Dear Halifax: 20% off is not an event - and it certainly isn't a Black Friday event. Don't be so proud of your pathetic attempt to participate in Black Friday sales because it's laughable —give the east coasters a deal already

Before you start dreaming of the future with your Saudi love interest, whether you've been together for 2 years, 3,4,5 it's likely he hasn't filled you in on some important little details. To each their own when it comes to culture, love ya all. But I have little love for dudes who fail to tell you that you're pretty much only a temporary bang. Tons of international marriages work - But with Saudis it's a whole other game. Just some fun facts to crush your dreams!

- If a Saudi student has a government scholarship he is not able to marry a woman from outside KSA until after the age of 35 (after which he can marry a foreigner and continue his scholarship).

- Once the student has finished their schooling they must return to their country for an obligatory work contract (the trade off for the scholarship).

- If the man does not get the marriage approved by the Saudi government BEFORE getting married via Canadian law, the marriage is likely considered invalid (not recognized by KSA) and he risks being financially cut off immediately (which often leads to him going home).

- If a man does return to KSA without his new foreign wife she CANNOT FOLLOW because the marriage is likely not not recognized by the Saudi government, and a single woman cannot travel there alone.

- If your Love doesn't introduce you to his mother and sisters and you’re looking for something more then a fling, BOUNCE. His brothers/cousins approval of you means nothing in Saudi culture. The parents (and females in particular) rule the roost.

... If you’re just looking to knock boots for a night – have at it boss!

There are tons of great Saudi guys in the city. Nice, friendly, overall great fun people. For most of them though Halifax is the FIRST time they have been so close to women. Some of them don’t even know the specific laws regarding marriage to foreigners… but the majority DO KNOW how their own culture works. They know that their new found relationships will end with heartbreak.

Marrying within the boarders isn't a religious thing – it’s purely a cultural thing (Not all Middle Eastern /"Muslim" countries have that sort of mentality)

These guys need to come with a warning label .They’ll charm your socks off and then leave ya, even if it's not by choice.

It is possible to get married, but you better be sure he's ready to jump those hurdles for you - It will be a long and bumpy ride. —6 years gone

Back then aka high school you were the worst of the worst, pretty sure that people have gone to shrinks because of you.

Fast forward a couple years: we're all going to be thirty in a couple of years and all the times I have seen you...you still act the way you did back in the days of old which leads me to believe that you still have serious issues not yet dealt with or you are developmentally delayed..perhaps both? —Euuuggeennne

I figure since I can't spend ten minutes talking to you without being insulted in some way that we aren't really the friends we used to be. That's life.

But why pretend? —No need to compare notes

Black Friday, aptly named for when companies go from being in the red to black for their year end, can lick my taint!

The commercialized slap in the face marketing ploy of Black Friday this and Black Friday that, is a measure of corporate greed only equaled by the consumers want to fulfil their meager lives with shit they don't need. —Laughing At You US Wannabe!

Why the fuck does Black Friday exist in Canada? It is a American greed-driven shitshow and makes huge dollars for American big box stores... it's got nothing to do with us. We shouldn't be associated with it. Breaking the fucking doors down and trampling Walmart employees in order to get a deal on a fucking TV? Holy shit. Haligonians, Nova Scotians, Canadians... resist it! Resist it with all your might. Black Friday in Canada needs to die. Please consider spending your hard-earned dollars on local, more thoughtful gifts this Christmas. You might just end up spending less in the end… —Local Merchant Lover

Please tell me I am not the only person getting pissed off with the "fleecing of the shoppers" at local grocery stores. I am sick of snot nose kids and teens standing at the end of the checkout with their money receptacles expecting the haggard shopper to just drop their money in to said receptacle. And what you get for it? NOTHING. They don't pack your groceries, they don't offer to help you with carrying them to your car, they don't even smile or acknowledge you unless they hear the sweet ka-ching of coins on coins …

Don't get me wrong; I fully support children's fundraising activities and am well known for buying whatever your kid is selling to finance their school trip. sports team or whatever. BUT for the love of fuck, EARN it! Do something, sell something, put on a show - don't just fucking stand there at the end of the checkout and expect handouts. Society is gearing these kids to expect things to be handed to them - panhandlers in training. Whatever happened to working to earn what you want ... I worry about the future of the human race …End of rant … —Sick and tired of the fleecing

The reason people cycle less here - the reason cycling dropped 65% after the passage of our helmet law - is that people now view cycling as a "dangerous activity" like skydiving or race car driving - and stay away from it in droves. I'm not making a value judgement on this, but this IS human nature we are talking about here.

On a good day 700 intrepid bicyclists make their way over the bridge on a busy workday... That is not great "market penetration". Some of this is because we don't have a lot of cycling infrastructure, some of this because we don't have a great climate... but the government has effectively put a cap on the number of cyclists we will have in this city, and have capped the amount they will have to spend on it as a result.

People have a perception of cycling as road warrior-esque struggle with cars now, that's what I gleam from popular media. This pitting of one road user against another really started in earnest around the time of the helmet law.

If people didn't have to wear a helmet they would be safer - look at any city in the world that has instituted mass bike sharing programs, and have made a real substantive effort to get more people cycling - you know what they ALL have in common?

None of them have helmet laws. They have a critical mass of cyclists that have normalized cycling and with more cyclists on the roads, they are given more leeway by motorists, and they have enough clout with their large numbers to push for real infrastructure. We will never get there with our helmet regime.

Some interesting research has been done into how automobile drivers treat cyclists with helmets as well - it turns out when a driver sees a bicyclist without a helmet, they are given more leeway and consideration vs. one that has a helmet. Psychology abounds all around with this helmet use issue.

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This is the study Doctors NS and the Police champion as the reason for our helmet law ( Attewell, Glase and McFadden, 2001): http://goo.gl/HwCH9i

Unfortunately this study suffers from:

Time-trend bias
(Due to technological innovation, safety measures usually become more effective over time. However, this does not appear to have been the case with bicycle helmets. Recent studies show significantly smaller benefits of cycle helmets than older studies. Attewell, Glase and McFadden, 2001 do not acknowledge this effect and therefore give a too optimistic impression of new helmets.)

Zero-count bias
(Attewell, Glase and McFadden, 2001 included studies in which one of the four numbers used to calculate the odds ratio was zero. This suggests a larger effect for bicycle helmets than is justified.)

Conflict of interest
(some studies have more restrictive inclusion criteria than Attewell, Glase and McFadden, 2001. 4 of the 7 recent studies on the efficacy of helmet use included in their review had been undertaken by the authors themselves, thus judging their own work to be worthy of inclusion but not 8 other studies in which they had not been involved.)

A great disparity between research and helmet law outcomes
(While, on the one hand, studies have predicted large benefits from the use of cycle helmets, large increases in helmet use brought about by helmet laws have not always shown a clear decline in head injuries to cyclists. This could be due to selective recruitment – that the most cautious and safety-minded cyclists with a lower rate of accident involvement are the first to start wearing helmets – or because of behavioral adaptation (or risk compensation), whereby helmeted cyclists feel safer and thereby ride less safely.)

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Doctors NS are smart people, so they must be aware of how flawed the research is that they hold in such high regard - it's ludicrous how much control they want over every one of us - and it isn't even remotely justified - in fact, they are doing much more harm by reducing the amount of people cycling and criminalizing exercise then they could ever hope to accomplish "reducing" head injuries.

And before anyone tells me the reason they want me wearing a helmet is because this isn't America and they don't want to be paying my medical bills in case of an accident - The American health care system is about 50% public, paid by tax dollars (Medicare, Medicaid), while Canada's is 70% - so this whole "if you're in America, you can do what you want but you're in Canada" thing is false all around.

Then there is this: http://goo.gl/zTgHze (page 6)
A comparison of Active Transportation and Obesity Rates in Various Countries: In the USA 5% of people utilize walking/transit/bicycling to get to their destination, with a 25% obesity rate - in Switzerland 65% utilize walking/transit/bicycling to get to their destination, their obesity rate? About 7%. Canada is at the bottom of the pack after the USA and Australia.

If Doctors NS is in fact advocating for people's health, they should be advocating for increased bicycling. With their helmet policy they advocate, they are standing in the way of a healthier populace. Does Halifax want more people riding bicycles? Does Halifax want a way to deal with it's obesity epidemic? Does Doctors NS want to make a positive difference instead of acting as ignoramus in chief? Get off the helmet soapbox, and get people active, repeal the helmet law! —MM

Animal tails...really? You want to preach peace and love and potlucks and equality how about to make it equal you go live in a cage and then get your arm chopped off and I'll clip it to my belt. —Go hop a train or whatever

What is it with people that feel that if you are on your break with a sign clearly saying so, that you should just stop eating or whatever and run right back to serve them I DON'T THINK SO some one who has no clue about time but there own

get a life or leave me your name were you work so i can drop by when your on yours.....idoits —retail worker