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News of an interesting study caught my eye today. The CBC headline was " Ontario teenagers gambling as early as age 15: survey ." The study was released by the Responsible Gambling Council . Now something about the name of that organization made me uncomfortable, so I had a closer look. Their website says: The Responsible Gambling Council (RGC) is an independent, non-profit organization exclusively focused on problem gambling prevention. Through research, the Council seeks to better understand problem gambling and ways to reduce the risks. Through information, the Council shares this knowledge. Through its awareness programs, the Council provides people with the tools to make informed choices and offers resources for those affected by problem gambling. But where does their funding come from? The Ontario government commits two per cent of annual slot revenue from both charity casinos and racetracks to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and Ministry of Health Promotion f...

The other day, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the topic of Maher Arar (shown at left, with his daughter) came up. In case you haven't heard his story, here's a quick summary courtesy of Wikipedia : Maher Arar is a Syrian-born Canadian software engineer. On 26 September 2002, during a stopover in New York en route from Tunis to Montreal, Arar was detained by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service who may have been acting upon false and misleading information supplied by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Despite carrying a Canadian passport, he was deported to Syria in accordance with a U.S. policy known as "extraordinary rendition." Arar was held in solitary confinement in a Syrian prison where he was regularly tortured for almost a year, until his eventual release and return to Canada in October 2003. Appearing before the Committee, Gonzales wouldn't explain why the U.S. detained Arar a...

As I noted the other day , a large part of the media has obediently lined up to proclaim the glories of Apple's "revolutionary" new iPhone. It seems that simply putting an i at the beginning of the name confers the blessing of the zeitgeist. With such an auspicious title, surely the iPhone couldn't flop. It's unsinkable unthinkable! Or is it? Check out Kirk Sato's 10 reasons IPhone is going to be a Flop . (He also links to a hilarious Stephen Colbert segment .) A purportedly potent rodent And another thing: the iPhone has no buttons . Reminds me of another Apple product: the Mighty Mouse , which came with my iMac. The advertising copy is seductive: Thanks to a smooth top shell with touch-sensitive technology beneath, Mighty Mouse allows you to right click without a right button. Capacitive sensors under Mighty Mouse’s seamless top shell detect where your fingers are and predict your clicking intentions, so you don’t need two buttons — just two fingers. A smo...

One of the gifts I received for my birthday was a 2nd-generation iPod shuffle . It's a triumph of minimalistic design, a near-perfect marriage of functionality and aesthetic. (I really like it.) But the media are currently in an almost religious frenzy over a different Apple product: the iPhone . A lot of the coverage has seemed like it was lifted straight out of Apple's propaganda press releases. Hmmm ... where have we seen this before? In reaction to this media love-in, I spent rather too much time today trying to convince anyone who would listen (including my long-suffering brother) that the iPhone will be a flop. I marshaled what I thought were some pretty good arguments. But a Google search of "iphone will flop" reveals that I was scooped! Back in December, CNET News.com editor-at-large Michael Kanellos published an opinion piece titled " The Apple phone flop ". He predicted that: As with any Apple product release, it will be ushered into the world on ...

The Ottawa International Airport has a large banner in the arrivals area proclaiming that "We Support Our Troops". I think it's worth considering what this means , so let's take it word by word ... We Who exactly is "We"? Perhaps the Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport Authority , since they're the ones who presumably authorized the banner. But isn't the airport a public place? Nobody asked my opinion. Support Perhaps the key word. As a taxpayer, I suppose it's a given that I support the troops financially . But let's cut to the chase: we're talking about the Afghanistan mission here, and I don't believe Canadian troops should be in Afghanistan . My disagreement is not with the troops themselves, it's with the foreign policy of the Canadian government. Our Troops The trouble is, the wording of the slogan seems to suggest that if you disagree with the presence of Canadian troops in Afghanistan, then somehow you're ...