CBC pissed me off mightily a few months ago when it decided that it wouldn’t display the local weather on its homepage unless I told it exactly where in Vancouver I lived. Recently, The Globe and Mail has started doing the same thing, which will surely compromise the objectivity and representative nature of its daily polls, such as last Monday’s “Do you think the recent U.S. terror alert was more about politics than about security?” The site Bug Me Not allows users to bypass compulsory free registration ” unless those users are affiliated with sites that enforce compulsory registration, in which case they have to register with BugMeNot. I think I lost it when I got to “Would you be willing to have an RFID chip inserted under your skin in exchange for a free, 12 month newspaper subscription?”

Bone-dry conditions, rugged terrain and human carelessness combined to create a 4,000 square metre blaze at UBC Sunday morning.”This was only a matter of time, I guess – last year, hundreds of homes burned down in Kamloops, a city a few hours’ drive from Vancouver. This year’s forest fire season started earlier than last year’s, and spread faster; I couldn’t be sure that it wouldn’t reach the forest near my house. At least “the flames were stopped just 15 metres away from school buildings and a large propane tank” – cripes. Putting that out – that’s bravery.”Still I’m glad I’m not there to see it. I’m awfully attached to that forest; the proximity of my apartment to it is the main reason I paid double the rent I should have paid for three years.