It appears that the mastermind behind our friendly neighbourhood pirate radio station from just over a year ago is not quite so friendly after all.

The Ottawa Citizen has had a number of stories in the last day or so about court appearances for various charges related to the illegal pirate radio station an unnamed youth was running from his parent’s hotel in December 2009 and January 2010. Though not named in the stories because he’s protected by the Youth Criminal Justice Act, there’s only been one underage individual in Ottawa who was running a pirate radio station that was taken down in a high-profile raid last year.

It seems that in addition to violating the Radiocommunication Act, he is alleged to have made threatening phone calls to a couple of local radio personalities and also to the Industry Canada employee who was responsible for the investigation into his illegal radio station and the eventual raid. It was during this raid that he allegedly pushed a police officer (never a good idea) and uttered death threats against some of the people involved in the raid.

All of these are serious charges that could cause him problems for years to come. Being convicted of violating the Radiocommunications Act can result in some non-trivial fines and/or imprisonment. The Act allows for the someone to be convicted for each day that the offence continues, which could result in fairly significant fines, not to mention jail time.

But this pales in comparison to how serious it would be to be convicted of uttering death threats against people and assaulting a peace officer.

It’s really too bad that it came to this, but hopefully he will finally come to accept that he is responsible for the consequences of his actions and that the rules that apply to the rest of us also apply to him.

Did you hear about the Carleton students who were charged to use the pay washing machines in their dorm? I’ll admit it doesn’t sound very newsworthy and it probably wouldn’t be newsworthy if the students hadn’t figured out a way to cheat the swipe machine that activates the washing machines and then whined to a reporter when Carleton caught on to it and retroactively charged them for all the “free” uses.

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As you’ve probably heard, there was a fairly significant earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. It hit in the middle of the day, so there were a lot more people out and about. Some buildings have collapsed and some deaths have been reported.

There’s a Google App called Person Finder who are either looking for people in Christchurch or have information about people in Christchurch available at http://christchurch-2011.person-finder.appspot.com.

I hope that anyone you know who is in Christchurch is safe and sound.

February 11th is turning out to be quite the day in history. In addition to being Thomas Alva Edison‘s birthday, it was also the end of the Yalta Conference in 1945, which was trying to deal with post-war Europe.

More recently, it’s the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, which saw the overthrow of Iran’s monarchy and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Nelson Mandela was released from prison on this day in 1990.

And now we can add the downfall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak after 18 days of anti-government protests in Egypt. I hope the aftermath doesn’t get out of control and that the Egyptian people can rebuild and move forward.

Quite a day in history, eh?

A tip o’ the hat to Al Jazeera who had this photo on their site.

I’m pleased to report that the van belonging to STRIDE that was stolen has been found in a parking lot on Cyrville Road. I haven’t heard whether there was much damage to it, but hopefully not. Apparently, STRIDE had a number of people willing to loan them a van and a couple of people who were willing to donate a van — a very classy response from the community indeed!

The Globe and Mail has a story about about an eighteen-year old grade 12 student who is championing a proposal to require drivers who have a provisional license, like a G1 or G2, to display a sign with a “P” on it when they’re driving a car. He came up with the idea while on vacation in Australia where they have a similar requirement.

In most cases this wouldn’t be terribly newsworthy, but this isn’t most cases.

Alex Don has used his connections from when he was a page at the Ontario Legislature to garner political support for his proposal. According to the story, five MPPs are supporting this, along with City of Burlington councillors and the chief of Halton Regional Police Service. Also supporting him is a teacher at his high school who coached the school’s soccer team. Two boys on that team were killed in a car accident a couple of years ago. With all this support, there’s a fair chance that his proposal will be introduced as a private member’s bill by Kevin Flynn, MPP for Oakville, in February.

But will it actually result in safer roads? While I’d like to say it will, I fear it won’t. And it might actually have some unexpected consequences.

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My dad volunteers with a charity called STRIDE. They clean and repair used medical equipment such as wheelchairs, electric scooters, walkers and hospital beds, and make them available to individuals and institutions at a reasonable rate. Their van, which included a special wheelchair lift, was stolen recently. Its loss is causing them a lot of problems because many of the things they refurbish are bulky meaning that they often don’t fit in an average car, so they are having problems delivering them to the people who need them.

The vehicle is a white 2007 GMC Savana 2500 Cargo Van with licence plate number 722 5YT. The organization is asking anyone with information on the whereabouts of their van to contact Ottawa police. The van has been recovered so if you see it driving around, you don’t need to call the police. 🙂

A tip o’ the hat to the Ottawa Citizen for reporting on it earlier today.