Life in Canada

Parents: Check Your Kid’s Texts for these 28 Acronyms, and what they mean
Texting can be fun yes..but do you know what your kids are actually saying? Below are 28 Internet acronyms, which I learned from parents I talked with, as well as from sites such as NoSlang.com and NetLingo.com, and from Cool Mom Tech’s 99 acronyms and phrases that every parent should know.After you read this list, you’ll likely start looking at your teen’s texts in a whole new way.

1. IWSN – I want sex now
2. GNOC – Get naked on camera
3. NIFOC – Naked in front of computer
4. PIR – Parent in room
5 CU46 – See you for sex
6. 53X – Sex
7. 9 – Parent watching
8. 99 – Parent gone
9. 1174′ – Party meeting place
10. THOT – That hoe over there
11. CID – Acid (the drug)
12. Broken – Hungover from alcohol
13. 420 – Marijuana
14. POS – Parent over shoulder
15. SUGARPIC – Suggestive or erotic photo
16. KOTL – Kiss on the lips
17. (L)MIRL – Let’s meet in real life
18. PRON – Porn
19. TDTM – Talk dirty to me
20. 8 – Oral sex
21. CD9 – Parents around/Code 9
22. IPN – I’m posting naked
23. LH6 – Let’s have sex
24. WTTP – Want to trade pictures?
25. DOC – Drug of choice
26. TWD – Texting while driving
27. GYPO – Get your pants off
28. KPC- Keeping parents clueless

Who dare challenge Harper like party members did in past governments.It’s hard to think about any cadre of similar people in the Harper government, so completely dominant is the Prime Minister over this government. The new Foreign Minister Rob Nicholson is known as someone with steady hands, but no independent standing. Peter MacKay, the Justice Minister, is not regarded as Mr. Harper’s intellectual or political equal. Nigel Wright, the former chief-of-staff who didn’t grow up politically as a Harper aide, seemed to be able to push back occasionally. But he is gone, too.

The Conservatives have even developed a strategy, on display this week, whereby the Prime Minister replaces what used to be responsibilities of the Governor-General, the representative of Canada’s head of state. Early on, Mr. Harper asked Mr. Baird to think of ways of associating the Prime Minister with national awards. Since then, new awards with the Prime Minister’s title attached to them were created.
Last week, 50 flags were given to distinguished Canadians to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Canadian flag. Since the flag is a national, not political, symbol it might have been thought that the awards would be in the name of the Governor-General. Instead, the Prime Minister announced them.
Almost all (there have been exceptions) the important announcements in this government are made by the Prime Minister. Ministers tend to be in the wings, not in a portion of the limelight.
Inside the government, Mr. Harper is such a formidable and private person that not many people summon the courage to challenge him. Outside the government, he doesn’t have the network of friends that previous prime ministers did to tell him casually how things look.
He is the loneliest of all prime ministers.

What is currently the greatest threat to our democracy and Parliament? Without a doubt in my view: the Supreme Court of Canada.

Some would say, “No, no – it is the Harper government, with its concealment of basic issues in omnibus budget bills, its muzzling of committees and public servants, and its concentration of power in the PMO.” And there is a point there, as with all recent governments. The difference between the government and the Supreme Court, however, is that we can get rid of governments every few years, if so inclined. Whatever threat they might pose is a controllable one.

But the court? Doesn’t it simply interpret the law? Would that such were true. Lately it has turned to the making of law, a task to which it is neither mandated nor suited. The judges can do this through their control over the Constitution and its exact meaning. This power was awarded in the 1982 Trudeauvian amendments, the court replacing Parliament as the highest authority in the land.

The Constitution has long been considered to be read in the context of growing 'developing realities'. Controlled by an elected Parliament. Ever since, the shears (and fertilizer and grafting) have been wielded by the unelected Supreme Court of Canada.

Three recent decisions will serve to illustrate the ensuing power grab. These are the striking of the Criminal Code ban against euthanasia, the refusal of the Supremes to accept the appointment of Justice Marc Nadon of Quebec to their own ranks, and a finding regarding the right of RCMP members to unionize. The issues vary widely, but the common thread is the accretion of power to the court.

Two questions, then. First, who changed that law? Why, none other than the judges. They make it up continually. Second, what body should have grasped whatever changes had occurred? Why, Parliament, of course. That Parliament shows cowardly and pusillanimous tendencies is no reason for the court to do the MPs’ proper work. But the Supreme Court Judges do it because they can.

With the government’s new anti-terror legislation, C-51, the state gets bigger. Again. And more intrusive. Again.
A healthily functioning system provides effective oversight on what the ruler is doing. Here, the oversight has been overtaken by the ruler himself.

And so we see the oversight powers of the House of Commons reduced by omnibus bills, by measures to restrict debate in the increasingly dysfunctional committee process, by attempts to mislead Parliament or denying it basic information.

And so we see the traditional oversight function of the Senate hijacked by the Prime Minister’s Office, and not just in the case of the Senate expenses scandal.

And so we see the public service and the foreign service silenced like never before, their traditional role in policy development diminished.

And so we see the reduction of oversight powers of many independent agencies, such as Elections Canada. And so we see the Conservatives repeatedly trying to thwart and manipulate media access, to the point even of altering documents.

Most every Ottawa institution capable of providing checks on executive overreach has been disempowered to some degree. The exception – and it hasn’t been for the Prime Minister’s lack of trying – is the Supreme Court, which has used the Charter to thwart Mr. Harper’s hegemony.

It’s not just the accrual of powers that is oppressive. There is the unrelenting application of propaganda and intimidation.

The Conservatives’ propaganda machine is omnipresent, spending unprecedented amounts – often of taxpayers’ money – to applaud themselves and denounce opponents. At the same time, others have their free speech restricted, the limitations extending well beyond the much-publicized gagging of the science community and of Omar Khadr.

Recently, we learned that the Canada Revenue Agency even has its lenses trained on a birdwatching society, threatening it with reprisals for its environmental messaging. The Kafkaesque crackdown was triggered by a law prohibiting charities from engaging in political activities. But does anyone think the birders would face repercussions if their message were pro-pipeline?

Intimidation is the modus operandi. Well-documented are the smear campaigns and the undercover operations against opponents run out of the highest political office in the land.

If you think it’s bad now, be prepared for worse, as with the anti-terror legislation. The danger with ideological leaders of any stripe is that in the name of security, they can ramp up state authority without the usual degree of public challenge. It’s why we see Mr. Harper hyping the terror threats Canada faces, as opposed to allaying the public’s fears.

Nova Scotia has rated poorly in a report card released today on health outcomes.

The Conference Board of Canada has looked at disease rates, obesity, infant mortality and bad habits such as smoking and a sedentary lifestyle.

Nova Scotia got a grade of "D" in the report card.

Canada health report card ranks B.C. 1st, Nunavut last

Louis Theriault is the vice president of public policy with the Conference Board of Canada.

"It's really driven by lifestyle factors. So the same messages apply for Nova Scotia as for the rest of Canada. Smoking, in fact, and in particular obesity rates are to blame for the D score that Nova Scotia gets. So working on those would go a long way in improving the overall score that Nova Scotia has," he said.

The two other provinces that also got a D rating are Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Rating even below Nova Scotia is Newfoundland and Labrador and the three Northern Territories, with a score of D-minus.

Overall, Canada has maintained it's "B" grade, ranking it 10th among 17 peer countries. Japan topped the list with an A and the U.S. ranked last with a D grade.

When it comes to learning honesty, it seems boys may be getting a different lesson than girls.

Parents are more willing to lie in front of their sons than their daughters, according to a recent analysis published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The findings may provide clues to why we lie, and why other studies have shown men lie more than women.

An experiment found parents act more dishonestly in front of sons than daughters.

Why parents seem to be much more careful to teach honesty to girls than boys is a bit of a mystery. Possibly they value it more in girls or believe girls might pay a bigger penalty for lying than boys when they’re adults, said Anya Samek, one of the paper’s authors.

“Perhaps it’s socially more accepted when men are dishonest, but not women,” Samek, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told TODAY Parents.

“It’s not clear whether this is an evolutionary kind of trait where (parents) try to impart more honest behavior onto their female children or whether it’s culturally formed.”

The findings are based on a simple experiment involving 152 parents and their children, each 3-6 years old.

The parents were asked to flip two coins, each with a green and a blue side, and jot down the results. If both coins landed green side up, they would win a small prize. Any other outcome meant no gift at all.

Some parents were left completely alone in the room during the coin toss. Others were allowed to take their child along. The experimenters made clear they would not observe any of the results.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

The probability of winning a prize was 25 percent, but the parents often self-reported much higher rates of winning — almost 60 percent in some cases — which is how the researchers knew some of them were cheating.

As expected, the adults were more honest when their child was in the room. People are less likely to act shady when someone is watching and when that someone is your kid, you also have a desire to “model honesty,” Samek said.

“Not only do you want your child to believe that you’re good, but you also want your child to learn from you to be an upstanding citizen in the future,” she noted.

What did surprise the researchers was the gender effect.

When the parents were in the room with their daughters, they reported a winning coin toss close to 25 percent of the time — or just as would be expected if they acted honestly.

But when they were left alone with their sons, they "won" more than 40 percent of time, a significant difference.

The findings may explain why studies consistently find adult women are more honest than men. The researchers speculate this may start with “differences in the way girls and boys are socialized by parents at early ages.”

Samek wants to repeat the experiment in other countries to see whether the results are similar around the world or influenced by culture.

Her advice to parents: Modeling good behavior is important because kids do pay attention to how you act — whether girl or boy.

A government-backed pensioner bond offering competitive rates of up to 4% interest is to be offered for a further three months, George Osborne has said.

The UK chancellor told the BBC he was extending the deadline for over 65s to apply to May since the idea had proved "enormously popular and successful".

More than £1bn in bonds were sold in the first two days of the scheme and 600,000 people have now signed up.

National Savings and Investments (NS&I) are offering up to £10bn in bonds.

However, Mr Osborne said he expected this figure to be extended to £15bn and the deadline moved until after 15 May, a week after the general election.

Mr Osborne told the Andrew Marr show that the bond - on offer to the over 65s - had been "the most successful saving product this country had ever seen", with 110,000 pensioners signing up in the first two days after they went on sale in January.

"We will guarantee that it remains on sale for a further three months because this government backs savers and supports people who do the right thing," he said.
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Analysis

We knew these pensioner bonds would be popular but few expected them to be this popular.

Their arrival three weeks ago has flushed out billions of pounds of cash owned by older people.

They've found a safe new place to park their money with incredibly generous rates of interest. The original ceiling of £10bn has been scrapped simply because the chancellor and his Lib Dem deputy Danny Alexander didn't want to risk the ire of such a key voting demographic who might have missed out on such a lucrative opportunity.

The fact that the newly-created window for investing in pensioner bonds closes not long after the general election polls do is a happy coincidence.

Critics will say that ordinary working-age taxpayers will be subsidising an often wealthy group of pensioners whose homes have multiplied in value and whose company pensions are far more generous than will be the case when Generation X or Y retires.

Can this be done in Canada