Silencing scientists at Environment Canada

Filed under: Canada on 2008-02-14 @ 2307

The current Federal government has decided that federally funded scientists at Environment Canada should not be allowed to speak with reporters directly. In the past reporters could freely contact Environment Canada scientists with science questions. Now all questions must now go through an information officer. The leaked reasons for this change are particularly worrisome. I fail to see how the fact that “interviews sometimes result in surprises to minister and senior management” outweighs the public’s access to the scientists it funds.

Wasn’t this supposed to be the open and accountable government?

Environment Canada ‘muzzles’ scientists’ dealings with media

Or listen to the first few minutes of this week’s Sunday edition for a bit of commentary.

Magazine titles and operating systems

Filed under: General, Linux on 2008-02-10 @ 1620

I little while ago I was standing in front of the computer magazine section at my local Chapters when I noticed something interesting. There were three magazines with “Windows” in the title, three with “Mac” in the title, and four with “Linux” in the title. Of course this is hardly statistically significant in terms of the magazine industry as a whole but it does show how Linux is becoming much more mainstream.

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