Boy Gets Gun, Toronto Gets Stars, Harper Gets Self-Righteous

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A 13-year-old boy at St. Mary's Catholic Secondary School in Toronto was arrested after he was found to be carrying an illegal 200,000 volt stun gun in his backpack.The Star quotes school board chair Oliver Carroll as saying that "everyone was shocked." Presumably Carroll was not speaking literally.

The Toronto International Film Festival opened yesterday, and as always, will showcase some of the most creative minds and promising newcomers in the movie industry. More importantly, there's all kinds of famous people in town. They like us! They really like us!

Stephen Harper waggled his finger at fellow leaders at APEC summit, warning them to take action against climate change or suffer the consequences. Harper did not specifically recommend that others follow his government's example by dismantling climate change programs, abandoning Kyoto commitments, and destroying large swathes of their countries in pursuit of oil.

In world news, U.S. President George W. Bush was overheard saying that the United States is "kicking ass" in Iraq. Seriously, that's what he said.

Photo by Cretaceous from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

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Comments (7) [rss]

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Harper and Bush are clearly tools.

Dude, unfortunately, I live in amerika...calling Bush a tool is putting it ex-TREME-ly mildly.

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Since when did voltage replace amperage as the determinant of electrical power?

When the police and the media want to make a crime seem even bigger than it really is?

Nice to be able to rewrite science when it suits us.

Voltage is appropriate here. I don't think most people have any concept of what an arbitrary number of amps means, but most people at least can relate a number of volts to stuff in their real lives.. ie. 1.5 volts = a battery, so not dangerous. 120 volts = a wall main, so probably dangerous, etc.

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#3
You`d be paranoid also if everyone was out to get you.

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"Voltage is appropriate here. I don't think most people have any concept of what an arbitrary number of amps means, but most people at least can relate a number of volts to stuff in their real lives.. ie. 1.5 volts = a battery, so not dangerous. 120 volts = a wall main, so probably dangerous, etc."

2,000 to 15,000 volts = the spark you get by scuffing your shoes along the carpet and touching a metal doorknob.

It's the amperage. Voltage is no more appropriate a measurement than chi.

You're technically right, guest 6, but volts is the measure that companies use to market and sell the devices so that's the way the media describe them. The average reporter probably hasn't thought about the difference between a volt and an ampere since Grade 9 physics.

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