Ric McIver does not hold students in high regard. In a recent Calgary Herald article, he argues that increasing affordable housing through legalizing and regulating secondary suites will result in a second class Calgary. He falls into the misconception that streets will be filled with extra vehicles belonging to loud and obnoxious 20-somethings living in your neighbour's basement. University students have nothing better to do with their time than lower your property value.

The NFL playoffs have proven once again to be full of excitement, disappointment and clashing egos that keep things interesting both on and off the field.

A proposed "iPod tax" presented to Parliament Hill last March has consumers wondering about the future of copyright law in Canada. NDP MP Charlie Angus presented a Private Member's Bill that proposed a levy on devices including iPods, MP3 players and smart phones. The fee, which could be up to $75 per device purchased, would be an extension of existing taxes on blank audio recording media like CDs and audio cassettes ­-- the first of which passed in 1997.

A University of Alberta professor who was reportedly asked to resign after he spoke out against his department for lowering student grades has hired legal representation in what looks like an ongoing battle.

U of A math and statistics tenured professor Mikhail Kovalyov clashed with the school last semester after he sent out e-mails to students and department officials voicing his opposition to grading policies, according to a report by the Edmonton Journal.

The article by Jeffrey Spooner ["Israel's wrongful treatment of Palestine," Jan. 13] fails to accept one basic fact. Israel is a state at war. It is not merely in a state of war, but it is a state at war. As such it will take action to guarantee its security, this is simply the way the international system works.

Andrew Varsanyi's article ["Education must replace the censorship of music," Jan. 20] about the recent Dire Straits ruling leaves out key facts that would have helped readers better understand the ramifications of this decision. The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council is not a government agency -- it is an independent organization set up by private broadcasting corporations to self-regulate their industry.

In late 2009, hemp advocates were hoping to piggyback the California vote to legalize marijuana. The proposition would have allowed the cultivation of all cannabis, including both marijuana and hemp, but it failed to pass. Despite hemp's amazing potential, marijuana's bad rap is holding hemp back.

I'm often surprised at the reactions my vegan diet receives. Sometimes it's annoyance at my tainting someone's lunch or sometimes it's amusement at my presumed sentimentality or idealism (almost always accompanied by cracks about PETA), but most of the time it manifests in a mild or even defiant defensiveness.

Since the fall of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's regime in Tunisia, many have been cheered by the prospects for democratic reform in that North African country. But one cannot help but take note of a kind of muted or cool support from many leaders of Western nations, at least in the initial stages of the revolt. Indeed, it was not until Ben Ali fled the country that any Western leader expressed support for the Tunisian uprising.

It's hard to imagine how things could go worse. A year after an earthquake in Haiti killed over 300,000 people and left more than a million homeless, little has improved. Last year's November elections were mired by fraud and a winner is still to be decided. On January 16, Haitians faced another major setback. Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, exiled in France since 1986, returned to Haiti claiming he is back to help.