And the Rest of It

So much going on ...




When will the "Big One" hit?:

The day before Christmas Eve was seismically unusual in the waters off Vancouver Island, alarmingly so to the layperson, trained to expect the worst. A cluster of earthquakes was underway about five kilometres below the seafloor, one every couple of hours.

The first came at 8:44 a.m. local time, just off the northern tip of Vancouver Island, with a magnitude of 5.1. Then at 11:13 was a 5.6, and at 11:49 a 5.8. They were getting larger and more frequent. A 6.2 on Christmas Eve was enough to escalate the panic. Another on Christmas Day seemed fateful. All told, there were nine within a little more than two days, and not just any two days.

What could go wrong?:

The Department of National Defence is fighting a monumental battle to clean up past messes from military training. Data on old munitions buried across Canada reveal huge costs for the federal government that are being dramatically understated on DND’s books

Have we reached peak stupidity in this country?:

Erb said the group’s ambassadors can help influence how others think about climate change, but find themselves in a hypocritical situation.

“They love going and exploring and living this adventure-based lifestyle, but they also know their carbon footprint is big.”

Hill said that was exactly his thinking.

They are raising awareness about awareness of what is truthfully a scam.




The government bribed the press and is planning on stifling social media for any negative comments about Trudeau.

I would say we have not improved on  freedom of speech:

I had said: “‘Free speech wall?’ Ominous doublespeak. Free speech walls emerged in authoritarian societies like China, because there was no freedom of speech, and citizens quite reasonably feared speaking truth to power. That there is an entire generation of Canadian students who think a free speech wall, one tiny corner of the campus approved for anonymously written incorrect thoughts, is something they should be grateful for — well, this is pathetic. A free speech wall is in fact tangible proof (of the problem). It saddens me and scares me more than a little, too.”

Well, I said that in 2014. Have things gotten better since?

 


A good ESL program seeks to not only familiarise students with the rudiments of the English language but make the students' pronunciation more understandable:

Jiang is from China and learned English as a second language. Though she tries not to take it to heart, she admits that after 20 years in Canada, it sometimes gets to her.

"It really shakes my confidence," she said.

Jiang sees her lingering accent as an obstacle, particularly in the workplace. She remembers one job interview in particular. Her resumé had impressed, but she could tell the interviewer was concerned by her pronunciation. She didn't get the job.

"After that, I thought I needed to improve," she said. "I don't want my skill to be wasted because my language [is] blocking me."

Last year, Jiang decided to enrol in accent training classes. 

Also called accent reduction or modification, the programs are available across Canada, and promise to "lessen the negative effects of an accent" and help students "achieve a more neutral or 'Canadian' accent."

You had twenty years. What were you waiting for?






I'm sure it's nothing to be concerned with:

Russia deployed its first regiment of hypersonic nuclear-capable missiles on Friday, the Defence Ministry said, a move which President Vladimir Putin has boasted puts his country in a class of its own.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has informed Putin of the deployment, his ministry said in a statement, which did not say where the missiles were located.

The new system, called Avangard, comprises a hypersonic glide vehicle which is designed to sit atop an intercontinental ballistic missile, one of several new types of weapons touted by Putin as being ahead of their time.

Putin has said that Russia’s new generation of nuclear weapons can hit almost any point in the world and evade a U.S.-built missile shield, though some Western experts have questioned how advanced some of the weapons programs are.

I would say that people who behead and shoot motorists are terrorists:

In the weeks before U.S. President Donald Trump’s declaration last month that he would forge ahead with designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, Cabinet members and top aides from across the government recommended against it, five people knowledgeable about the matter told Reuters.

The recommendations, which some of the sources described as unanimous, have not been reported previously. They were driven in part by concerns that such designations could harm U.S.-Mexico ties, potentially jeopardizing Mexico’s cooperation with Trump’s efforts to halt illegal immigration and drug trafficking across the border, said two sources, including a senior administration official.

Another key concern was that the designations could make it easier for migrants to win asylum in the United States by claiming they were fleeing terrorism, the senior administration official and two other sources said.

Oh, this is no good:

The number of babies born in Japan fell an estimated 5.9 percent this year to fewer than 900,000, the first time since the government started compiling data in 1899, the welfare ministry said Tuesday.

The dwindling number of births will put more strain on welfare finances to support the snowballing costs of supporting an aging population, undermining economic growth, analysts say.

The annual total is expected to fall by some 54,000 from the 918,400 born the previous year, hitting a record low for the fourth straight year.

Dogs are smarter than we give them credit for:

Dogs not only sniff, jump, cuddle and act as our furry buddies — they also seem to be capable of processing numbers like us, according to a recent report in Science Magazine.

A new study from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, published by Biology Letters, indicates that while dogs do not have the capability of counting numbers exactly as humans do, they do notice when we put less food in their bowls, or reward them with extra treats, meaning they can understand quantities.

The so-called “approximate number system” has long been known to exist in many animals, but Science points out that earlier studies used trained animals in their research into animal numeracy. 

This left it open to doubt whether numeric abilities were innate or trained — but the new research indicates that a common, untrained brain function has been transferred across animal evolution, when it comes to numbers and quantity.