Phaedrus

An Australian commuter managed to fall down the gap between a train and the platform... So what happened? This: And he was fine.

Accidentally.

Sad to see you go... have fun with whatever you get up to next!

Good luck with whatever you do next, Ice4Fun... we'll miss you!

Quite possibly not the lawyers' fault. Their job is to advise and represent their clients... and if the clients are hell-bent on stupidity, despite the advice they were given, that's their problem. Of course, if the clients were given bad advice then that's an entirely different matter, but unless one of the combatants in this case decides to take action against their (former) lawyer then we'll probably never know that.

I don't know if they'd previously heard of the Streisand Effect, but they probably have now :)

from XKCD

Nuru gel is water-based and lots of fun.

That's great, but then... you can't say anything else, or you'll get dinged for overusing it. Twitter :)

Have a fantastic day, Tracie! Happy birthday!

Congratulations, Il Re!

Happy birthday, Malika! Hope you're having a lot of fun...

Can I have a go?

I almost PM'd you... but it strikes me that you may well not be the only person with questions, so I'm replying here instead :) Feel free to PM me if you want to know anything - I'm more than happy to help as I can! Same goes for anyone else.

I have to say, I find the direction this thread has gone to be profoundly depressing. I've been away from CERB for a couple of weeks, and almost the first thread I read on my return is people who I'd have expected to be cooperating - or at least broadly supportive of each other - sniping at each other over tactics and ideological purity. I fail to see how this is productive. I fail to see how the time and energy spent on this is better spent doing so, rather than being aimed at the abolitionists. Perhaps this is because I'm not really engaged in political activism myself; perhaps these internecine feuds really do serve some greater good, of which I'm not aware. But right now, I just can't see it. I happen think that people on both sides of this debate are doing a lot of good and useful work, and I'd love it if everyone could accept that the fact that someone else's views are not perfectly aligned with your own does not mean that they're an enemy that has to be shot down. But hell, what do I know?

We'll miss you, Nathalie! Good luck with whatever you decide to do next...

I'd met Savannah on a couple of occasions at socials in the past, but unfortunately I'd never been able to see her.... properly. Well, on her last visit to Ottawa, my luck took a turn for the better; stars aligned, and more importantly, so did schedules. Booking was easy (although I guess that's the benefit of sorting things out well in advance). Waiting for the day to arrive was... less easy, but I managed. Well, the day arrived (eventually) and my impatience was finally sated... Savannah was every bit as lovely as my recollection. We exchanged news and talked for a while over a glass of wine, and to be honest if we'd done nothing else for my entire visit then I'd have considered it time well spent. However, that's not what happened... conversation progressed to kissing, which led to... well, bed. And you may rest assured that more fun stuff then ensued, although if you want to know what happened after that... if you've met her, you'll know; if not, you'll have to wait until Savannah returns to Ottawa, and then find out for yourself :) And really, you should. Your future self thanks you in advance for the happy memories.

I'd definitely recommend this. There's a lot of awesome people on Twitter who aren't on this board.

Happy birthday, Samantha!

1) In principle - no, not at all. But it was probably the sensible thing to do, because the stigma is still such that continuing a run for office would have been a waste of time and money. Alas, that's the world we live in. 2) She's definitely burned her bridges in this industry.

I posted this on Twitter last week, but I should probably post it here too. It's an in-depth investigation of poor migrants, trafficked across borders and sold into slavery. If they try to escape, they've beaten or killed. If they don't try to escape, the mortality rate is pretty high anyway. But you won't see much discussion of it, or hear it debated in Parliament, or see the religious do-gooders up in arms about it. There's no sex involved, and so they're not interested. Read it, and weep... http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jun/10/-sp-migrant-workers-new-life-enslaved-thai-fishing

OK, this sounds like a good plan. The architect has just got back to me with his design for the kitchen. Is this OK with you guys?

It's always struck me as being worse in soccer than in other sports. I think the problem is that it often *is* very successful, and given that it's generally a low-scoring sport, matches can swing on a call that's made when it shouldn't have been, or vice versa. What's really required is retrospective punishment; perhaps players would be less inclined to dive if they knew it'd result in missing the next few matches through suspension, whether or not it got them what they were looking for. And back to the World Cup, a small factoid for you: the last time Brazil lost a competitive match on home soil was... 1975. Sorry, fans of everybody else :)