Phaedrus

Paradise, this week. And I can confirm she was definitely there a couple of days ago, unless she's got a twin sister...

Well, as Megan said above, this is a bit of a gray area. My understanding is that this sort of thing *could* be taken as a sexual service, if someone really wanted to get picky over it, but... MPs where this occurs in Ottawa are licensed by the city, which is therefore all above board. They're also - presumably - reasonably well known. I'd imagine that if the powers that be really wanted to do anything about them, they'd have done so by now. AFAIK this historically hasn't happened unless FS/BJs were being offered, which is well over the line. But if you go somewhere reputable, that won't be an issue. I suppose it's possible that some uber-zealous puritan could end up in office and decide they wanted to make life difficult for the MPs, but for now this seems unlikely. I suspect they're the legal equivalent of driving at 101 on the highway - nobody cares :)

Killing Joke - Love Like Blood

Happy birthday!

They already are! But the Genie grants your wish and puts gas prices to 99c per pint, which is $1.70/litre. I wish I could just quit everything and go traveling for a while...

Winning the case, in the medium term (I don't think there *is* a short term here). If that's at the SCC level, great. But even if it's won at the Ontario level and not appealed, that'd be a powerful precedent elsewhere. Assuming, of course, that it goes the right way (and given that round one already has, I'd presume that's not entirely a pipe-dream), a ruling that the marginalizing of a group of people and making it more dangerous to engage in a lawful activity is a Bad Thing, even if you don't approve of their career choices. And the ball will be very much back in the politicans' court. The question, of course, is what happens then. You seem - if I've understood you correctly - to be of the opinion that Harper will still be PM and that he'll act reasonably swiftly to simply outlaw the exchange of any sort of sexual services for money, as well as anything related to that. I agree that Harper may well still be in power by the time the SCC rules on this (assuming, of course, that it hears the case) - but he might well be looking at an election in the not-too-distant future (hopefully he won't just have won another) and probably won't want to take on a potentially divisive issue. In fact, regardless of who's in power, I don't think any politicians would want to take this on; they do tend to be a fairly spineless bunch and more concerned with not losing votes than with gaining them, which means that unless there's a broad cross-party consensus - which there isn't here, I don't think - the really hard debates, like this one, tend to get ducked entirely. This would mean that the eventual court ruling would simply be left to stand. And if Harper wants to please his base and start a real fight, he's always got abortion law to go at. So, there you go. This is, of course,, merely my own guesswork and speculation. But hell, it's interesting to speculate...

Just as a general point... any information you give out is immediately beyond your control. That includes information you didn't know you'd given out. As an example or two... your ISP knows which websites you visit, and how often, and how long you spend on them. So do the companies selling advertising to those sites (which often means Google, these days). Google also knows what you're looking for. Your cellphone provider knows who you talk to, and how often, and roughly where you are. The manufacturer of your cellphone might do too. Whichever company runs your email account - probably Yahoo, Google or Microsoft, for most of us - knows a terrifying amount about you. So does Facebook, if you're like most people (and they're rolling out the email thing, too, so soon they'll have that too). Considering what you give away to very large corporations of dubious ethics on a daily basis, CMJ having your name is pretty small beer, really. Personally, my only quibble with them is that they really aren't conveniently located for me, but I guess you can't please everyone :)

"Actually," says the Genie, "You did. You just forgot about it. And no, I'm not telling you where you left your car keys. Or your glasses." I wish... that I lived on the beach.

So what are the available responses in the Heather poll? Other than "yes" and "definitely"? :)

Wow! Awesome job, Cato. Keep 'em coming!

No. But I believe there's a good chance they won't want to take it on, and the issue will just get punted into the long grass, which is probably the best we can hope for from the current lot.

And that would be a real shame. I'm now smiling at the memory of walking down Elgin on the first really nice Friday evening of the year, and thinking, "I love spring!" For obvious reasons :)

An interesting idea... a website that tells you where you can get to on public transport in a certain amount of time. http://www.mapnificent.net/ottawa/

Even with an overall majority, things can be slowed down; pushing things through *really* fast requires cross-party cooperation, and I just can't see that happening. Yes, the current government could ram this through if they chose; the question is whether or not they think they've got better things to be doing (more on which below). True. And in addition, the public memory for things is often quite short. Maybe Pickton will turn out to be different - I hope so - but most incidents will only be remembered by the public for a far lesser time than is required to get a case through the judicial system. I must admit, I wasn't aware of the poll results WIT posted. I'm quite encouraged by how reasonable people seem to be on this - the 'live and let live' attitude seems to be far more prevalent than I'd thought it was. What would be interesting would be to see polls on how *strongly* people feel about this; although there may be a majority who are OK with the legalization of brothels, I doubt peoples votes will really swing on this sort of thing. Elections will still come down to jobs and taxes and schools and hospitals, in the end. I think this is probably the biggest obstacle to public acceptance right now - but then, nimbyism will never go away, and the fact that nobody really wants to live next door to a power station doesn't mean we're going to turn the lights off. But this is where local government can make a huge difference, if it's actually prepared to have a sensible debate on the topic; there's a reason why commercial and residential properties are already separated, and adding a new type of commercial property to the equation really doesn't change it all that much. On a more whimsical note - wouldn't it be great if we could just *tell* people where their nearest SP incall was, and then started asking questions like "If they're so awful, how did you fail to notice what was going on next door/ in the apartment downstairs/ down the street"? Okay, it's never going to happen, but... You may be right. But I feel more optimistic on this point having seen the polls WIT posted - I have no doubt the government's seen them too. I don't agree that this is a suicide mission; there's a reasonable chance of success, and no guarantee that failure would be disastrous. And if you *don't* fight, the only guarantee is that you lose.

Same thing happened to me recently, on the account I used for hobbying. Apparently I needed to enter a code that they'd send to my cellphone... but they don't support my cellphone provider. So I just abandoned it, shut it down, and created another.

Thanks for the write-ups, guys! Sounds like you both had a great time...

Yo La Tengo - Today is the Day

Thanks for posting the resolution, WIT! I agree, it's nothing like as bad as it could have been. The first part is the classic political trick of putting two unrelated things into the same sentence in order to create an association in the mind of the audience; if you do this often enough you'll convince anyone who isn't really paying attention (which is most people, where politics is concerned) that the two things are, in fact, related. But then you can - truthfully - deny ever having said this if it later becomes necessary or expedient to do so. And the second bit, as far as I can see, merely commits them to continuing to fight the Bedford case to prevent things being legalized. There's no call to actually push a new law through to make anything that's currently legal into a crime.

I'm not quite sure - and I stand to be corrected if I'm wrong - but I thought this limit was only for starting new reco threads, but anyone could add to an existing one. Actually: http://www.cerb.ca/vbulletin/announcement.php?f=125&a=10 has some stuff on this.

You say that like it's a bad thing... :)

Well, if you're going to play like that... Thin Lizzy - The Boys Are Back in Town http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FmPhJkdTwU Ooooh, look what that ends with! :)

I'm shocked!!! Since Dwight Yoakam's been rejected: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero

Same thread, if it's in the same city, I think. I can't recall any examples off the top of my head, but I've definitely read reco threads where the Mod has clearly merged two threads for the same lady.

+1. But common courtesy seems to be gradually becoming less and less common in all walks of life, and every new method of communication seems to be aimed more at brevity than a conversation. Also, I think we're starting to sound like a couple of old men sitting in a bar getting quietly sozzled and reminiscing about the good old days during a leisurely mid-afternoon... And you can tell I'm an old fart, 'cos I couldn't fit that post into 140 characters :)

Happy Birthday! Have a great time!