Bottom Gun

Via email;

Referring to the latest reports about some jihadists learning how to fly in ISIS, there is a video about an air crash, probably in Tobruk, in the last few weeks.
Considering all the things happening in Libya now and the way the MIG-21 plane was shown flying and crashing, it quite likely was an inexperienced and overly cocky pilot.
My guess is it could have been an under trained jihad pilot.

Check out the video here

Y2Kyoto: Our Disappearing Wetlands

Saskatoon Star Phoenix, June 2006;

On June 5, the United Nations Environment Programme announced a study that shows the world’s desert and arid regions are at risk of becoming even more parched. Research at the University of Saskatchewan supports this, showing the Canadian Prairies could be drying out due to more moderate winters.

Disappearing wetland, December 2009

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Disappearing wetland, October 2014.
slough14.jpg
drownedtrees.jpg
slough2_14.jpg
Check back in another five. I’ll take some shots from the new bridge.
From the comments;

I remember when Dr. John Pomeroy [Director for Hydrology, UofS] arrived to much fanfare, one of his first pronouncements was that the Saskatchewan water table was so low that it would take decades to ever recover to “normal” levels. And, of course, because of Global Warming [as it was then known] such recovery was impossible.

The World Is Being Run By Crazy People

JoNova:

The rubber plantation has 8,000 workers with 71,000 dependents. It is an hour north-east of Monrovia, surrounded by Ebola outbreaks. The virus arrived on the plantation in March. Knowing that the UN and the Liberian government were not going to save them, the managers sat around a rubber tree and googled “Ebola” and learned on the run instead.

h/t John Lewis

Renegade Regulator

Casualties in Cleveland;

RestoreCSA has a copy of a PowerPoint presentation given to CSA executives on the subject of potential fallout from false certification. Within this document, the CSA is fretting that they had to disclose “test results to confirm compliance.” Why were they worried? Because the test results didn’t exist. The presentation plainly acknowledges that consumer products are being certified despite “a lack of test data to support compliance.” Separately, we have a CSA executive’s handwritten notes from that meeting, and they’re impressive too. This executive indicates concern about “failing results” being noticed by government regulators. And they were under heavy scrutiny. As though the government was on to them, the notes refer to worries about “the need to report by tomorrow.” The notes also use the term “Gianluca.” What do you suppose that means?
In this crooked context, the victim was falling fast. The CSA kept threatening him with termination unless he started signing documents that he knew he shouldn’t sign. In one heart-rending discussion, we were told of the pressures he experienced at CSA. “He kept refusing, he just… I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m… I just need a moment.” And after a moment, the core of the problem: “he was raised honest, it’s just how he was.”
At the end of his days, “he was very worried about not having any money for bills.” He had no job. The CSA had “eliminated” him, apparently he wasn’t cooperative enough. Of CSA’s engineers, one insider confirms, they “run [the new engineers] through in about two-year intervals just to keep enough ‘paper’ on file to maintain the certifications. Then they get rid of them before they learn too much about how we operate to where they could be a threat.” The victim, it seems, caught on to CSA’s system too quickly. And worse, “he was talking about CSA too much afterward to others.”

Yes, Virginia, there is a Media Party

This is aardvarking unbelievable.
The online webpage of Toronto newspaper the Star is running a free 4-minute promo-piece/campaign ad for Justin Trudeau that auto-plays when you click on the link to what appears to be a newspaper article.
The blatant campaign ad – because that’s what it is – is titled “Justin Trudeau’s intimate conversation with Susan Delacourt”. It’s a curious title, because Delacourt is not seen or heard once in the entire four minute promo piece, which has on-screen chapter headings, brief moments showing Trudeau reading from his own memoir, and a video-scrapbook of lovingly presented images, processed with the Ken Burns effect, set to Trudeau’s practiced, pandering voiceover.
This raises some serious questions.

Continue reading

The “W” Word

Kathy Shaidle;

Back in 2010, OkCupid selected around 500,000 profiles created by self-described “white” people, then “isolated the words and phrases” that made them “distinct” from those of other races. The most commonly Caucasian-used words were displayed in tag-cloud style infographics that had the uncanny appeal of found poetry.
That’s why I’m starting to wonder about my genetic makeup, because according to OkCupid, white women are very, very interested in … the Boston Red Sox. Then in someone named “Jodi Picoult.”

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