Canadian Official Escorted From House For Others' Facebook Comments 205
New submitter zayyd writes "The CBC reports that publicly-elected Gerry Rogers, member of the Provincial Government for Newfoundland and Labrador, 'has been removed from the house of assembly for refusing to apologize for comments made by other users on a Facebook group of which she had been added to as a member.' Rogers was unwillingly added to a Facebook Group which included comments of death threats aimed at Premier Kathy Dunderdale from other users. From the article: 'Dunderdale said her government understands how Facebook groups work, and she said it is up to every MHA to monitor the comments posted on Facebook groups to which they belong.' Facebook's policies for Groups are somewhat clear, even if they don't actually answer the question of 'Can I prevent people from adding me to a new group?'"
Oh Canada... (Score:5, Funny)
You just seem more insane year after year. I wonder if there will be a day when Canadians gripe that they're on the verge of moving to the U.S.
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Well played, Doofus. Very well done.
The humorous irony of pointing out the mild cluelessness of our Great Northern Neighbor, while pointedly ignoring the huge festering carbuncle of batshit insanity known as Facebook, is deliciously effective.
Unless you're serious. In that case, man, turn around and face the facepalm.
Re:Oh Canada... (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair, it's Newfoundland. They're kind of like our version of Alabama. Sheep be very nervous on the rock...
While I agree that our politicians need to pull their heads out of their asses on a whole host of issues, and that our current federal government has, in 8 years, very successfully destroyed the reputation that we spent 100 years building, we're hardly the only nation that's doing stupid shit with Facebook. And actually, a lot of what little privacy you actually have on Facebook is a result of our legislators...
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Trust me, for every one stupid thing Canadians do, there are like 100,000 stupid thing that Floridians do. Exaggeration, Ad Hominem, blah blah this entire article means nothing.
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And for each stupid Floridian thing, Quebec does 20 more. Check Bill 14 and any American reading it would assume Hitler just got elected. Remember, before he put his batshit insane plan into execution he "only" did somewhat offensive things. After reading Bill 14 you'll figure why not just put the English into camps, may as well...
Re:Oh Canada... (Score:4, Funny)
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I wonder if there will be a day when Canadians gripe that they're on the verge of moving to the U.S.
Have you ever been to Canada? Americophiles are surprisingly common there, and "moving to America" is a goal of quite a few young Canadians with ambitions that go beyond free healthcare.
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I am sure there are some others, but MOST Canadians wouldn't become Americans no matter what.
Signed, A proud Canadian.
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This guy is the stereotypical Canadian. They are closer to americophobes than americophiles, and the ironic thing there is absolutely no difference between Americans and Canadians besides the geographical location, yet when i lived there for 2 and a half years, the amount of times I heard Americans called stupid was exhorbitant.
The media makes us Americans look stupid, and they lap it up just like...well pretty much every other country.
Re:Oh Canada... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of things different between Canadians and Americans, and I'm not just talking about toques and hockey.
There are plenty of ways that we're the same, too, but I don't get into arguments with my Canadian friends about restricting firearms. There's a lot less discussion of whether or not abortion is something that should be left up to a woman or who should pay for healthcare. The set of 'Canadian values' is different, it's just not so different that when you see the average American talk to the average Canadian that these things come out.
Americans almost certainly don't deserve the vitriol that they occasionally get from Canadians (except for your dickbag border guards--what's WITH those guys?) and when push comes to shove, we're there. On 9/11, diverted planes landed at Canadian airports, and Canadians drove out to offer accommodations for the passengers that were stuck there. I was still in University, and basically every class had an announcement that we should go give blood. And we did.
I'm pretty sure Canadians don't think Americans are any dumber than AMERICANS do. We just have the benefit of distance.
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There are plenty of things different between Canadians and Americans, and I'm not just talking about toques and hockey.
How could you leave out the gourmet indulgence that is poutine from your list?
lots of possibilities (Score:2)
He's either a grad student, took a long time to get his degree, got more than one degree, started his degree later in life, or got his /. account really young.
Heck, I only finished school in 2000 and I've got a 5-digit ID.
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My degree was a bit circuitous, and I did a year-long internship in the middle. That was actually my last semester there; I needed to finish of my minor, which I'd neglected while I was doing CS courses. My only class that day was a lab in Invertebrate Paleontology, as I recall. My TA had already given blood.
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Did you mean "exorbitant"?
Re:Oh Canada... (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree that media might play into our Canadian perceptions of the U.S. in that we have the benefit of getting news from non-US sources. Granted they're mainly Canadian, but they're not so tied to Democrat or Republican parties so they are less biased in either direction and give use fuller coverage.
We can see how people are unaware of facts on either side of debates because the news they watch is biased and never gives opposing view points or opposing facts. We can see how religion is trying to push itself into your government, laws, and education even though your constitution specifically tried to separate it. We see how you screw the poor in your country by denying minimum wages for people who end up having to work 20 hours a day just to survive. And we can see the stupidity of how much money America wastes on things like the military given that no other 15 countries in the world could possibly be a threat! And we see how you're constantly involving yourself in other countries politics in order to push your interests which causes them to dislike you.
And now, your U.S. Senate just passed a bill preventing the signing of a NATO international gun control treaty because it could prevent U.S. citizens from selling weapons to your own enemies! The only other countries that didn't sign were Iran, N Korea, and Syria which makes you just as bad as them. How can we NOT consider that stupid??
I'm not saying we don't have our own issues and have the same problems seeing them in our media, but it's usually internal to our country and doesn't affect the entire world.
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We can see how people are unaware of facts on either side of debates because the news they watch is biased and never gives opposing view points or opposing facts.
Worse: The news gives both sides of a debate without telling you that one side is utterly full of shit.
Because if they dared to draw conclusions, it would undermine their journalistic neutrality.
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Oh, no. They undermine their "journalistic integrity" all the time. As long as they can pretend that they don't, they've got no problems there.
Rather, they don't report things that are too difficult for them to understand. They no longer employ as many real journalists who do real research. This is, of course, assuming that there's nobody else in the media that they can parrot. It's called the "echo chamber" for a reason.
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Our fair country Canada
Is north of the USA
Our Maritimes are lovely
And our prairies give us hay
You might think you Yankees
Are better than us Canucks
But we don't need no microchips
Inside our hockey pucks
We know that you've got disneyworld
and you keep it very clean
we dont have Bob Dole
and we can drink when were 19
we may watch your TV shows for hours and hours and hours
We'll give you Alan Thicke
But Shania Twain is ours
We're proud to be Canadian
We're awfully nice to strangers, our manners be our curse
It's cool i
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You also gave us that twat bieber.
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There would far less incarceration of your own citizens.
You would have had gay marriage years ago.
You wouldn't have started the war in Iraq.
Your literacy rate would be higher.
Your poverty rate would be lower.
These differences didn't just fall out of the sky. These are differences that come about because of our conscious decisions on who and what we vote for. Which makes us different from you. Deal with it.
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If you don't like being called stupid maybe you should stop electing people like Bush.
I hate to break the difference to you but there's quite a bit of difference between Canadians and Americans. Canadians, for example, know that torture is wrong. Americans also know that torture is wrong -- the difference is that, faced with that information, Canadian's won't torture while Americans will re-define torture so that they can get away with it legally.
It isn't just the media that's making you look stupid, it's y
Americophobes? (Score:2)
Misamericist is a closer butchery of English (or proper Merkin if you prefer). The fear only applies to their insane worship of violence...
The media is but a dim reflection; in this case, dimmer.
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Re:Oh Canada... (Score:5, Interesting)
But any system where someone can suffer a relatively minor injury, (Broken ribs, and a punctured lung.) and be financially crippled by it for the next 10 years is seriously fucked up! Yet American people somehow continue to defend this system. The Canadian system is not perfect, but it mostly works and doesn't bankrupt people.
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It's because Americans all think of themselves as rich people who just aren't rich yet, and they sure as shit don't want to spend their when-i'm-rich money on taxes going to poor people.
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Yeah, aboot that, Canada is in America. Canadians ARE Americans. Did you mean US Citizens? If you did then you should have said that.
How many Canadians you know that refer to themselves as "Americans"?
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Americophiles are surprisingly common there, and "moving to America" is a goal of quite a few young Canadians
However the number that wish to actually become Americans is much smaller.
with ambitions that go beyond free healthcare.
Right. The assumption for most of them is that they will working for something that covers it, or will be paid well enough to easily afford the private insurance themselves and still be ahead of where they are now.
The rest of them want to live in America to be near something specif
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Actually, free movement and all, if I were in my 20's living in Canada, I'd move to the US, because I would bet that I would not likely need medical care. I would work hard, pay lower taxes, and save the difference. THEN when I started to get older and sicker, move back to Canada for all the free healthcare I never had to pay for.
And now, you know why Socialism doesn't work unless everyone is forced into it. And that is not freedom.
Re:Oh Canada... (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, free movement and all, if I were in my 20's living in Canada, I'd move to the US,
Not as easy to get a green card as you'd think. I know a couples who have transferred south husband was in embedded programming and the wife (a professional radiologist in Canada was unable to get a green card to work at all, never mind in her field, in the states for several years) -- they didn't expect it would be that tough. The pay raise and lower taxes didn't account for much since she couldn't work, his employer at least offered health care though, which was at least good.
because I would bet that I would not likely need medical care.
And that bet on medical care isn't all that great. A family member broke his leg skiing a few weeks ago, that'd be enough to royally screw him over stateside. Between surgery, a couple custom carbon fiber casts, physio, and going on 4+ months of not being able to work... yeah.
You can bet you won't need medical care, but that's a bet you can lose. A broken leg is pretty minor and the cost is in the 10s of thousands... what if it had been a spinal injury instead?
What happens if you lose the bet?
THEN when I started to get older and sicker, move back to Canada for all the free healthcare I never had to pay for.
Yep, that's sounds like planned abuse of the system to me.
And now, you know why Socialism doesn't work unless everyone is forced into it.
Canada should simply deny you re-entry to the country unless you are paid-up with respect to your accumulated share of health care costs. Citizenship isn't free. If you'd like to visit get a VISA and if you stay longer than that we'll deport you back where you came from.
Honestly I think that's the direction things will eventually take, and there are already rumblings in that direction as people absolutely are out looking to abuse the system in unsustainable ways.
And that is not freedom.
Forcing socialized medicine is no more or less free then forcing socialized public works like police, fire, roads, pollution controls, parks, schools.
I personally think the type of "freedom" you seem to long for is not as good as its cracked up to be. There's a few places in Africa and South America that should be free enough for you though... none of them places I'd want to live.
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While TN status is easy to get for professionals, it's a very different beast from permanent residence aka green card.
Lose your job on TN and back you go.
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Well, your radiologist friend isn't that bright.
Yeah, that must be it. I'm sure she has no idea what options were available, and that you were were able to find a solution based on 3 sentences I dashed off largely off the cuff. Bravo!
Many, many professions are eligible, including physicians.
Yes, but she's not a physician, does not have a doctorate, or even a university degree as I recall. She's got some college and certification in what she does, as well as several years experience... I guess more specific
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Being at a prestigious medical university hospital close to the boarder in the US, I know of a LOT of Canadians that have come here for elective or cosmetic surgery, but never anything life threatening or physically painful.
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"I love these statements. Are these "happen to know" sources you can quote?"
No, because I am not going to give out hints about where I live.
/. said MSNBC news was far worse than Fox for giving opinion as opposed to real news. And CNN wasn't a whole lot better. (Though CNN was better than Fox, and both were far better than MSNBC.)
And get off this "Fox News" shit. I don't watch Fox News. By the way, not that it matters to me much, but you might want to know: a recent Pew study (about as reliable source as you can get) which was mentioned here on
So if you really wanted to insu
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"As a Canadian, I can already tell where you liveâ"in the prairies, across the border from Alberta or possibly Saskatchewan."
That's not an unreasonable guess.
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"Viewership numbers of Fox News vs. those of MSNBC? False equivalence much?"
Non-sequitur much?
Nothing I stated about either of them has anything even remotely related to readership level. Not one iota.
"Also, your "I know a lot of..." still isn't data."
No shit, Sherlock. I wrote as much myself.
"Put up real numbers or STFU."
How about just FU.
Re:Oh Canada... (Score:5, Informative)
No, I am not exaggerating. True, it's not always that bad. But in some cases it is.
Years ago it was. If you need something for a life-threatening condition, you'll have it fairly quickly. Even if it's not a life-threatening condition, you'll still have it fairly quickly these days.
I've had a handful of surgeries in my life, and have never needed to wait more than 4 months for it, without leaving the country. And that 4 month wait was because there's only one surgeon in the country who's licensed to perform that particular procedure (there's only 4 in the US who could do it, too, so don't start telling me that it'd have been faster in the US: it wouldn't). The reason some people have longer waitlists than that is that they want a specific doctor, or are not willing to travel beyond a specific hospital (even if there's another hospital in the same greater metropolitan area that does the same surgery). If you don't ask if there's another surgeon available with a shorter waitlist, you might think the timeline that they tell you is actually real.
On rare occasions a minor surgery may be bumped because of a life threatening situation coming up (happened for my knee surgery), but I was put on a cancellation list and had the surgery a week later. The cancellation list is, itself, another part of the reason that some people think they can't get surgery: I had 1 day of notice for the knee surgery the 2nd time around... the hospital called me at 4pm on a Wednesday, and said "can you be here tomorrow at 8am?". If folks aren't willing to adjust their schedules like that, then they can leave with the perception that they can't get treatment, even though the treatment is available to them, they're just not willing to work with the system.
In rural cases, it can be a bit worse, but there's still plenty of hospitals available if you're willing to travel a couple of hours. We have some *extremely* rural areas where you're 6 hours by helicopter away from the nearest hospital, but most of the population isn't anywhere near that distant.
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So go back to your friends and get some specific data poi
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And? A lot of Americans come to Canada for medical care because it's cheaper to pay cash here than to pay their insurance co-pays, etc, in the US.
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Gripe about it? Most of the entertainment industry dreams about it. You don't make it big being an entertainer in Canada.
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Beyonce? Oh. Right you are.
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Rita MacNeil was one of our biggest stars.
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It would take more than just insanity for me to want to move to the US, which is quickly becoming a 3rd world country. Pretty much either a new ice age or infestation of radioactive diseased zombie caribou would have me fleeing south, and even then I would have to give pause.
Anyways Canada is about to enter a new era of Camelot now that Justin Trudeau is Liberal Leader. To American's that do not know, this like like the second coming of JFK.
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Justin Trudeau? Son of Pierre "War Measures Act" Trudeau?
I gather you're too young to remember armed forces on the streets of Ottawa (among other places) in combat fatigues and carrying machine guns.
Camelot, huh?
"Well 'ow do you know 'e's a king?"
"Because 'e doesn't have shit all over 'im."
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You know what, you are right, every single son in all of history has clearly been simply a carbon copy of their father.
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He tried referring to himself in fourth person, but that didn't work out too well.
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Re:Oh Canada... (Score:5, Insightful)
They sure don't waste anytime.
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And we're glad of it. (Score:3, Funny)
"Well!" think half the other MPs, "Thank god I don't even know how to use a computer."
Article Not Clear (Score:3)
Re:Article Not Clear (Score:5, Informative)
Building. It's a common form of enforcement of House rules.
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So she got to go home early and won't be docked pay. Oh no!
Facebook knows (Score:5, Insightful)
No doubt there's something in her Facebook activity history indicating whether she joined herself or was added by someone else. That should be all the proof she needs.
Re:Facebook knows (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Facebook knows (Score:5, Insightful)
Or seek elected office in Canada?
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FB allows others to add you to any group without your permission and without notifying you. You'd have to check your group associations every day (or multiple times a day) in order to prevent from being added to a group and being "guilty by FB association" until you've removed yourself from the group.
FB really should prevent others from being able to add you to a group.
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When the hell did this happen and how can I opt out of any random group admin skullfucking my account?
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FB will get around to taking care of it once Zuckerberg gets added to NAMBLA.
That doesn't seem like a good system (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet.. (Score:4, Interesting)
..nobody had been removed for the outright lies and slander of the various political attack ads that have been running in Canada. Apparently you can only be removed for something you didn't do or say.
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So....
I think i'll have Dunderdale added to every hate group i can think of on FB. Should be entertaining.
Queue Passive Aggressive FB Apology... (Score:5, Funny)
"I'm sorry that Kathy Dunderdale, the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, does not understand how basic technology such as social media works. I am also sorry that her office makes knee jerk decisions based on bad information and do not take the time to validate facts before making unwarranted demands. I am sorry that Newfoundland and Labrador has such an inept government, though I am pleased that they were able to solve all the other pressing issues and problems before proceeding on this most important issue."
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Oh, and for not leaving the group. She's still a member, she wants to "review its purpose" before leaving.
Someone actually added against their will would probably just leave.
Justice Minister Darin King (Score:1)
"What kind of message is that sending to the people of the province, to our children in the province, when we talk about bullying and harassment and intimidation?" said King.
Get a grip.
Rogers ... also said she was "appalled" that the house of assembly had been suspended over the matter.
As should everyone in her province and the rest of the country.
Dunderdale said her government understands how Facebook groups work, and she said it is up to every MHA to monitor the comments posted on Facebook groups to which they belong.
Good luck with that.
And here I thought we had a monopoly on stupid politicians here in the States.
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And here I thought we had a monopoly on stupid politicians here in the States.
Alas, "stupid politician" is a redundancy the world over.
Proper form of apology (Score:5, Insightful)
#sorryimnotsorry (Score:2)
I think there's already a standard hashtag for this.
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I absolutely never ever apologize for something I did not do or for something that is not my fault.
But then again, I am not Canadian.
guilty by association... (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess if they want to burn you in politics, they will find a way...no matter how ass backwards.
The obvious solution: (Score:5, Funny)
Add Kathy Dunderdale and her allies to as many unseemly Facebook groups as possible.
Re:The obvious solution: (Score:5, Funny)
Already starting, this should get amusing fast.
Ms. Dunderdale, you've made it clear that "it is up to every MHA to monitor the comments posted on Facebook groups to which they belong" - So why haven't you denounced your fellow members of such hate groups as "Mothers Against Sober Driving", "Nazi Party of Canada", and "The Vatican" yet?
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Ooh, did you just make a casual comparison where you said that Catholics are the same as Nazis? You din't do that!
Godwin's Law: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." Once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress.
Burn...
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Who knows, the group named 'The Vatican' (which one I dunno, since groups can have the same name) might in fact be a hate group named deliberately to confuse?
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A hate group that deliberately confuses people? Sounds like the Vatican allright.
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The longer Godwin's law exists, the probability that its definition will be twisted to imply that someone 'wins or loses' a debate approaches 1.
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Well said sir. Pity too few will understand.
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Because none of us have heard of Godwin's Law before...
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bad troll is still troll
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I'm not a facebook user. Can you really add someone to any group you want without their permission, and yet you are simultaneously require permission to friend someone? Who would create such a broken system?
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It is true. But the assumption is that those whom you friend might be sensible people. And sometimes it leads to serendipity.
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If you have a normal account, people you friend can do so, yes.
Public figures that want to friend everyone in sight shouldn't have normal accounts. They have another account type for that purpose, where you can't do it. I can't for example add Burger King to the "Beef is Murder" group.
Besides which, the politician in question is now saying she won't leave until she "reviews its purpose", which doesn't sound like someone terribly upset about being added.
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It is all about forced regular monitoring of your Facebook account. Facebook are attempting to force a series of communication issues and friend and relative relations in such a way as to force you to regularly check you account, regularly being as often as possible, to order to prevent harm to real world relationships. Each access equals advertising dollars. So drop Facebook and escape the purposeful built psychopath designed trap. They really are a pack of shit heads.
In Canada (Score:4, Funny)
Apologizing is serious business.
Re:In Canada (Score:5, Funny)
And we apologize for that, too.
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We would like to sincerely apologize for those persons making the last apology. Those responsible have been sacked.
Mind you, moose bites can be pretty nasty...
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Wrong country, treeves.
Meanwhlie, nobody in Canada cares (Score:5, Informative)
Speaking as a Canadian... yawn. This is not getting much attention in Canada. It's just a couple of parties in a provincial legislature finding something new to bicker about. The same sort of thing happened last week in New Brunswick over who called someone a "witch" first, so they could determine who had to retract it (they had to go back to video of the session to answer that one). This one just happens to involve Facebook, and so it's sexy to some media.
What happened is entirely routine. Someone was involved in something that goes against the decorum of the legislature, someone else complained. They wouldn't apologize, so they were tossed out of the building for the day. They leave the FB group and the whole thing goes away. Almost nobody outside the legislature gives a damn, except to point out that it's not a terribly professional or productive environment if this is taking up significant time.
If the same thing had happened only not involving Facebook, the story would not be posted here. Politics is absurd on either side of the border, only people outside Canada don't see the local variety of "absurd" very often. Today you get to.
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Agreed, not much in the Canadian news about it. If she had dumped folders of murderpr0n onto /b/ then perhaps a "removal" might have been appropriate.
This just in! (Score:2)
[/breathless-newscaster-voice]
Nothing to see hear. Move along, now...
I found a new hobby! (Score:2)
Creating Nazi/Anarchist/pro-baby torture groups on Facebook and adding public officials to them.
Wee!
Please don't do this. (Score:2, Funny)
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Oh, Dunderdale... (Score:4, Informative)
Living in Newfoundland myself, I've been hearing non-stop about her exploits as premier lately. It seems she's bat-shit crazy - That is, moreso than the rest of us. Among some of the other things she's tried to do have been to seal public spending records to make it impossible to see what the province is doing with its money, slashing education budgets, aggressive politics, compulsive lying and just generally being a slimeball.
Her predecessor (from the same political party - the provincial equivalent to the Conservative party) fought tooth and nail against the Harper government, even going so far as to recommend voting against him, but she regularly rolls out the red carpet and kisses ass whenever the prime minister and his cronies are around. It's obvious that like most of our premiers, she only wants to get in good with the federal government so that she can move up to a position there, and really has no other concerns than that. Her tactics are almost identical to the Harper government, to boot.
Sad thing is, this keeps happening because people here vote based on their voting history, not their actual ideals or which party would do the best job.
Another reason why I don't do Fecesbook (Score:2)
>> Can I prevent people from adding me to a new group?'
> If the answer is anything other than an unqualified yes, then Facebook
> is fatally flawed and no reasonable person should ever use it.
No, you cannot prevent yourself from being added to groups. One of Zuckerbergs's friends was so pissed off at this, that he created a NAMBLA group and added Zuck. See http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/10/07/mark-zuckerberg-joins-the-north-american-man-boy-love-association-and-other-adventures-in [forbes.com]