Big Wooly Mammoth

thanks for all the info. i've done some further research based on what i've read here. Bouche: re the Roku - the MicroSD slot is only for storing more channels or games. the Roku 3 does have a USB hub for playing stored content. but you need to subscribe to a specific station, and it only supports limited formats. So, the it looks like WD is the way to go for both streaming AND playing my own content (that I may, or may not have DLd via torrent). AD: It looks like Distributel only offers the one seed of DSL. they do offer faster cable, but I'm not sure that it's necessary. and no throttling sounds nice. (I've been getting such fast speeds in France anytime of day which has been real nice.) any reason why I'd opt for DSL over cable? what's the difference? (acanac does have good deals, but there seem to be some very disgruntled customers out there.) (of course i just found a bunch of people unhappy with Distributel. I guess it happens with all of them. consensus seems to be that Teksavvy is getting worse and Distributel is getting better. until i found all these people recently pissed off with the latter.)

hey folks, i'm moving back to Ottawa at the end of the month and trying to figure out what the best options are for internet providers, TV, and phone. I want to avoid Bell and Rogers. I'm leaning towards TekSavvy for internet and phone. trying to figure out the best plan is. Does anybody have experience with their DSL and/or cable internet services? i.e. which is better (more reliable, faster, etc). Anybody have any issues with their phone service? And if I plan to subscribe to Netflix and i do my share of DLing torrents is 300 GB a month enough (I have no idea how much bandwidth Netflix uses)? while we're at it, does anybody have any experience using a Roku box in Canada? anything that I need to know there? I'm thinking if getting my Netflix through them. and possible MLB. still deciding on whether I want regular TV service. leaning towards a Shaw dish for TV. looks like I can get, at least, the local stations for free for a couple of months. thanks in advance!

Happy B-day Dave!

interesting to hear that re Dylan. sounds like his shows from 20 years ago, when i couldn't recognize watchtower. but i hadn't heard that in recent years.

hey folks - I'm moving back to Ottawa at the end of August (after two years living in Paris)and i'm looking for a place to rent. two or three bedroom (prefer three, but given my budget and the neighbourhoods i'm considering that is unlikely). i'm constrained to certain neighbourhoods so that i can get my kids back into their old schools. that includes: lindenlea, new edinburgh, sandy hill, golden triangle, glebe. if anybody knows of anything coming available it would be much appreciated.

Jason Isbell, Unloaded

shadowy men on a shadowy planet?! haven't seen them in, probably, over 20 years.

i just picked up tix for June at La Cigale. Tiny venue (saw Ryan Adams there last year). And I had forgotten that Jackie Greene was in the band now!

here until 18 Feb. when it will be officially released. Looking forward to hearing him play it live Monday night with a choir and strings.

was that his first Bluesfest appearance? When it was still at city hall? he also played a few years ago - indoors at Lebreton. before Roseanne Cash. Alejandro is always a gem.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the situation in Mali will be cleared up anytime soon. The rest of the world, basically, ignored the coup which set the stage and allowed the current situation to happen. i.e. the takeover by the fundamentalists. Tinarwien is the only Malian band that I really know of. I saw them at Solidays last year, in Paris, and at Grassroots in 2010. Two quite different festivals, yet they fit into each one of them perfectly. they are worth checking out if you've never heard them before. Velvet - did you guys go to Mali on your African trip last year?

I got to meet Rich Robinson a few weeks ago. His band was playing a gig at a private club in Paris. He decided to play a solo acoustic show at a tiny record store earlier in the evening for, as he put it, his real fans who actually wanted to see him perform. he said that when the show was booked he had no idea that it was a private club. It was a good, albeit short, set. And afterward he signed autographs, CDs, etc. he seemed like a genuinely humble, nice, dude. and his latest CD is pretty good. I really like Jackie Greene, but this seems like an odd addition. I didn't think that he was particularly known for his guitar playing.

and a whole bunch of stuff from this topic tha i will be checking out. and michael kiwanuka is quite the talent. saw a free 30 minute set as part of the canal plus album de la semanine series last year. this guy should be making it big.

cat power - sun. #1 album for me in 2012. by far.

i guess they are good again now that the female lead singer left the band?

ya, I read all of that. it's really too bad. her Australian shows are still on, for now. I was really looking forward to seeing her. the new album is brilliant. I totally missed the on-sale date for her Paris show (too many shows. and often tix go on sale within a day of the show being announced) but found a ticket through the French version of craigslist for 65 euro (20 euro over cost). and now will only be able to get the 45 euro for it. hopefully she gets healthy soon. and gets her shit together.

Globe and Mail story about this. it only mentions stage fright as the cause. the link even has a Garcia reference - although i'm not so sure about it's validity. And the author gets the Cat Power story a bit wrong. she has not "endured some medical and financial issues on her current European tour." she actually cancelled her European tour (officially postponed, but no new dates yet) due to health issues. I have read that she's also having financial issues, which one would think might be helped out by touring.

he apparently suffers from stage fright. although makes you wonder how they performed all those shows over the years. or perhaps it's just gotten much worse.

Friday, Dec 07, 2012 7:30 PM; Doors open 7:00 PM National Gallery of Canada Auditorium 380 Sussex Drive Ottawa, ON K1N 9N4 Information call 613 266 4653 $ 35.00 link for tickets To help those in need at this time of year, we encourage all to bring a non-perishable food item which we will donate to the Ottawa Food Bank. The Kruger Brothers are bringing back to Ottawa their virtuoso musicianship and their unforgettable mix of bluegrass, folk, old-time and classical music. krugerbrothers.com --------------------- I'd be going, but it's kind of a far trip for me. enjoy it. -------------------- they are also playing London, Toronto, Peterborough, and Kingston - check out their web site for details.

my son who is in the equivalent of grade 5 in Paris (CM2) had a lawyer visit his class earlier this week to talk about downloading illegal stuff online. So now he's freaked out about me downloading any more movies. he thinks i'm gonna get it with a 300K euro fine and go to jail.

she actually did that this past summer: http://rockerparis.blogspot.fr/2012/07/madonna-olympia-paris-july-26-2012.html

you weren't being rude. I just didn't get the comment about bouche letting this go. okay, i can't resist - one final point. i'm not sure that i agree about the 75 cents going to admin costs (actually, there should be some hard #s, but then we'd disagree about their accuracy, but that doesn't matter). But...what are those admin costs? i assume they are mostly salary $s. so income that is used to buy stuff like houses, and food, and other consumer goods. so it's not necessarily waste. it works its way back into the economy. and while the gov't does many things inefficiently (that is not disputable), one area where they would do things much more efficiently is in health insurance. there is huge waste in the private sector running health insurance. it's one of the reasons U.S. health care spending is so high. duplication of administration. also not disputable.

dude - it's just a friendly discussion. your house needs some fixing up, but it is more/less in order. the budget of a country is not like a household budget. someone's debt is somebody else's asset. most U.S. debt is domestically owed. >>For every dollar the federal government gets in taxes it is only able to give 25 cents i'm really not sure what that number means... either way, i'm getting out of this one. let's agree to disagree.... back to the original question - i still say this is gonna be a close one. and it's gonna get very ugly.

>>Left or Right the less the government gets involved in the better. that's a question of ideology, no right or wrong. BUT, I will say that many of the arguments for a laissez faire system are based on a drastic misunderstanding of economic theory, and the mis-use of Adam Smith's work who never wrote that the invisible hand would always work. We now know very well that the assumptions of standard neoclassical economic model are rarely of ever met (this is a fact, not an ideology). this is why we need intervention and regulations. The market for health care is one such an example, where interventions are required to reach efficient solutions. And the free market itself cannot take into properly take into account externalities (i.e. pollution and environmental degradation) and thus we need regulations. (on the latter point, we can actually use property rights arguments - the idea that externalities infringe on our property.) gov't intervention (via income redistribution, for example) can also be used to reduce inequalities. reducing inequalities ends up making everybody as a whole better off. you can find much written on the subject, including empirical research. and some of this is a question of social justice. if you don't believe that is imprtant that is fine. if you think thos with $s are innately better than those without, that's fine. that's what ryan believes. and somehow they have convinced millions of those without, of that as well. and that they will somehow one day miraculously move up the economic ladder without the gov't aid and handouts that those who are currently at the top so much depended upon. >>By their nature the left believes in more government this is true, based on ideology, and founded, often, on theories of social justice. >>I have heard the deficit spending thing before but I am not buying. there's nothing to buy there. the argument is based on empirical facts. facts that are, arguably, better founded than the theory of evolution. but many don't buy that one either. and once again, the SS thing - these are facts. it is solvent for the time being. could use some tweaking for sure, but privatization will just harm it greatly. read more about it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/opinion/16krugman.html

losing the house had a lot to do with it. but in many negotiations he starts at the midway point, rather than taking a strong stance starting from what he wants. he has been too conciliatory a times. health care is a good example. he tried to appease the right when he didn't have to. it's not like he was ever going to get their buy in and he didn't need it anyway. not going for the single payer option was a mistake. it would have saved a lot of $s and would have been more efficient. and it would have prevented all the problems associated with the the individual mandate and it almost being almost deemed unconstitutional. but he wanted to leave things to the free market and all that. that was just plain dumb. (as a health economist i was playing very close to attention to that one.) and i think part of the issue is that people (myself included) thought the he was more to the left than he has been. and i'm not talking socialist left. i'm talking centre left. The U.S. centre is closer to the European right. the U.S. right isn't even on the spectrum in europe. there have been more federal drug busts re medical marijuana under his watch than there were under dubya. what's up with that? clinton was also quite respected globally.