It didn’t take long for Greg Gutfeld to apologize for his segment about the Canadian military that went viral a few days ago. The only problem with his apology, is that I dislike the guy even more now. The apology did negative work.

I have always been aware of the terrible journalism of Fox News, but because I never watch it, I didn’t realize that it was this bad. They have managed to put someone on the air better at dissing Canadians than Ann Coulter.

I am disgusted that Fox News would air this.

Rogers, a Canadian wireless provider, announced today that the iPhone is coming to Canada. To that, I say Duh! Rogers is the only Canadian provider with a GSM/EDGE network that could even support the iPhone. Rogers was going to be the only provider all along, which is why I think that today’s news doesn’t matter that much. It only means that Rogers and Apple have come to an official deal. Ted Rogers issued the following statement in a press releases: “We’re thrilled to announce that we have a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year. We can’t tell you any more about it now, but stay tuned.” A release date is still not set, which leaves Canada pretty much at the status quo.

Well, that was a long introduction to what I really wanted to talk about. Why is Canada still in the technological dark ages? The iPhone has been out in the states for almost a year and a second generation iPhone is being readied while Canada still hasn’t got the first one yet. I am not just referring to the cell phones. Canada often gets new technology months or years after it is released. Canada still doesn’t have Amazon’s Kindle, Netflix (although we do have alternatives), and videos in the iTunes store. Another example is the recently released Livescribe smartpen. It is only available to people with a US address.

I am writing this post not to answer the above question, but to explore it because I don’t know the answer.

There are a few possible reasons. Firstly, Canada is a small market and it is not worth it for companies to market new products immediately. Also, with regards to movies and TV shows on iTunes, I am pretty sure that there are legal issues. For example, Apple doesn’t have the rights to broadcast certain shows in Canada. The third and most probable reason is that there are only a few wireless providers and they have a huge monopoly. Most of the products that Canada is lacking use cell networks and it is ultimately the Canadian telcos that prevent the release of new products in Canada.

I am gaining respect for the CBC

I generally only watch CBC for Hockey Night in Canada, and not much else. Most of their original programming is not very good. I actually don’t watch TV except for sports. That is besides the fact.

The CBC is releasing one of their upcoming shows, Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister, over p2p networks (ie Bittorrent). While this doesn’t make me forget that the CBC didn’t resign Christ Cuthbert, a great hockey commentator, it does restore some credibility by trying something new and progressive. Hopefully more of CBC’s content will be available for download in the future, so everyone go out and download this, even if you aren’t going to watch it. If this is a success, maybe we’ll have hockey games via Bittorrent sometime in the future.[via Michael Geist ]

I have just lost all respect of Ben Stein

I used to be a big fan of Win Ben Stein’s Money, mainly for his dry sense of humour. I recently found out that he is releasing a pro-creationist movie called “eXpelled.” Respect is now 0.

Check out the trailer here. It’s horrible. The comments are being moderated, so mine haven’t shown up. They are definitely being censored. Here are a few excerpts from the comments:

“About time someone steps up.”

“A few of us from our church saw a private screening in Houston and the movie is fantastic! Tell as many as you can to go opening weekend April 18th.”

“Way to go Ben. This has been going on for years. It is about time someone exposed it. Anyone who sees how DNA works cannot help but conclude that there is Intelligence.”

“I don’t understand why we just accept both theories and leave people to their own, each side feels compelled to preach and teach. Just end it. As for people being expelled from education because they don’t agree with it, thats wrong.”

The last comment really bothers me. Many people don’t understand that intelligent design is NOT a Theory. It is a hypothesis, not a Theory. Scientifically, a theory is something that has been tested and can be used to predict things. In colloquial speech, when people say “I have a theory,” they really mean “I have a hypothesis.”

This is exactly why we need more popularizers of science such as Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan. A recent xkcd comic, “Unscientific” agrees with me and portrays my point…check it out.