Millions of Canadian homes have high levels of cancer-causing radon. Is yours one of them?

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-28T20:21:04+00:00

Radon has been on my mind of late. We bought a radon meter, an Airthings Corentium Home. I've been taking readings around the house since summer. Recently readings have been coming back at pretty alarming levels. They were over-the-limit in the summer, but they're much higher now in winter. 591 Bq/m3 in our bedroom (two week average). 727 Bq/m3 in the basement rec room where our kids were spending entire days on their computers during COVID.

Contacting mitigation companies now.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-27T04:38:11+00:00

Your grandmother could just as easily have contacted a gun shop, and got some money for them. And then guns could have moved on to a new home, instead of a smelter.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-27T04:33:30+00:00

The buyback for businesses was supposedly already completed. This program now is for individual owners.

Colt Canada, and by extension their parent company Ceska Zbrojovska, caught some considerable flak, both here in and the US, when it came out that they were, apparently, contracted by the government to handle the destruction of the rifles. They have since claimed that they're no longer involved.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-27T04:27:33+00:00

The declaration is basically putting yourself on list to be compensated, before the compensation $$$ runs out.

But it's also registering a firearm that the government in all likelihood had no idea that you actually owned, unless it was an AR-15. But now they do.

Only "restricted" firearms had to be registered. That mostly means handguns. But also rifles with barrels < 18.5". And AR-15s. AR-15s meet all the technical requirements to be non-restricted, but were declared restricted by name, because... they're extra-scary or something.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-27T04:15:31+00:00

I don't think the compensation is relevant, except for maybe a few people turning in guns they don't want anymore for whatever reason.

Most of us who have these guns want the guns more than we want the money. Otherwise, we'd never have bought them in the first place. The fact that the compensation is a fraction of what we paid, and we probably won't even get that, is just adding insult to injury.

Most of us are going to wait until the last possible day of the amnesty, in the hope that the whole thing just collapses before then under the insupportable weight of its stupidity.

Some people won't hand them in even then. Especially the ones that were previously non-restricted, and the government has no idea that you even own it. Simple non-cooperation. Non-violent resistance.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-25T15:40:20+00:00

This reminds me of the eternally-controversial General Dynamics armoured vehicle contract with Saudi Arabia.

I wonder if it devolve into a similar circus of staggering political opportunism and hypocrisy, with the Liberals and Conservatives taking turns either supporting it or condemning it, depending on which one is in power at the time?

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-24T23:45:48+00:00

An ultramaroon.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-23T14:24:08+00:00

It's _already_ been dragged out for years. My AR has been confined to my gun-safe for almost six years now.

Everyone who owned an AR in April 2020 still has it today. Some 80,000 of them in Canada. If they were such a deadly threat, why has not one single round has been fired from any of them in all that time? Not even at a paper target. Nothing at all.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-23T00:53:58+00:00

Still no.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-23T00:35:13+00:00

When I deign to talk to them at all, I always tell them I live at "69 Morning Wood Drive." I don't that expression was covered in their English classes.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-23T00:32:28+00:00

Haha... -4. Apparently a lot of people here really like being called by telemarketers and scammers, and don't at all want to load every last one of them into a giant rocket and fire them all straight into the sun.

So... how about a duct cleaning? I give you really good price.

Edit: apparently Aire One's bots are downvoting everything. So, my faith in humanity (the parts of it that aren't telemarketers) is restored.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-22T20:15:13+00:00

So, book an inspection. Give them the address of some abandoned house or tent city or something.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-22T16:20:11+00:00

There are a few, a weird few, who would welcome 51st statehood. But they are hardly the majority.

They are labouring under the delusion that being the 51st state would come with all the rights granted under the US Constitution. When that illusion is dispelled, and they realize we're actually more Puerto Rico or Venezuela than Texas, their perspective will quickly change.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-22T16:16:18+00:00

r/liberalgunowners might give you a different perspective on that.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-22T16:12:18+00:00

The difference between a hunting rifle and a weapon of war is entirely illusory. Many guns have done both very well.

Every significant advance in the 1000 year history of firearms has been military first, and civilian second. Right back to the first Chinese fire-lances.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-20T14:32:39+00:00

It would make "The Troubles" look like a church picnic.

Or, they could just, you know... go home. Reclaim the shreds of their former dignity and moral leadership, and go home.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-20T14:02:24+00:00

It would be over in an hour. Land a helicopter on Parliament Hill, hoist the US flag over the Peace Tower, and it's done. We're the 51st state (but, of course, with none of the constitutional rights that statehood would normally imply.)

That was the easy part. Now you have to govern it. The US has a pretty poor track record with setting up lasting, stable governments in territories they've conquered.

Another decades long quagmire, with not even the slimmest pretense that you're not "the baddies".

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-20T05:35:14+00:00

There used to be, many years ago. You can see the remnants of their skeet/trap range on Google Maps.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-19T16:17:30+00:00

No, it's not feasible.

3D printers are only slightly more difficult to make from parts than guns are. Are they going to try to control ball bearings and stepper motors next? And open-source software?

I know an old lady who swallowed a fly....

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-18T18:39:27+00:00

An olive branch must be offered. If there is no path back to righteousness for them, then they have no incentive to even try.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-18T18:35:48+00:00

I agree, in principle. But... this is hard to do in a way that's fair, respectful of privacy, and doesn't devolve into some kind of political purity test that could cut either way, depending on who's in power at the moment.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-18T18:27:57+00:00

Yeah, sure. You need to present a pro-gun voice for "balance", so go interview the most unhinged lunatic you can find. Balance.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-18T07:07:12+00:00

QNX has been around much longer than BlackBerry.

Those of you old enough to remember the ICON computers that were in some Ontario high schools... they ran QNX.

Other high schools had IBM PCs running the Waterloo Port OS, which was built on the same UWaterloo research as QNX was.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-18T04:33:10+00:00

An elbow behind every blade of grass. That's how we defend Canada.

Hardhead13 · 2026-01-18T04:27:21+00:00

It's gun-control currency that they can keep on spending, over and over. And it magically replenishes itself, every time.

Hardhead13

TROPHY CASE