Ever wondered how big the moon, the earth, and the sun are compared to other celestial bodies? Well, they’re this big.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
Mad Mike
“You’re growing lettuce in a cage. Of course you’re not crazy”
Before You Blame Wal-Mart, Remember Who Parks The Car
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Childhood Obesity Foundation;
Obesity rates in children have almost tripled in the last 25 years. Approximately 26% of Canadian children ages 2-17 years old are currently overweight or obese.
Saskatoon Wal-Mart Parking Lot;
It’s Because They’d Still Suck At Half The Price, That’s Why
“Why?” Is ramping up production and deliveries still a problem? Is demand weak? Are unscrupulous dealers to blame?
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
I wanted to find a word that could accurately describe the kind of shameless cynicism that goes into such marketing, but was worried it’d break the thesaurus. The idea that there are commercial breeding operations creating “shelter dogs” as a product to be sold to well-meaning prospective pet owners is so repugnant the first reaction isn’t horror — it’s often disbelief, even anger toward the messenger. In fact, this is a subject we are very careful about bringing up, because it is so hard for a decent person to wrap their head around. “Nobody could do something that despicable! How could you say such a horrible thing?”
Reader Tips
In tonight’s Tips adjunct we take a look at a behemoth of a vintage race car. Powered by a 12 cylinder, 48 liter aircraft engine, this chain-driven, two-tonne, flame-spitting flying coffin could reach a top speed of over 150 mph, so strap on your leather helmet, make sure you’re testate, and take a spin on the 1908 BMW Brutus.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire
Because nothing says “superpower” like telling the NYT you’re an empty threat.
“Qaddafi has lost the legitimacy to govern, and it is time for him to go without further violence or delay,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters after a special meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council. “No option is off the table,” she said, adding “that of course includes a no-fly zone.”
But officials in Washington and elsewhere said that direct military action remained unlikely, and that the moves were designed as much as anything as a warning to Colonel Qaddafi and a show of support to the protesters seeking to overthrow his government.
Jim Travers
Has passed away from complications of surgery.
North American Sport: Not Pussified Enough!
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Calgary Herald;
One can blame Furlong. Since the release of the e-mails, Furlong has struggled to split hairs by saying that while Vanoc knew the track was too fast, it didn’t know it was dangerous.
One could blame the International Luge Federation. This week, it passed the buck by saying it didn’t know the speeds were too high until the track was in operation and it was too late for any changes. But it altered the track in Turin one year before the 2006 Olympic Games because of too many accidents on a track that was too fast.
One could blame the track designer. The designer for the Whistler luge track also designed the too-fast Turin track. He has also designed the track for the 2014 Sochi Olympic luge event. Given his track record (literally) at Turin and Whistler, one would think that it’s time to find a new track designer -or at least buy this one a new calculator.
One could even blame Ku-maritashvili himself.
Via David Thompson;
VCA 2010 RACE RUN from changoman on Vimeo.
Somehow I don’t think the Pakistani police said “militants”
The Gray Lady continues the fashionable trend in journalism:
Extremists Are Suspected in Killing of Pakistani Minister
Irfan Haider/Associated Press
Police officers and paramedics transported the body of Pakistan’s minister of minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, who was shot dead on Thursday in Islamabad.
…
Mr. Bhatti was heading for a cabinet meeting when three or four gunmen ambushed his car outside his house in a middle-class neighborhood of the capital, Islamabad, and shot him multiple times as he sat in the back seat, the police said.
The killers, dressed in traditional Pakistani garb of baggy pants and long tunic, fled the scene in a white car. The hospital where Mr. Bhatti was pronounced dead said 20 bullets had been fired.
A pamphlet found at the site warned against changes in the blasphemy law and was signed by militants, police officials said. It specifically named Mr. Bhatti.
A spokesman for the Taliban, who is based in Punjab, later called Pakistani media and claimed responsibility for the assassination…
The LA Times’ headline however is to the point and actually informative:
Pakistan’s only Christian Cabinet member assassinated
Shahbaz Bhatti, the minority affairs minister, is the second top Pakistani official to be killed over his opposition to a blasphemy law that critics say is often misused to persecute minorities.
“It makes you think that Richard Nixon may have been innocent.”
There are known unknowns. And then there is Bob Woodward.
Two Dogs Dining In Busy Restaurant
YNoKyoto: What Would We Do Without Failed Models?
After five years of camps, composting toilets, vegan curry and run-ins with the police, Climate Camp is calling it a day.
There will be no camp for the climate activists this year and the loose-knit organisation will be disbanded in 2011. The decision follows a five-day meeting to reach a consensus.
[…]
Leo Murray was at the very first camp outside Drax coal-fired power station in 2006. “I remember just feeling so relieved that here were hundreds of other people who felt the same way that I did. Even though in the end we didn’t shut down Drax, we left on a real high, because now we had a model.”
h/t Tim Blair
Global Unrest
Spreads to Saskatchewan….
h/t Victor
Reader Tips
In tonight’s video, from 1966, a young Waylon Jennings, one of the, erm, manlier voices in popular music (he was also the narrator of the TV series The Dukes of Hazard) sings about getting his Mental Revenge.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
It’s About Time
Islamic States Apartheid Week.
More Muslim Moderation: Nation of Islam leader says his comments on Jews are meant “to pull the cover off Satan” and “Zionists dominate the US government and banks.”
Allahu Akbar: It’s The New “Thanks For All Your Help”
Two United States airmen were killed and two injured on Wednesday when a gunman opened fire on an American military bus at the Frankfurt airport, according to American military officials in Europe.
[…] The suspected gunman, who is in custody, is 21-year-old Kosovar who lives in Frankfurt, according to a city police spokesman, Manfred Füllhardt.
[…] Speaking on condition of anonymity to protect his business, he said witnesses told him that the gunman first talked to the military personnel to find out who they were and then opened fire, shouting “God is great” in Arabic.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
The Saskatchewan government will spend $30 million to create a new nuclear research centre at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.
The money, to be spent over seven years, will be used to expand nuclear medicine but also materials science and small reactor design, Premier Brad Wall said in a news release.
We could recycle Bill Boyd’s giant fans and use the metal for for something useful – like containment domes.
h/t LC Bennett
The Things They Don’t Tell You On The CBC
Because that would mean replacing “right wing” with “top ranked”;
The University of Pennsylvania’s Global Go-To Think-Tank Index, a recently released global survey of close to 1,500 scholars, policy makers, and journalists, ranked the Fraser Institute No. 1 among 97 think-tanks in Canada, for the third year in a row. The report also named the Fraser Institute as the only Canadian organization in the Top 25 leading think-tanks in the world in 2010, out of a global group of 6,480 think-tanks.
It Could Work
…by Vincent Callebaut architects re-envisages Haiti’s architectural future as one that is limitless with possibility for safe and sustainable innovation. The futuristic carbon neutral eco-village concept includes placing entire modular housing communities on top of massive earthquake-resistant concrete piers. Each house on the Coral Reef would have its own garden plot in order to grow food. All of the village would employ wind, solar and tidal power to generate electricity in a very natural way and hence help in reduction of carbon emissions.
If you got rid of all the Haitians.
