Last month an amateur rocket enthusiast named Derek Deville launched a rocket, dubbed Qu8k, from a Desert in Nevada; 90 seconds later, it had reached an altitude of over 120,000 feet. Here’s a 17-minute video of the enterprise, including footage from two onboard video cameras. (Shorter version here).
Launch those Reader Tips into the comments.
“Markets fall as narrowing in China’s trade surplus signals a slowdown in global demand, the eurozone debt crisis hits income at US lender JP Morgan and Fitch downgrades UK banks.”
Debt crisis: live at the Telegraph.
Related: S&P downgrades Spain.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-news/global-exchange/globe-correspondents/melting-norwegian-ice-spawns-massive-surge-in-cod-stocks/article2198311/
Lots of cod in Norway.
What do my fellow SDA readers and contributors think of this:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/quebec-fears-delay-tory-plan-to-add-commons-seats-for-ontario-alberta-bc/article2200754/
It would be huge mistake if the new seats are not allocated before the next election and /or more seats are given to Quebec.
In my opinion, this would be seen as being on a par with the F-18 contract being given to a Quebec firm over a Winnipeg firm by a very large percentage of Conservative supporters – including me. The blowback such a move would cause could be devastating to the party’s chances in 2015.
As the prime minister stated in his speech to the convention in June (paraphrasing): ‘Trust is built by doing what you say are going to do over a long period of time – and that that was what the Conservative Party had done over the last five years and it was what the Conservative party was going to do over the next four years’. To commit a blatant volte face on this issue makes a mockery of that commitment and destroys much of the trust the party has earned from Canadians.
An impressive bunch, these Occupy Wall Street protesters.
Strong language and idiocy warnings.
Some perspective on the Occupy Wall Street crowd.
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1
@ Gord Tulk, this does not impress me at all. I was wondering how long it would take before the Mulroney sickness infected this government.
@ Black Mamba
If I do everything right, my kids won’t end up in a video like this.
What did Uncle Chuck say?, $10 a hit for heroine at the squatters plaza?
Thanks for the idiocy warning Black Mamba. Probably the best way to deal with these idiots is to have buses show up with lots of free weed and give them a one way trip to Northern Alaska (hey, they can occupy the potential oil well drilling spots there).
Far preferred the rocket launch video and that was impressive. One of the benefits of electronics miniaturization in that multiple cameras can be put on a small rocket to record the flight from all angles.
looks like someone’s in for a friendly bombing from the ‘religion of peace’…no fair using their own words against them…..
“Christians are my citizens, and by God, I hold out against anything that displeases them,”- Muhammed
“kill them all” -Muhammed’s followers
Muhammad’s promise to Christians
By Muqtedar Khan
Director of Islamic Studies at the University of Delaware
Muslims and Christians together constitute over 50 percent of the world. If they lived in peace, we would be half way to world peace. One small step we can take towards fostering Muslim-Christian harmony is to tell and retell positive stories and abstain from mutual demonization.
In this article I propose to remind both Muslims and Christians about a promise that Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) made to Christians. The knowledge of this promise can have enormous impact on Muslim conduct towards Christians. Muslims generally respect the precedent of their Prophet and try to practice it in their lives.
In 628 AD, a delegation from St. Catherine’s Monastery came to Prophet Muhammed and requested his protection. He responded by granting them a charter of rights, which I reproduce below in its entirety. St. Catherine’s Monastery is located at the foot of Mt. Sinai and is the world’s oldest monastery. It possess a huge collection of Christian manuscripts, second only to the Vatican, and is a world heritage site. It also boasts the oldest collection of Christian icons. It is a treasure house of Christian history that has remained safe for 1,400 years under Muslim protection.
The Promise to St. Catherine:
“This is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them. Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah! I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims’ houses. Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God’s covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate. No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight. The Muslims are to fight for them. If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray. Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants. No one of the nation (Muslims) is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day (end of the world).”
The first and the final sentence of the charter are critical. They make the promise eternal and universal. Muhammed asserts that Muslims are with Christians near and far, straight away rejecting any future attempts to limit the promise to St. Catherine alone. By ordering Muslims to obey it until the Day of Judgment the charter again undermines any future attempts to revoke the privileges. These rights are inalienable. Muhammed declared Christians, all of them, as his allies and he equated ill treatment of Christians with violating God’s covenant.
A remarkable aspect of the charter is that it imposes no conditions on Christians for enjoying its privileges. It is enough that they are Christians. They are not required to alter their beliefs, they do not have to make any payments and they do not have any obligations. This is a charter of rights without any duties!
The document is not a modern human rights treaty, but even though it was penned in 628 A.D. it clearly protects the right to property, freedom of religion, freedom of work, and security of the person.
I know most readers, must be thinking, So what? Well the answer is simple. Those who seek to foster discord among Muslims and Christians focus on issues that divide and emphasize areas of conflict. But when resources such as Muhammad’s promise to Christians is invoked and highlighted it builds bridges. It inspires Muslims to rise above communal intolerance and engenders good will in Christians who might be nursing fear of Islam or Muslims.
When I look at Islamic sources, I find in them unprecedented examples of religious tolerance and inclusiveness. They make me want to become a better person. I think the capacity to seek good and do good inheres in all of us. When we subdue this predisposition towards the good, we deny our fundamental humanity. In this holiday season, I hope all of us can find time to look for something positive and worthy of appreciation in the values, cultures and histories of other peoples.
Dr. Muqtedar Khan is Director of Islamic Studies at the University of Delaware and a fellow of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.
Leftists and MSM declare:
O’narcissist* is another FAILed professor from Harvard like his ex-buddy ex-Liberal Count Ignatieff.
O’narcissist* Cold Not Cool.
“*The narcissist is able to provoke in his milieu, in his casual acquaintances, even in his psychotherapist, the strongest, most avid and furious hatred and revulsion.”
(jpg) urlm.in/jnmf
…-
“How Barack Obama went from cool to cold”
“Barack Obama’s measured approach won him the White House. So why do supporters think he lacks the ‘fierce urgency of now’?”
“This is a rare tale of Obama both directly facing down an opponent and losing his cool. But during the past year many of his supporters have wished he would show such flashes of anger, urgency and passion more often (if perhaps a bit more focused and less macho and juvenile).”
“… in office he has come across as aloof at a time of acute economic pain and insufficiently combative when faced with an increasingly polarised political culture. The former academic is regularly accused of taking too professorial a tone: talking down to the public rather than to them.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/13/barack-obama-cool-to-cold
…-
*Aloofness:
“The lack of empathy, the aloofness, the disdain, the sense of entitlement, the constricted sense of humor, the unequal treatment and the paranoia – render the narcissist a social misfit. The narcissist is able to provoke in his milieu, in his casual acquaintances, even in his psychotherapist, the strongest, most avid and furious hatred and revulsion. To his shock, indignation and consternation, he invariably induces in others unbridled aggression.
He is perceived to be asocial at best and, often, antisocial. This, perhaps, is the strongest presenting symptom.”
“*Barack Obama – Narcissist or Merely Narcissistic?
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. – 8/13/2008”
http://www.globalpolitician.com/25109-barack-obama-elections
Mao Stlong Lepolt*.
Suicide not Moi faurt; freeing not Moi faurt.
…-
“Ordos Property Developer Commits Suicide”
“Wang Fujin of Zhongfu Real Estate Development Co. took his life and another co-owner of the property development firm Hao Xiaojian is now on the run”
“A wave of private lender fleeing has spread across the east coast city of Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, a hotbed for private entrepreneurship in China.
Local people and firms borrowed money from banks and then lent it to private lenders for higher returns. A survey by the central bank found 89 percent of the city’s families and 60 percent of local enterprises were involved in private financing.
Most of the capital was then invested in property development and the stock market. As the real estate and stock markets soured this year, more than 40 indebted lenders absconded from the city as of September, according to the Wenzhou Public Security Bureau.”
http://english.caixin.cn/2011-10-14/100314297.html
*Freeing Mao Stlong is Liberal leader Basement Bob Rae’s uncle Maurice Strong.
Well Surprise,Surprise,Surprise!
Liberals appeal to supporters to help defend the CBC
Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Politics/20111013/federal-liberals-cbc-111013/#ixzz1alcTOezt
OTTAWA — The federal Liberals are trying to tap a well of potential support by positioning themselves as defenders of the CBC.
Liberal Leader Bob Rae sent out a letter on Thursday announcing a campaign and online petition called “Hands Off our CBC.” People on the party distribution list are asked to tweet about the petition or post it to their Facebook page.
Rae warned in his letter that the Conservatives are using the CBC, “as a scapegoat in the midst of Canada’s current economic difficulties.”
“We need to send them a strong message: CBC funding didn’t cause your Conservative deficit; so don’t try to fix that problem on the back of the CBC!
best $4.99 you spend this year.
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/10/13/a-book-is-born/
I downloade the .pdf.
Which would you rather have in the view from your house? A thing about the size of a domestic garage, or eight towers twice the height of Nelson’s column with blades noisily thrumming the air…
Difficult choice? Let’s make it easier. The gas well can be hidden in a hollow, behind a hedge. The eight wind turbines must be on top of hills, because that is where the wind blows, visible for up to 40 miles. And they require the construction of new pylons marching to the towns; the gas well is connected by an underground pipe.
Unpersuaded? Wind turbines slice thousands of birds of prey in half every year, including white-tailed eagles in Norway, golden eagles in California, wedge-tailed eagles in Tasmania…
Still can’t make up your mind? The wind farm requires eight tonnes of an element called neodymium, which is produced only in Inner Mongolia, by boiling ores in acid leaving lakes of radioactive tailings so toxic no creature goes near them.
Not convinced? The gas well requires no subsidy – in fact it pays a hefty tax to the government – whereas the wind turbines each cost you a substantial add-on to your electricity bill, part of which goes to the rich landowner whose land they stand on. Wind power costs three times as much as gas-fired power. Make that nine times if the wind farm is offshore. And that’s assuming the cost of decommissioning the wind farm is left to your children – few will last 25 years.
Decided yet? I forgot to mention something. If you choose the gas well, that’s it, you can have it. If you choose the wind farm, you are going to need the gas well too.
…To persist with a policy of pursuing subsidized renewable energy in the midst of a terrible recession, at a time when vast reserves of cheap low-carbon gas have suddenly become available is so perverse it borders on the insane. Nothing but bureaucratic inertia and vested interest can explain it.
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/gas-against-wind
The entire article is nicely done.
Brain Drain, US to Canada
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/10/reverse-brain-drain-us-workers-head.html
I blame Kate’s blog.
Here’s one for the “what could possibly go wrong?” file:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/science/13plague.html?_r=2&ref=science
My favorite part:
Those doubts were laid to rest last year by detection of (the Black Plague’s) DNA in plague victims from mass graves across Europe. With the full genome now in hand, the researchers hope to recreate the microbe itself so as to understand what made the Black Death outbreak so deadly.
I think I’ve seen this movie. It didn’t end well.
Just in flom Mao Stlong* Lepolt.
“maiden voyage” in Yerrow Livel.
…-
“$2.5. million Chinese yacht goes straight down on its maiden voyage”
“If you’re going to spend $2.5 million on a yacht, you’d like it to be able to float. Alas, the SS Jiugang wasn’t able to meet that basic requirement.
The Chinese vessel made her maiden voyage in the Yellow River. Although “voyage” probably isn’t the right word. “Fiasco” is more appropriate, because the boat instantly sank as it was pushed into the water.
The above video of the vessel’s inglorious found its way to tech blog Gizmodo.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2792841/posts
*H/T Bob’n’Rae SStrong LibInc.
“Brain Drain, US to Canada” — In Ontario, these lucky individuals can benefit from McGuinty’s subsidy to employers of new immigrant workers, further increasing their chances of finding a job in Canada.
Just looked at @CanadiensMTL twitter page. Similar accounts included @pmharper.
Big Labour files a formal complaint against….the CBC?? Do you think the NUPGE/OPSEU will get the same PFO form letter that you guys get when you complain to the CBC ombudsman?
OTTAWA, Oct. 14, 2011 /CNW/ – The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), along with its Ontario Component, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), today filed a formal complaint with the CBC Ombudsman against television personality Kevin O’Leary for offensive anti-union comments he made on an episode of CBC’s The Lang and O’Leary Exchange last month.
http://www.broadcastermagazine.com/news/unions-file-complaint-with-cbc-ombudsman-over-anti-union-comments/1000628845/