than 1.5x. Currently, the analyst noted the average coverage is 3.6x with National Bank at 7.3x and Bank of Nova Scotia at 4.8x, leading the pack. Bank of Montreal at 2.5x would be the lowest.
He added that PPE is also a good way to judge bank valuations and following the recent rally in the sector, Canadian banks are now trading at 5.4x PPE, compared with their historical average of 5.6x. CIBC and Bank of Montreal trade at the most attractive valuations, he said, while Royal Bank and Bank of Nova Scotia trade modestly above average, TD is below average and National Bank trades higher than average.
'Lower valuations at TD and BMO likely reflect lower implied US returns while discounts at CM likely reflect higher [collateralized loan obligations] risk,' he wrote. 'The relative premium valuation at NA is likely due to lower than average provisions and higher implied returns.'"
'We think that PPE are the most important line of defence against projected credit losses, he said in a note to clients. 'We project significant PPE of $34-billion in F2009 compared to $9.3-billion in projected provisions.
Mr. Rozenberg said Canadian banks have historically enjoyed strong provision coverage with PPE:PCLs no less than 1.5x. Currently, the analyst noted the average coverage is 3.6x with National Bank at 7.3x and Bank of Nova Scotia at 4.8x, leading the pack. Bank of Montreal at 2.5x would be the lowest.
He added that PPE is also a good way to judge bank valuations and following the recent rally in the sector, Canadian banks are now trading at 5.4x PPE, compared with their historical average of 5.6x. CIBC and Bank of Montreal trade at the most attractive valuations, he said, while Royal Bank and Bank of Nova Scotia trade modestly above average, TD is below average and National Bank trades higher than average.
'Lower valuations at TD and BMO likely reflect lower implied US returns while discounts at CM likely reflect higher [collateralized loan obligations] risk,' he wrote. 'The relative premium valuation at NA is likely due to lower than average provisions and higher implied returns.'"
Ovechkin vs Crosby
National Post editorial board: Ovechkin vs Crosby, a defining decision:
"We are not the first to say how fortunate hockey fans are to be enjoying another Sidney Crosby-Alexander Ovechkin playoff duel. In fact, we’re probably more like the thousandth. But there are so many reasons to be grateful that, even collectively, the hockey world’s editorialists are helpless to exhaust them all. Just consider, for example, the manner in which hockey’s Magic and Bird have re-energized and reinvented the old Canada-vs.-Russia tension that was part of our lives for 20 years. Back in the day, it was the Soviets who lacked individuality and presented the contemptuous demeanour of the soldier to the world; it was the Canadians who best expressed the love of the game as such, and reminded us of the reasons we still talk of “playing” hockey.
Today, time and events have changed the picture. For better or worse, it is our Mr. Crosby who is the straitlaced one, the self-conscious leader; Mr. Crosby who, for better or worse, may represent to the world’s hockey fans a homogenizing obsession with correctness and knowing one’s place in the order. And it is Mr. Ovechkin who represents creativity and glee and fire and insolence, who knows the game is a game and who is willing to take it off the ice (as he did when, with his team down 2-0 in the series, he showed up at a Rangers’ practice to talk smack and rattle his opponents). There can be no question which one of these players would fit in on, say, the ’74 Flyers of Bob Clarke and Fred Shero, and which one could be slotted into the old Russian KLM line for 10 minutes before anyone noticed.
That makes the question of rooting interests incredibly complex, and raises this sports rivalry to the highest level imaginable, a level at which the tides of history and the self-images of two great nations have their part to play.
There must be many households which have a young son who venerates Mr. Crosby patriotically — he’s handsome, good-natured, assiduous, stylish and hardly ever puts a foot wrong on the ice — and a father who, perhaps secretly, sees Mr. Ovechkin as being more like the heroes of his own youth. And yet, there must be as many more where the father sees Mr. Crosby as standing up for Canadian values, representing everything he wants his own child to become, while the son, responding with instinctive fellow-feeling to the boy barely hidden inside Mr. Ovechkin, goes to bed clutching his No. 8 jersey. At times like this, sport aspires, and quite successfully, to the qualities of an outstanding novel.
The difference is, nobody on earth knows what the next chapter will look like: Nobody can know until it is carved into the ice. Miraculously, the protagonists are just 23 and 21 years of age. And it is worth remembering that Mr. Crosby is still a great deal further from his physical and mental peak than Mr. Ovechkin; biologically, he has yet to reach his final form. But the opportunities for him to face his nemesis in the playoffs may not be many. The 30-team pro sports leagues of today are remorseless in their mathematical logic. For reasons of pure abstract combinatorics, they offer fewer opportunities for sustained rivalry, for the kind of multi-seasonal epics than Montreal and Boston, or Calgary and Edmonton, used to create.
So now would be a good moment for Mr. Crosby to step forward. He came into the NHL accompanied by unrealistic expectations of instant massive success (though it is not as though he has been a disappointment, exactly), and now an interloper, Mr. Ovechkin, has established himself as perhaps the bigger star. We are all waiting anxiously to see what level of the pyramid Mr. Crosby ultimately ascends to. He is clearly on a Hall of Fame track, but in the Hall of Fame, you’ve got your Mike Gartners and Bernie Federkos, and then again you have your Gretzkys and Orrs. The difference is made, young Sidney, at times like this."
"We are not the first to say how fortunate hockey fans are to be enjoying another Sidney Crosby-Alexander Ovechkin playoff duel. In fact, we’re probably more like the thousandth. But there are so many reasons to be grateful that, even collectively, the hockey world’s editorialists are helpless to exhaust them all. Just consider, for example, the manner in which hockey’s Magic and Bird have re-energized and reinvented the old Canada-vs.-Russia tension that was part of our lives for 20 years. Back in the day, it was the Soviets who lacked individuality and presented the contemptuous demeanour of the soldier to the world; it was the Canadians who best expressed the love of the game as such, and reminded us of the reasons we still talk of “playing” hockey.
Today, time and events have changed the picture. For better or worse, it is our Mr. Crosby who is the straitlaced one, the self-conscious leader; Mr. Crosby who, for better or worse, may represent to the world’s hockey fans a homogenizing obsession with correctness and knowing one’s place in the order. And it is Mr. Ovechkin who represents creativity and glee and fire and insolence, who knows the game is a game and who is willing to take it off the ice (as he did when, with his team down 2-0 in the series, he showed up at a Rangers’ practice to talk smack and rattle his opponents). There can be no question which one of these players would fit in on, say, the ’74 Flyers of Bob Clarke and Fred Shero, and which one could be slotted into the old Russian KLM line for 10 minutes before anyone noticed.
That makes the question of rooting interests incredibly complex, and raises this sports rivalry to the highest level imaginable, a level at which the tides of history and the self-images of two great nations have their part to play.
There must be many households which have a young son who venerates Mr. Crosby patriotically — he’s handsome, good-natured, assiduous, stylish and hardly ever puts a foot wrong on the ice — and a father who, perhaps secretly, sees Mr. Ovechkin as being more like the heroes of his own youth. And yet, there must be as many more where the father sees Mr. Crosby as standing up for Canadian values, representing everything he wants his own child to become, while the son, responding with instinctive fellow-feeling to the boy barely hidden inside Mr. Ovechkin, goes to bed clutching his No. 8 jersey. At times like this, sport aspires, and quite successfully, to the qualities of an outstanding novel.
The difference is, nobody on earth knows what the next chapter will look like: Nobody can know until it is carved into the ice. Miraculously, the protagonists are just 23 and 21 years of age. And it is worth remembering that Mr. Crosby is still a great deal further from his physical and mental peak than Mr. Ovechkin; biologically, he has yet to reach his final form. But the opportunities for him to face his nemesis in the playoffs may not be many. The 30-team pro sports leagues of today are remorseless in their mathematical logic. For reasons of pure abstract combinatorics, they offer fewer opportunities for sustained rivalry, for the kind of multi-seasonal epics than Montreal and Boston, or Calgary and Edmonton, used to create.
So now would be a good moment for Mr. Crosby to step forward. He came into the NHL accompanied by unrealistic expectations of instant massive success (though it is not as though he has been a disappointment, exactly), and now an interloper, Mr. Ovechkin, has established himself as perhaps the bigger star. We are all waiting anxiously to see what level of the pyramid Mr. Crosby ultimately ascends to. He is clearly on a Hall of Fame track, but in the Hall of Fame, you’ve got your Mike Gartners and Bernie Federkos, and then again you have your Gretzkys and Orrs. The difference is made, young Sidney, at times like this."
The shifting sands of Saudi Arabia
EDITORIAL: The shifting sands - Washington Times: "We suspect that the Saudis have taken the measure of President Obama and his administration - and realize nothing will be done to thwart Tehran's nuclear ambitions. That means Iran's bomb is inevitable and so is the Saudis' appeasement. As for America, we may want to rethink a foreign policy that makes our friends bow to our enemies."
Can Ahmadinejad copy Obama's election slogan? Yes, he can
guardian.co.uk:
Obama's signature campaign slogan, Yes We Can, has been replicated by the Iranian president in a promotional video issued for Iran's presidential poll on 12 June, when Ahmadinejad is seeking re-election.
The video features a cover picture of Ahmadinejad wearing his trademark white jacket and pointing to the Farsi phrase Ma Mitavanim (We Can) on a blackboard. The film is aimed at students and capitalises on his former status as a university lecturer.
Obama's signature campaign slogan, Yes We Can, has been replicated by the Iranian president in a promotional video issued for Iran's presidential poll on 12 June, when Ahmadinejad is seeking re-election.
The video features a cover picture of Ahmadinejad wearing his trademark white jacket and pointing to the Farsi phrase Ma Mitavanim (We Can) on a blackboard. The film is aimed at students and capitalises on his former status as a university lecturer.
Ahmadinejad Doesn't Recognize Two-State Vision
The Iranian website Asr-e Iran stated that the Western media had distorted statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in an April 26 interview on ABC TV, that 'Iran would agree to any decision made by the Palestinians,' as meaning agreement to the 'two-state vision' and recognition of Israel.
The website stated that the distortion of Ahmadinejad's words was aimed at weakening Iran's status among the Arabs who see it as supporting Palestinian rights.
It should be noted that during the interview, Ahmadinejad said that 'the Palestinian people has the right to decide its own fate' by means of a referendum held amongst all Palestinians worldwide, not only residents of the Palestinian territories.
Under this Iranian solution, the Jews in Israel could participate in the referendum only if they had lived in pre-1948 Palestine.
The website stated that the distortion of Ahmadinejad's words was aimed at weakening Iran's status among the Arabs who see it as supporting Palestinian rights.
It should be noted that during the interview, Ahmadinejad said that 'the Palestinian people has the right to decide its own fate' by means of a referendum held amongst all Palestinians worldwide, not only residents of the Palestinian territories.
Under this Iranian solution, the Jews in Israel could participate in the referendum only if they had lived in pre-1948 Palestine.
Why Jane Fonda Is Banned in Beirut
Why Jane Fonda Is Banned in Beirut - WSJ.com:
A professor at the American University here recently ordered copies of 'The Diary of Anne Frank' for his classes, only to learn that the book is banned. Inquiring further, he discovered a long list of prohibited books, films and music.
Even a partial list of books banned in Lebanon gives pause: William Styron's 'Sophie's Choice'; Thomas Keneally's 'Schindler's List'; Thomas Friedman's 'From Beirut to Jerusalem'; books by Philip Roth, Saul Bellow and Isaac Bashevis Singer. In fact, all books that portray Jews, Israel or Zionism favorably are banned.
Writers in Arabic are not exempt. Abdo Wazen's 'The Garden of the Senses' and Layla Baalbaki's 'Hana's Voyage to the Moon' were taken to court. Syria's Sadiq Jalal al-Azm was prosecuted for his 'Critique of Religious Thinking.'
All of Jane Fonda's films are banned, since she visited Israel in 1982 to court votes for Tom Hayden's Senate run. 'Torn Curtain' is banned: Paul Newman starred in 'Exodus.' And the television series 'The Nanny' is banned because of Fran Drescher.
Works that could stimulate dialogue in Lebanon are perfunctorily banned. 'Waltz with Bashir,' an Israeli film of 2008, is banned -- even though it alleges that Ariel Sharon was complicit in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres. According to the Web site Monstersandcritics, however, 'Waltz with Bashir' became an instant classic in the very Palestinian camps it depicts, because it is the only history the younger generation has.
A professor at the American University here recently ordered copies of 'The Diary of Anne Frank' for his classes, only to learn that the book is banned. Inquiring further, he discovered a long list of prohibited books, films and music.
Even a partial list of books banned in Lebanon gives pause: William Styron's 'Sophie's Choice'; Thomas Keneally's 'Schindler's List'; Thomas Friedman's 'From Beirut to Jerusalem'; books by Philip Roth, Saul Bellow and Isaac Bashevis Singer. In fact, all books that portray Jews, Israel or Zionism favorably are banned.
Writers in Arabic are not exempt. Abdo Wazen's 'The Garden of the Senses' and Layla Baalbaki's 'Hana's Voyage to the Moon' were taken to court. Syria's Sadiq Jalal al-Azm was prosecuted for his 'Critique of Religious Thinking.'
All of Jane Fonda's films are banned, since she visited Israel in 1982 to court votes for Tom Hayden's Senate run. 'Torn Curtain' is banned: Paul Newman starred in 'Exodus.' And the television series 'The Nanny' is banned because of Fran Drescher.
Works that could stimulate dialogue in Lebanon are perfunctorily banned. 'Waltz with Bashir,' an Israeli film of 2008, is banned -- even though it alleges that Ariel Sharon was complicit in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres. According to the Web site Monstersandcritics, however, 'Waltz with Bashir' became an instant classic in the very Palestinian camps it depicts, because it is the only history the younger generation has.
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