Three days ago I made a comment in my entry about Campbell’s soup that the government would probably adopt legislation concerning sodium levels in Canadian food within the next year.  Well, this morning’s Ottawa Citizen has a front-page article titled Health Canada wages war on excessive salt intake.  It reports that there is now a federally appointed working group that is tasked with developing a plan to reduce sodium levels in food.  It’s expected that they’ll recommend Canada adopt the British strategy, which has seen the average daily intake of sodium by adults in Britain drop by 500mg between 2001 and 2006.  The impact on pre-packed meals has been a 45% reduction in four years and 85% have already reached the targets set for 2010, which is a more than one third reduction.

It’s about time.

Data from the Canadian Stroke Network indicates that nearly 11 000 Canadians a year die because of the effects of excessive sodium intake.  It has been linked to hypertension (high blood pressure), stroke, cardiovascular diseases and asthma, to name a few things.

So, hopefully this sounds the end of the roast beef sandwich with 2 grams of sodium in it.

So, the viewing conditions in Ottawa for the lunar eclipse last night were very good.  Clear skies and no weird thermal distortions blurring the sky.

Though I only had my point-and-shoot camera with me, I was able to take a number of photos with it by bracing it, holding my breath and clicking the button.

To the right is a cropped photo of the moon as it was a couple of minutes after totality.

I’ve got a few more photos that I took with my digital SLR that I haven’t processed yet, but you can view what I’ve taken so far in my gallery.  I’ll post the photos from my SLR there when I’ve processed them.

Darin has posted a few pictures he’s taken in his blog.

The National Post published a story on Wednesday about a proposal by the Songwriters Association of Canada, to collect $5 every month from every Canadian Internet subscriber. In return, you would have the ability to download as many "illegal" music files as you want. Their theory is that this would make sites like iTunes unnecessary because it would be legal for people to pirate music. They’re proposing an amendment to the Canadian Copyright Act they’re calling the Right to Equitable Remuneration for Music File Sharing.

If adopted, this would allow the lobby group to collect $500 million to $900 million per year. Compared this to the music industry’s own estimates of losses due to piracy in Canada of only $118.8 million and you’ll realize they would be collecting a minimum of almost 5 times as much money as they’re losing.

We’ve been paying 21 cents/blank CD since January 1, 1999. It goes to the Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC) who then distributes the funds collected to the various societies that represent authors, performers and those who make sound recordings. Those societies are the Canadian Mechanical Reproduction Rights Agency (CMRRA), the Neighbouring Rights Collective of Canada (NRCC), the Société de gestion des droits des artistes-musiciens (SOGEDAM), the Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers in Canada (SODRAC) and the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN). (linky)

In 2005, Micheal Geist blogged about Tariff 22 in which SOCAN seeks a 25% levy on iTunes and other music download services and 15% for webcasters. You should read his article that appeared in the Toronto Star.

SOCAN even proposed a download tax of 3.1 cents per individual track and 1.5 cents per track on a complete album that are bought online.

There are other surcharges, too, but I’m not listing them here.

I’ve gotten used to 21 cents/blank CD and it’s below my annoyance threshold. I don’t go through a huge amount of CDs, so it doesn’t really affect me. Whatever.

But, $5/month crosses the line. I buy my music legally from iTunes. I don’t use peer-to-peer programs to illegally download music. I am not a pirate.

I have two Internet accounts: one for my broadband connection on which it is feasible to download music because I have the bandwidth and a second that I use for dial-up access when I’m on the road or at the cottage, which it is not feasible to download any large files, let alone music. So, I’d pay $10/month or $120/year for doing nothing wrong.

You can view the Songwriters Association of Canada’s proposal on their website. There’s a box on the form that you can fill out and submit by clicking a button labelled "I Agree". Please do not click it! Instead, send an email to advocacy@songwriters.ca and tell them how you feel about their proposal.

The last total lunar eclipse visible from North America until December 21, 2010 starts this evening around 20:43 Eastern. Totality will be reached at 22:01 Eastern and everything will be back to normal by 00:09 Eastern.

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Eclipse Home Page has all sorts of information about tonight’s eclipse, including why there is an eclipse tonight. There’s also an excellent primer on Mr. Eclipse’s website.

Oh, and unlike solar eclipses, lunar eclipses are completely safe to watch without special eye protection, so you can head out and stare at it intently. Happy viewing!

UPDATE: See my pictures of the eclipse.

Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA’s GSFC

To my dearest compatriots, who have recently honored me so much by electing me a member of the Parliament where so many agreements should be adopted of utmost importance to the destiny of our Revolution, I am saying that I will neither aspire to nor accept, I repeat, I will neither aspire to nor accept the positions of President of the State Council and Commander in Chief.

Fidel Castro Ruz

February 18, 2008

That’s taken from a longer message from Cuba’s Commander in Chief on the Granma Internacional website.

So, after 50 years, 81-year old Fidel Castro is stepping down. It’s expected that his younger brother, Raul Castro (he’s 76, by the way), will be nominated by the National Assembly his successor as president.

George W. Bush talked about it while traveling in Rwanda and asked “what does this mean for the people in Cuba?” He views it as a “period of tradition” and urges the international community to world with the Cuban people to build the institutions of democracy. (He also made a comment about “staged elections” by “the Castro bothers”, which I made me giggle given the election fiasco a few years ago in Florida, a state run by George W.’s brother at the time.)

Hopefully, this change bodes well for the people of Cuba.

According to stories on the Globe & Mail’s and Denver Post’s websites this morning, a twelve-year old Girl Scout selling cookies in Colorado was scammed by a couple who gave her a counterfeit $100 bill when they bought a couple of boxes of cookies.  They got the cookies and $93.50 in change and the Girl Scout troop found their whole day’s profits wiped out.

The police have the counterfeit bill now so hopefully they catch the idiots.  A good Samaritan heard about this and donated $100 to the troop, so the sting of the financial loss is lessened.

I hope they choke on their ill-gotten cookies.

It’s official: I’m sick of winter.  And so is almost everyone I know.

At 12:10 PM Eastern, Franktown radar, which is located between Smiths Falls and Carleton Place, is showing the leading edge of the freezing rain, snow, rain, frogs, ice pellets, and other charming weather that we’re going to be receiving this afternoon.

The aviation forecast for Ottawa is saying that we can expect the snow to start around 1 PM Eastern, followed by freezing rain that will probably start around 2 PM.  Around 6 PM it’s probably going to start raining.  And it’s going to be windy to boot.

TAF CYOW 171738Z 171818 06010KT 6SM -SN SCT020 OVC050 TEMPO 1819 2SM
-SN VV015
FM1900Z 08010G20KT 6SM -FZRA BR SCT008 OVC020 TEMPO 1923 2SM
-FZRA BR BKN008 OVC020
FM2300Z 16012G25KT 2SM -RA BR OVC006 TEMPO 2311 1/2SM -RA BR
VV002
BECMG 0507 20010KT
FM1100Z 23012G22KT 2SM -DZ BR OVC006 TEMPO 1114 6SM -RA BR SCT006
OVC012
FM1400Z 24015G25KT P6SM SCT020 TEMPO 1418 BKN020
RMK NXT FCST BY 21Z=

My lack of enthusiasm over this is overwhelming.  How about you?