Great moments in unilingualism.

(taken on my way to Minot yesterday.)

Perfect.

14 for 14.

h/t R. Black

The bodywork on the bike isn’t even attached. I don’t know how it ever could be. There must have been a fight at the child labour factory when this thing was made, obviously the stronger five year old stole the bits that allowed this bike’s bodywork to be attached to its silver bamboo frame. So it just sits there making this thing even more ridiculous. You would expect that motorcycle bodywork would be made of plastic, true. But given the fact that this stuff a) didn’t burn and b) is as flexible as a Viagra induced erection, tells me that it is something from another planet, possibly China. I suspect that it may be some super organic, self regenerating rice paper or something.

h/t Simeon

Wanna see something really scary?

Australia? Where the average daily temperature is “room”???

Gordon Laird’s “THE PRICE OF A BARGAIN: The Quest for Cheap and the Death of Globalization”

So says Foxnews.

I’d put off that “letter to Santa Claus” for a few days if I were him.

Illustrated.

Secretariat – Mar.30. 1970 – Oct.4, 1989

“Memorialize your loved one in 140 characters or less”

Via the Anchoress

Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Washington Post, 2006 – “The California Horse Racing Board last week passed a motion that may portend a radical change in American racing, one that could change the nature of the horse-betting game. The board declared that all major tracks in the state “must install a synthetic surface or Polytrack by Dec. 31, 2007” or else have their racing licenses revoked. “
Thoroughbred Times, 2009 – “The report on the Post-Mortem Program at the University of California-Davis for the calendar year 2008 formally documents for the first time more hind-end catastrophic injuries among Thoroughbred racing on synthetic surfaces when compared with those racing on dirt.”

h/t Mike

More on the Windfields Farm closing, in a well-researched piece at the National Post;

Soon, all that is left of the legendary Windfields Farm could be just a small wedge of land with gravestones. Flat, grey tablets, marking the resting place of some of the greatest animals in sporting history, among them Northern Dancer, the most celebrated of all, plus eight others, including his progeny Vice Regent and Archers Bay.
“The plan is for the original area of the farm, the older, more historic, a very small area, to be preserved,” says Windfields director of farm operations, Simon Cassidy. “It will be eventually made into a small memorial park.”
Come November, when Windfields divests the last of its 16 mares and foals in an everything-must-go sale in Kentucky, memorials will be all that remains of the breeding operation made famous by renowned industrialist E.P. Taylor as the place where Canadian thoroughbred racing came of age; and for the astonishing racing dynasty begun in this country. The farm is closing. Its fabled days are over.

(SDA gets results. Thanks, Kevin).

(Update – Unbelievably, 24 hours have passed and the only mentions of this item on Google News come from racing publications.)

Jockey Bill Hartack, aboard Northern Dancer with E. P. Taylor. 1964 Kentucky Derby.
Windfields Farm to close its doors

Windfields Farm, the legendary Canadian breeding operation that bred 48 champions including 1964 Kentucky Derby winner Northern Dancer, will close its doors following a dispersal of its remaining bloodstock at the 2009 Keeneland November breeding stock sale. E. P. Taylor founded Windfields in Oshawa, Ontario, in 1936. The surviving members of the Taylor family issued a press release on Thursday stating that due to the nature of ownership, their ages, and their interests, they reached the emotional decision to discontinue the Thoroughbred operation. “What my father started has lasted far longer than anyone imagined,” said Taylor’s daughter, Judith Taylor Mappin, president of Windfields. “We have been so fortunate with our horses and our staff that we remained in this business we love for decades longer than expected.

[…]
E. P. Taylor became the first Canadian member of The Jockey Club in 1953. He bred Northern Dancer in his own name, and the Nearctic colt was voted champion three-year-old of 1964, going on to become one of the most influential sires in history.
Taylor received Eclipse Awards as Outstanding Breeder in 1977 and ’83, and Windfields has been North America’s leading breeder by purse money nine times, by stakes wins 13 times, and by wins 19 times.

“UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems”

(Right click to open full sized images).
h/t to Larry Weber, who explains – “The pictures were taken around the Medicine Hat area after a windstorm last week. The bales apparently weigh up to 1600lbs and some were reported to have rolled up to 5 miles.”
Update – commentors advise that the photos are from 2008.