“pouring of resources into lavish sets …nothing has been too extreme … rarely denied … however seemingly outrageous. …facade of unlimited financial means …. spending her way into nightmare … took a 24-million-dollar loan from … high-end pawn broker …December 2008… due September 8 … over-leveraged … house in the trendy Greenwich Village … and a second home outside the city .. an apartment on the banks of the Seine in Paris to please her lover….”

A documentary by David Sington that includes previously unseen mission footage, you can watch it here.

Also – “Lunar Probe Delivers First Photographs of Old Apollo Landing Sites” at Popular Science.

Quote of the Gaia Cycle;

“When I start receiving those turbines, I’ve got to … like I said, my garage won’t hold them,…” – T. Boone Pickens

April, 2007….

“Work on the $1 million dollar project will be complete by July 31, 2007. The tender for painting the (100) hopper cars has been awarded to GE Railcar Repair Service Company of Regina and the contract for the decals has been awarded to Arco Graphics Inc. of Saskatoon.”

I told you so.

Why study worms when they’ve got Henry Kissinger?

No, really.
Picture a forklift, raised to full height.
On the forks is a standard wooden pallet.
Centered over the pallet is a 4′ x 8′ sheet of plywood.
Balanced on the plywood is a 10′ step ladder.
Standing at the top of the ladder, a guy is drilling holes in steel roof beams for the installation of light fixtures.
I didn’t stay to watch.
More construction stupidity. (Note – I didn’t have any problems with pop-up windows on the site linked, but others have.)
h/t mhb

FoxNews;

Vice President Joe Biden, well-known for his verbal gaffes, may have finally outdone himself, divulging potentially classified information meant to save the life of a sitting vice president.
According to a report, while recently attending the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, an annual event where powerful politicians and media elite get a chance to cozy up to one another, Biden told his dinnermates about the existence of a secret bunker under the old U.S. Naval Observatory, which is now the home of the vice president.

Only 47 windmills to power a household?

A real-world test performed by the Dutch province of Zeeland (a very windy place) confirms our earlier analysis that small windmills are a fundamentally flawed technology (test results here, pdf in Dutch). Twelve of these much hyped machines were placed in a row on an open plain (picture above). Their energy yield was measured over a period of one year (April 1, 2008 – March 31, 2009), the average wind velocity during these 12 months was 3.8 meters per second (slightly higher than average). Three windmills broke.

(more at the link).
h/t Tomax7

“Entrepreneurial”, as in “Entrepreneurial Federation of Saskatchewan”.
So far, so good.
Now, if you were looking to bring in a keynote speaker for your entrepreneurial federation’s AGM and business luncheon, whose names might pop into your head?
Actually, let’s narrow this down. Whose would be the last name to pop into your head?
Put your guess in the comments, before looking at the answer here. Your only hint – it’s a well-known Canadian.
Now, don’t go blabbing the answer in the comments. Gag, mock and constern all you wish, but no hints! I want to see if anyone guesses it.

For those who wonder why the Red River “Valley” is so prone to flooding, I suggest the following experiment ;
1) Place a cookie sheet on a level surface.

2) Pour a gallon of water on it.

Friday morning construction began on a massive temporary dike between the Red River and downtown Fargo, after the city was told an approaching weather system could drop between one and – worst case — three inches of rain.
Under that worst case scenario forecasters say the Red River at Fargo would crest at 40 feet. That’s roughly half-a-foot higher than the historic flood of 1997.

But this won’t be like the flood of ’97. Since then, all the really low spots have been filled with new home construction.
Wish them luck.
Courtesy reader Ron F., aerial photos of the 1997 flooding. The town in the foreground is Brunkild, the lighted one is Rosenort.

And, well, your pickup truck.

h/t

When you are able to convince oneself and others that a dead tree in a public park is “absolutely worth millions of dollars” and deserving of a $215,000 engineering plan to keep it from its destiny with gravity…

… one should not be surprised when problems on a much grander scale begin to topple one’s way.

Doing something once, and getting the intended result.

h/t Wayne R.

Holy crap. He’s made it to Kenora;

Michael Cole passed through Northwestern Ontario in -35 Celsius weather halfway through one of the most extreme cross-Canada awareness rides ever: a 1995 soft tail custom Harley Davidson motorcycle tour in January to draw attention for diabetes.
Wearing electric pants, socks, jacket, gloves and with a heater in his helmet, he began in Newfoundland on New Year’s Day and has already passed through his own backyard.
He nearly missed a ferry in Newfoundland, had to ride through three feet of snow in New Brunswick, and slipped on black ice near the Nova Scotia border when his motorcycle slid out from underneath him.
“That was a close call. It took my breath away. There’s a meaning to that.”
As he rode into Dryden, one of his electric gloves began to malfunction and he was forced to ride in his accompanying vehicle to Kenora. The feeling has yet to return to his middle finger

Somebody needs to get this guy a Skidoo suit.
Ride For Diabetes
Winter Harley ride across Canada , Diabetes the Silent Killer

A polar bear dies;

Green car owners have apparently complained in such large numbers that the Honda Civic Hybrid isn’t living up to high mileage claims that the carmaker has approached U.S. government regulators about revising its mileage guidelines, according to a lawsuit by one Honda hybrid owner.
A California appellate opinion filed on Monday showed that a Honda customer service representative told Gaetano Paduano, the dissatisfied owner of a 2004 Honda hybrid, that the company had received “a high number of complaints” that the sedan achieves significantly less than its promised mileage of 47-plus miles per gallon.

More evidence that my own rolling Gaia assassin is ultimately greener than the alternative – it’s been 23 years since they made me a new one.

There they go again – those nasty people forcing them to admit the truth;

The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) has agreed to scale down its calculation for the amount of harmful carbon dioxide emission that can be eliminated by using wind turbines to generate electricity instead of burning fossil fuels such as coal or gas.
The move is a serious setback for the advocates of wind power, as it will be regarded as a concession that twice as many wind turbines as previously calculated will be needed to provide the same degree of reduction in Britain’s carbon emissions.
A wind farm industry source admitted: “It’s not ideal for us. It’s the result of pressure by the anti-wind farm lobby.”
For several years the BWEA – which lobbies on behalf of wind power firms – claimed that electricity from wind turbines ‘displaces’ 860 grams of carbon dioxide emission for every kilowatt hour of electricity generated.
However it has now halved that figure to 430 grams, following discussions with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

(Speaking of which, if I had a nuke, I’d put it in a cardboard box instead of blowing up one of those expensive aluminum suitcases for no good reason. Kind of calls the whole “mastermind” assumption into question.)

“Because of the winter storm and several road closings in the area, the December 16, 2008 dedication of the solar photovoltaic system in Death Valley National Park has been cancelled.”

(Also postponed: What happens in Vegas and surfing in Malibu.)

*