The European Union is considering pulling the plug on high-wattage hair dryers, lawn mowers and electric kettles in a follow up to its controversial ban on powerful vacuum cleaners.
The power of hairdryers could be reduced by as much as 30 per cent in order to be more eco-friendly, a draft study commissioned by Brussels suggests, threatening many of the models favoured by hairdressers and consumers for speedy blow-dries.
The Sound Of Settled Science
Take Katherine Flegal, a statistician at the US Centres for Disease Control. Last year, she and her colleagues published a systematic review of 97 studies in The Journal of the American Medical Association and concluded that mild obesity produced no extra mortality risk and being merely overweight resulted in a small reduction in mortality risk.
Despite being supported with a ream of data, the study was savaged by the public health lobby.
Why Is There Always A Big Screen TV?
Black Hole Firewalls
Conventionally, physicists have assumed that if the black hole is large enough, the gravitational forces won’t become extreme until you approach the singularity. There, the gravitational pull will be so much stronger on your feet than your head, that you will be ‘spaghettified’. Now, a new theory proposes that instead of spaghettification, you will encounter a massive wall of fire that will incinerate you on the spot, before you get close to turning into vermicelli.
It’s over an hour long, so grab a coffee.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Mirrors
You can’t make this stuff up: If the [Bright Source Energy] permit is approved, then this “solar” plant will produce about 35 percent of its electricity from fossil fuels.
So How’s That Hope And Hashtag Thingy Been Working For Ya?
Boko Haram as been quick to exploit the army’s low morale. After forcing government troops out of several towns and holding these areas for weeks at a time, militant leader Abubakar Shekau released a video proclaiming the establishment of a new caliphate in Nigeria’s northeast.
Sahara Reporters has translated parts of the video. Shekau praises his forces for their military victories and refutes the authority of the Nigerian state. “We are in an Islamic caliphate,” he boasts. “We have nothing to do with Nigeria. We don’t believe in this name.”
Shekau’s video includes footage of fleeing Nigerian soldiers and Boko Haram fighters sporting heavy weapons and armored personnel carriers.
Reader Tips
If you could filter out all the MOR and pop from country music and boil the remainder down to a fine distillate you’d probably get something that sounds an awful lot like Kitty Wells: Here’s her countrified version of Everybody Loves Somebody.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
Chow On This
Rex Murphy: And behind that seemingly frivolous responses is a deeper one. “Normal” politics has brought these voters no comfort, and the class of people that owns “normal” politics has brought no harvest of joy either. It is “a plague on all your houses” kind of moment. And Ron Ford is “a plague on all your houses” kind of candidate.
A Tale Of Two Taxes
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
FiveThirtyEight.com: Burger King Might Save $8.1 Million By Moving To Canada.
Financial Post: Air Canada CEO warns Ontario fuel tax hike will undo plan to turn Toronto into global aviation hub
h/t to Iain
#graveyardofpoliticians
Meet Manitoba MLA Drew Caldwell: For more than a year, the @WMNewDemocrat account has targeted and harassed others with commentary that has ranged from annoying to slanderous.
Why Is There Always A Big Screen TV?
A list of reports on missing and murdered Aboriginal women. All forty of them.
h/t Orville
Let Me Fix That Masthead For You
Reader Tips
British rockers Deep Purple once said bands who won’t play in Israel are wimps. They certainly weren’t wimps when it came to touring, as evidenced by tonight’s reminiscences about their deeply-purple tour of Venus, Mars, and regions beyond: Here’s Space Truckin’. Yo!
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.
Cold, Canadian Hands
Luckily, There’s No Incurable Disease Outbreak To Exploit
The ISIS laptop contains a 19-page document in Arabic on how to develop biological weapons and how to weaponize the bubonic plague from infected animals.
David Cameron’s Britain
Where the foxes caper unmolested, the government packs your school lunch, and how is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
UK PM @David_Cameron: "We are in the middle of a generational struggle against a poisonous & extremist ideology"..
pic.twitter.com/FU87fsFbrv
— Johnny Jones (@gamma_ray239) August 29, 2014
UK immigration numbers up by 68,000 in a year, despite David Cameron's pledge to cut m… http://t.co/7JKurisunw pic.twitter.com/dSg58X6WPK
— David Jones (@_dpaj) August 29, 2014
Operation Head Explosions
Canada delivers military supplies to Iraq.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper today announced that a Royal Canadian Air Force CC-177 Globemaster III strategic airlifter has completed its first delivery of military equipment, donated by the Republic of Albania, to security forces in Iraq fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Operation IMPACT is Canada’s contribution to international efforts to deliver military supplies, such as small arms and ammunition, to those fighting ISIL. Staged out of locations in the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe, the Canadian Air Task Force Iraq (CATFI) is working in concert with our Allies – including the United States and the United Kingdom – and the Government of Iraq to provide this critical aid.
Y2Kyoto: Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho!
The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed global warming regulations aren’t just about stemming global temperature rises — according to agency’s chief, they are also about “justice” for “communities of color.”
“Carbon pollution standards are an issue of justice,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in a teleconference call with environmental activists. “If we want to protect communities of color, we need to protect them from climate change.”
McCarthy is referring to the EPA’s proposed rule that would limit carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. The agency says the rule will not only help fight global warming, but will also improve public health as coal-fired power plants are shuttered.
More Pavilions At Folkfest
REP. MIKE ROGERS, R-MICH., HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE – “The truth is that ISIS is a growing threat to the United States. You heard Oliver North talk about some of the numbers. But don’t forget about Canada. They believe that there may be as many as 500 Canadians fighting.”
Oh, Frack!
They have their transfer payments to keep them warm.
Hydraulic fracturing in Nova Scotia may be a viable practice in the future, but it should not proceed right now.
“We conclude that the province is not able to make fully informed decisions either for or against the development of unconventional gas and oil resources by hydraulic fracturing at the present time,” said the final report from the Nova Scotia Independent Review Panel on Hydraulic Fracturing, released Thursday.
The panel, headed by Cape Breton University president David Wheeler, acknowledged the controversial method of extracting natural gas could create a major economic and employment boost in the province, with potential benefits to the regional economy topping $1 billion per year and 740 to 1,480 jobs created during the development phase.
h/t rzr