You STILL haven't answered my question.

What could the parents have done to prepare the kid that he was going to be kicked off the bus by a bus driver who was probably the only adult around he relatively "Knew", and then see that man drive off.

There's nothing you CAN do to prepare your kids for that. The person who is supposed to take care of their child - didn't.

You started off by blaming the parents for not teaching their child what to do, yet provide no examples except "Approach a strangers house."

Maybe you're not grasping this. The kid is FIVE, And when you're that age, almost everything intimidates you unless you're with someone you trust. You're small, you're not educated, you're not a functional member of society on your own. Hell, maybe if the kid was 8, and had been with a community for a few years, and had known his school route better, I'd agree with you. Not for that age.

The only person that is to blame here, is the one who didn't do his job properly. I never rode the bus, so I don't know how it all works. However, if you're supposed to leave the kid with a parent, he failed that. If you're supposed to watch the kid go into his house, he failed that, if you're not sure where the child is to be dropped off, you DON'T just kick him off the bus, you radio someone, or take him back to the school. If you're certain that's where he was supposed to be dropped off, the kid gets in trouble. If it wasn't where the kid was supposed to be dropped off, you DON'T get in trouble, and the kid isn't left in the middle of nowhere.

I honestly can't comprehend how you think a 5 year old is supposed to fend for himself if he's dropped off in unfamiliar territory. The bottom line is, it shouldn't have happened. This isn't a situation you shouldn't need to have a contingency for. And, for the life of me, I can't think of anything that could've prepared the kid for this, and you still haven't answered.

Hey, I think the demo was awesome too, but lets be realistic here...

Apple and Google had a falling out over maps on the iPhone, so don't expect this to ever show up on that device. Apple is attempting to go it alone for maps now, which might be a poor result considering how good Google Maps was on the iPhone. What it will hurt are commercial GPS apps on the iPhone.

In the meantime, for reasons shole stated this will NOT be the death of normal GPS. A standalone device can be had now for $100-$150 when an Android phone is significantly higher priced not to mention the monthly fee. Your standalone device will literally work in the middle of nowhere and your Android is tied to your mobile cell coverage. No signal = no maps. Standalone GPS devices were hot items for Christmas because of convenience, low cost, and they have significantly better battery life than your average smartphone.

I can only hope though it also improves the quality of said standalone devices, which have their own problems like charging far too much for map updates and/or clunky + slow interfaces that respond as well as attempting to swim through mud. If Google released a non-Android GPS that did what this demo does in a say a $200 device, THEN Garmin/Tomtom can start to panic.

So...I'm assuming they still kicked her out in the middle of nowhere?

FYI The Canadian government(Federal) doesn't run our health care system. The federal government simply mandated that all citizens are required to have it, then left it to the provinces(aka s on how to best get it to the citizens. Since they're in BC(aka the odd land of Canada), more so than Ontario. You should be asking "what's wrong with BC's healthcare system, and what are the other critical care cases that had to be in front of them?

To break it down it goes like this:
Federal Government - Mandate by law all Canadians must have to provinces
All provinces & territories required by law to provide health care

Level of health care must be equal and equitable across the country as mandated by the oversight of the federal government(there is someone who checks to make sure that things aren't out of whack).

That means. The level of healthcare in BC is not the same as in Alberta, or Saskatchewan, or Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland, or PEI. However, they are all close to the same levels mandated by law, but everyone has it. It also means that in some provinces some drugs are not covered, while in other provinces others are. However, if you live in Ontario and go to BC and need medical help. You're covered. OHIP(Ontario Medicare), will cover the treatment. The only places where the federal government is required to deal with health care are in places where such as back-ass-nowhere(territories, and reserves, or settlements in the middle of nowhere). Even then there are equalization, the province/territory covers part.

The idea that banning guns to make the country safer is NOT laughable when you have a civil society that enjoys its freedoms and doesn't have guerilla forces as part of a rebellion. The reason those people exist is basically to "Fight the Man" and last time I checked, the U.S.A. doesn't exactly have that problem.

Hi Shepppard! Thanks for completely ignoring the factual basis of my post. Here it is for you AGAIN, stated more simply for you:

1: Firearms have been smuggled into prisons. They can be smuggled into a country. If they are illegal then by definition the only private citizens that can get their hands on them are criminals.

(hurp hurp, it's the old "if guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns" bit.)

2: Weapons are assembled in the middle of nowhere (jungle camps, Pakistani villages, etc) and do not require extremely specialized machinery to make. Even if they could not be manufactured openly, and even if they could not be smuggled in, criminals would still have no trouble manufacturing firearms and ammunition. To put a stop to this, you'd have to ban or regulate a lot of tools and materials that have many constructive uses.

This is why it's vital that private citizens retain the right to carry firearms. Because you can't stop them from getting them.

Private citizens require firearms to make sure they can defend themselves against criminals? Seriously? you don't think people carry guns when they break into peoples houses? That's just naive.

Where did you get the idea that most break-ins are committed by people packing heat? I don't doubt it happens that some do have guns, but from all the break-in cases I've heard, the usual burlger/rapist is armed with something that's less obviously a weapon (and not as expensive as a gun), like a heavy pipe, wrench, or a knife.

If you're that worried that someone's gonna break into your house, sleep next to a bat. If neither side has a gun, it's basically which ever one has the bigger melee weapon wins, and last time I checked, if you're breaking into someones house, you don't take a claymore, They draw a knife, you pick up the bat. Problem solved.

Well, I guess we'll all have to yield to your vast experience and/or research in the field of "home defense melee combat".

1: Failing that, saner people will realize that someone breaking into your house is going to have the advantage of surprise and will probably be stronger than you (as an expert in this field I'm surprised you didn't mention strength as a deciding factor in melee combat). Making you SOL.

It's much less of a problem if you have a gun though. You might be terrible at baseball bat fencing after being woken up midway through your sleep cycle and fighting someone on nocturnal sleep cycle, but that is less of an issue with a gun, nor do guns care how strong you are.

2. If he brings friends, then you're almost certainly SOL.

A gun solves the issue of being outnumbered nicely, since fights end sooner it's less likely you'll end up fighting two people at the same instant, and makes you more or less immune to being immobilized by one while the other attacks (because you can kill them before they get that close).

Last but not least this has nothing to do with someone "breaking into our house". The chances of someone being a victim of any kind of robbery are very low, and in any case it's not robbery that's the problem.

This has to do with your personal safety wherever you are. If there was a way to tell a burglar from a rapist or murderer, I'd be all for letting them take whatever they want and letting the police sort things out, or not. Even if I don't get my stuff back, it's not worth killing someone over. Unfortunately, the only way to tell ahead of time is let them rape or murder you.

In addition to all the other terrible flaws with your "baseball bat" idea, it's utterly useless when you're anywhere other than at home or home base. Last I checked, people also get mugged, and you'll get funny looks carrying a baseball bat around, in addition to it being completely ineffective against a decent mugger/rapist/murder/gang, which again will have the advantage of surprise.

Again, this has nothing to do with my personal worries. The chances that any of this happens to anyone are very low, but should it happen you're completely utterly fucked without a gun.

I contend that passing a law forbidding private citizens from carrying firearms leads to situations where one person can kill many, with the many helpless. This is unconscionable.

oh, and as for your "Extra lols", Really? Do you think that the secret service doesn't care that there's loaded firearms at a rally for the president?
are you THAT naive? your country has a bit of a track record for assassinations and attempted assassinations. If there's ANY person carrying a weapon at a rally, you can bet your ass they're being watched like a hawk.

Yeah, except if you read the article you'd know the secret service wasn't worried because
A) the rallies took place well away from where the president was and they of course had that area secured (no firearms are allowed in a federal venue). As for our track record for assassinations, I can't recall one that had the assassin carrying openly while loudly demonstrating. Assassins like to keep a low profile, but I guess you wouldn't know that since you majored in "home defense melee combat" and not "underhanded techniques of murder for hire".

"There's a reason that the police force was invented, and contrary to common belief, no, it was not to go around tazing people."

Not relevant, even if true.

The police can't protect you unless they're aware that you're in danger, and they're near enough to help. Those two facts mean there would have be many, many more police to make them an effective means of self defense. As it is, they are not an effective means for the defense of your person.

Fun fact: retired police officers and military love carrying and owning firearms. I wonder why?

Really, your post shows that you're about as in touch with reality as the right wing idiots that watch fox news.

When I was a kid I had this recurring dream where there was this cute little flower in a completely white environment, like in the middle of nowhere or something, with cute toy piano music playing. Then, all of a sudden, Timpanis started banging away very loudly and the flower got covered in a massive pile of feces.

True story.

This video reminded me of it.

Maybe it's because I grew up in the middle of nowhere...but I found having internet friends normal when I was 15...

I'd argue there are stupid things that people do that always constitute reckless endangerment, like driving drunk, that should be illegal outright because people have lousy judgment (especially when drunk).

If someone runs a red light or a stop sign, or speeds in the middle of nowhere, chances are the penalties are going to be minor, if the law gets enforced at all.

Connecting with an actual victim, while doing something clearly proscribed by law, has harsh penalties. Connecting with a victim, when you were obeying all the right laws, and did your best to avoid the accident, but failed, carries a small penalty, or possibly no penalty at all depending on circumstances.

Part of having law exist in cases like this are to help decide who's the victim when things occur (was it the guy who ran the red light while drunk at fault, or the person obeying the signal?), and some of it to avoid the damage done when people misjudge their abilities (initially lowering the speed limits from 65 to 55 made a large reduction in highway fatalities). I also think limiting the amount of toxins you can legally put into foodstuffs is also fair game for the same reasons.

I don't think laws prohibiting recreational drugs, or gay marriage are tyrannical; ineffective and prejudicial perhaps, but not tyrannical.

As for whether a law is tyrannical or not, I don't think there's a simple set of criteria. To me, I usually define tyranny more along the lines of how the laws are made than on what the law itself is.

Dictators are tyrannical because they alone create the law, and are free to modify it at whim, and cannot have their proclamations challenged. The United States' government isn't tyrannical, because when it's working properly, the law is created by elected representatives, approved by an executive, and if necessary clarified or overturned by the courts.

I've often pondered whether it's appropriate to call George W. Bush a tyrant or not. He had a congress that followed his every whim (the slim Democratic majority from 2006-2008 approved most of his whims, but not every), a supreme court that first installed him to the Presidency, then upheld almost every single one of his extra-constitutional actions, and he listened to no one, and felt himself unconstrained by law or constitution when he thought he was right (and he often felt quite sure of himself).

As of right now, I think it's inconclusive as to whether he fully acted as a tyrant, or merely set up a legal precedent for ignoring the conventions that are supposed to prevent tyranny from breaking out.

I think we need investigations, and ultimately a post-administrative judgment made decrying what he did and reaffirming that law and the Constitution trumps a President's powers, even in extremes, and even if he hires lawyers who write him a note saying he has the authority to do whatever he damn well likes in the name of "national security".

Lovely artwork and so, so necessary on a boring building like that. It would just be a grey cube in the middle of nowhere without that. I wish more buildings would do stuff like this, there are endless possibilities in every city across the world.

re: ""personal responsibility" = "not my problem""

I think there's some merit to what you're saying, but also the models liberals tend to use to understand society can't explain how people like the African-American economist Thomas Sowell can grow up dirt poor in the middle of nowhere, but nonetheless become nationally successful figures.

It seems like if Thomas Sowell believed he was a helpless victim in the way that liberals believe he was, than he wouldn't have been able to outperform so many liberals who had so many more advantages than he did.

While there may be some truth to all these "oil-conspiracy" claims, I am always curios of one thing: Why wasnt Oil itself supressed and underminded by the coal and steam industry?, and why wasnt coal and steam killed by the once luxurious Horse and cart industry? The answer to this stares us in the face: Market. If some genius comes up with an alternative to oil that is just better, more efficient, more convenient and cheaper, oil is fucked. Thats it. Thats the secret. For all its destructive qualities, Oil and Gas is simply the overall best alternative when it comes to price, efficiency and convenience. You can power a hand-held chainsaw that cuts through wood like butter for hours in the middle of nowhere, or you can heat entire cities on gas. Find me a non-fossile fuel that competes with that, and I'll drive oil companies in the ground. But so far, no alternative energy comes close.

I am all for expanding our research into alternative energy, infact I think we MUST do so, and fast. But I find these conspiracy theories to be rather unhelpful.

I'd be worried I was on camera... I'd give it up as well...
Now if I found it on the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere, I might think differently!

Heard about this on the radio this morning and thought, "I hope this is on YouTube so I can see it." I'd forgotten about it until now. I believe they said that neighbors in the area were annoyed, but it looked like it was in the middle of nowhere.

nibiyabi - Kansas isn't in the south, it's in the middle of nowhere.

I grew up in Wichita and it's every bit of "stick up the butt" crap hole as this video suggests. I'm sooooo glad I left that state.

Thanks.^

I've been in the middle of Nowhere, Alaska for the past couple of days. But then again, isn't Everywhere here nowhere?

Now I'm back to Somewhere Alaska, and have access to the webz.