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Useless Thread

jonlleafs said:
Stebro said:
i'm currently preparing for an international songwriting competition, fun fun fun :P
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Very cool.  I'd be interested to see what you come up with.  Share a youtube vid or whatever medium when you are done.

My wife and I, while not really good or anything, started taking vocal lessons just for the heck of it at the beginning of this year.  We love karaoke so that's one of the reasons why we did it.  No aspirations for going on American Idol or anything, but just to improve on our ability for singing between us and in front of friends.  So far we've seen a marked improvement in our vocal range and volume. Hopefully we continue to get better as there is a lot of room for improvement still.
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I will only be participating in the lyrics category as I can't sing or play any instrument any good. My problem with singing and why I don't want to do it is because I sound too nasal.
 
seahawk said:
Stebro said:
i'm currently preparing for an international songwriting competition, fun fun fun :P
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Eurovision?
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I've been asked to help out some other people with that before, but I always say no. Eurovision is below my dignity :)
 
Blah! Really stressed out lately, I have less than four weeks to find a place to buy, pack up my house, move 1100kms to my new house I have yet to find, so I can start my new job August 16th for 8 days, then start college for 10 weeks.

This would be a lot easier if I didn't have a cat, I could just pack up and move everything to,storage until I found a place.
 
Anyone know how seriously authorities take fire bans? I'm up in the South Bruce Peninsula area and there's been one in effect since early July and it doesn't look like it'll be ending anytime soon.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
Anyone know how seriously authorities take fire bans? I'm up in the South Bruce Peninsula area and there's been one in effect since early July and it doesn't look like it'll be ending anytime soon.
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There's usually a reason for them...like a high forest fire risk.
 
RyanSH12 said:
Blah! Really stressed out lately, I have less than four weeks to find a place to buy, pack up my house, move 1100kms to my new house I have yet to find, so I can start my new job August 16th for 8 days, then start college for 10 weeks.

This would be a lot easier if I didn't have a cat, I could just pack up and move everything to,storage until I found a place.
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I'd put the cat in storage.
 
WhatIfGodWasALeaf said:
Moved into a new place yesterday, it is so exhausting moving everything, changing all your utilities etc.

UGH
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Just read that there was a shooting in Japantown.  Was it close to you?
 
The blatant disregard for the use of signals on a 400 series hwy... from the middle lane no  less... always brakes first? wtf people?
 
No jail time for disgraced ex-Mountie Monty Robinson

Disgraced former Mountie Benjamin (Monty) Robinson has been given a 12-month conditional sentence for obstruction of justice relating to a fatal collision with a motorcycle in Delta, B.C., in 2008.

The sentence means Robinson, 42, will not serve any time in jail. He will have to spend one month under house arrest and the rest of the time he will be under the supervision of a probation officer and subject to a curfew at night.

Justice Janice Dillon also ordered Robinson to write an apology to the family of Orion Hutchinson, who was killed in the crash, and pay a $1,000 fine to Victim Services.

At the sentencing hearing, Robinson never apologized or expressed remorse for leaving Hutchinson dead or dying on the road while he went home to drink.

But Dillon also noted that when she handed down the sentence she had to consider the fact Robinson was a first time offender, an alcoholic and an aboriginal man.

Mother upset by sentence

Outside the court, Hutchinson's mother Judith dismissed the ordered apology letter as "less than nothing" and denounced the sentence as no more than the sort of punishment a child might get for bad behaviour.

"That sentence just felt like he was just being grounded," said Hutchinson. "It doesn't feel like a sentence to me."
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One month house arrest and 11 months with a curfew for 'obstruction of justice' in a drinking and driving related death? This for the man that ordered Robert Dziekanski be repeatedly tased in a BC airport, which ended in his death as well.
 
Sucker Punch said:
No, you don't understand, Tigger.  Robinson was an alcoholic and an aboriginal man.    Its not his fault he killed someone.
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I can't pretend that I've followed that case all that closely but you can't expect a guy to get punished for "killing someone" if what he gets convicted of is obstruction of justice.

This is a bit from the above article:

An investigation by the B.C. Coroners Service concluded Hutchinson, who died at the scene, was also drinking alcohol before the crash and that the actions of both men contributed to the crash.
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So there's a pretty good reason he wasn't tried for manslaughter or vehicular homicide. He was guilty of obstruction of justice, no need for quotation marks, and that's not usually something that carries the responsibilities and penalties of murder.
 
Did you read the reasons for the sentence?

The Crown itself asked for either 3-9 months jail time, or a conditional sentence of 12-18 months.  The Criminal Code of Canada stipulates that all available sanctions other than imprisonment should be considered for offenders if it is reasonable, and specific attention in this regard is to be had for aboriginal offenders.  The section of the Code that talks about this is designed to try and encourage judges to take a restorative approach to sentencing of aboriginal offenders, owing to their proportional over-representation in Canadian prisons.  Judges must consider the aboriginal person's unique/systemic/background factors that may have played a part in the offence.

It's important to recognize that this was not a trial for killing someone - this was a trial for obstruction of justice.  He was found to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (likely from the taser incident) and to be an alcoholic.  Continuing his treatment for this is another mitigating factor against imprisonment, as well as the fact he was a 1st time offender and at a low risk of recidivism.

Lastly, a conditional sentence like this is not like he just walks away.  Apart from the public shame he will continue to endure, it restricts his life severely.  There are a whole laundry list of restrictions on his life for the sentence, from a period of 24-hour house arrest, to curfew, to restricted movement, etc.

While the optics might at first blush appear bad, it is important to look at a sentence like this in the context of the Canadian criminal law system, in the context of precedent, and especially in this case, in the context of this being a trial for obstruction of justice not murder or manslaughter.
 
It was the statement that the judge made about taking into consideration his ethnicity and alcohol abuse when determining a sentence that bugged me more than anything else.
 
Sucker Punch said:
It was the statement that the judge made about taking into consideration his ethnicity and alcohol abuse when determining a sentence that bugged me more than anything else.
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Why?  She's required to do so by the Criminal Code, and having read a bit about the history and current status of aboriginals and aboriginal crime in Canada, it seems like a fairly reasonable consideration in sentencing.
 
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