Friday, January 31, 2014

Still???

Is the Pacific Ocean radioactive? You can help find out
"As a marine chemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who has been studying the effects of Japan’s Fukushima reactor leak since right after it happened, Ken Buesseler had long grown frustrated with the repeated scare stories he was seeing online. So he decided to do something about it.

Buesseler is enlisting the public in his cause, giving them an opportunity to share in the research he is doing. Through the Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity, Buesseler is crowd-funding an effort to take regular measurements of ocean radiation up and down the West Coast.

The way it works is this: When you sign up, he will send you a sampling kit that will record all of the vital information; you send it back to him for analysis and compilation. It’s not cheap -- each sample costs $550 to $600, including materials, shipping and analysis -- but groups can go in together to help defray the costs.
[---]
"Buesseler was among the first scientists to visit the ocean off Fukushima after the failure of the Daiichi nuclear reactor after the devastating earthquake and tsunami March 11, 2011. His FAQ is generally acknowledged to be among the most reliable sources of scientific information on the spill.

He insists that while the situation continues to be serious in the immediate vicinity of the reactor, fears of ocean-borne radiation on the West Coast of the United States are severely overblown."
I hope this resolves the hysteria once and for all, but of course it won't. Read the comments.





Labels: , ,

Dear Guys...

...The next time you brag about how big your balls are, consider this: Big testicles, fellas? She'll cheat on you. Tiny balls? She won’t, say scientists
"According to scientists at the University of Oslo, big balls are more likely to mean a fella has an unfaithful partner.

Assistant Professor Petter Bøckman pointed to the example of gorillas, who have "tiny" testicles.

There is only one male in troops of gorillas, unlike fellow apes bonobos, who mate in large groups.

As such, bonobos have particularly large testicles with the aim of increasing their sperm count, giving them a greater chance of becoming dads."
[---]
"“We can determine the degree of fidelity in the female by looking at the size of the male’s testicles," said Prof. Bøckman, reports Phys.org.

"The less faithful the female, the larger the male’s testicles.

"If the male will only fertilise one female and has no competitors, he only needs sufficient sperm to reach the egg.

"If the female mates on the side, it is smart to have as many cars as possible in the race.

"Then, the male must have testicles that are as large as possible."
Hmmmm. I think they've got it backwards. The philandering males part comes first. What's good for the goose...

Labels: , , ,

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Before Harper



I really miss this guy.

Labels: ,

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Nope. This Just Will Not Do!!!

Long-Term Effects of Elevated CO2 On Plant-Herbivore Interactions
"In the eternal war between earth's plants and the herbivorous insects that feed upon them, the ongoing increase in the atmosphere's CO2 concentration is proving to be a powerful secret weapon, which is helping the planet's vegetation to sustain the impressive worldwide greening of the earth that continues apace, growing ever stronger year by year."

Two Decades of Overestimated Global Warming
"In a Commentary published in the Opinion and Comment section of Nature Climate Change, Fyfe et al. (2013) introduce their study of the subject by (1) stating that "global mean surface temperature over the past 20 years (1993-2012) rose at a rate of 0.14 ± 0.06°C per decade," and by (2) noting that this warming rate was "significantly slower than that simulated by the climate models participating in Phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5)." And so it was that they went on from there to look for a reason as to why such a discrepancy should exist."
[---]
"The first step of the three researchers was to compute average simulated global temperatures only at locations where corresponding observations existed - which makes a lot of sense, since a person doesn't go looking for oranges in an apple orchard - and in doing so, they obtained "an average simulated rise in global mean surface temperature of 0.30 ± 0.02°C," which was more than twice as great as the real-world measured rate of warming.

But wait! Fyfe et al. report that the inconsistency between observed and simulated global warming was even more striking for temperature trends computed over the past fifteen years (1998-2012), for which period they say the observed trend of 0.05 ± 0.08°C "was more than four times smaller than the average simulated trend of 0.21 ± 0.03°C." And they also point out that the observed trend over this period, which was not significantly different from zero, actually suggested "a temporary 'hiatus' in global warming," further citing the studies of Easterling and Wehner (2009) and Fyfe et al. (2011) in this regard.

And any number that is divided by zero really is infinite, which suggests that CMIP5 simulations of global warming over the period 1998-2012 could in this sense truly - but partially tongue-in-cheek - be considered to be infinitely too large, which is about as wrong as it is possible to be wrong."













































Labels: ,

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

You Know Me...

...I can't get enough history:






Not to be confused with the other Hernando de Soto:

Labels: , ,

And Another One Bites...

...the dust:

Folk singer Pete Singer dies at age 94

I saw him once, in a previous life, at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. I have a couple of his records.

Sigh. Over the hill. Rolling down the other side, picking up speed. Bottom in sight.

Seems every day some old icon from my youth kicks the bucket.

Labels: , , ,

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Oh!! The Indian Industry...

...is not going to like that!

Don't Blame Columbus for all the Indian's Ills
"Europeans first came to the Western Hemisphere armed with guns, the cross and, unknowingly, pathogens. Against the alien agents of disease, the indigenous people never had a chance. Their immune systems were unprepared to fight smallpox and measles, malaria and yellow fever.

The epidemics that resulted have been well documented. What had not been clearly recognized until now, though, is that the general health of Native Americans had apparently been deteriorating for centuries before 1492.

That is the conclusion of a team of anthropologists, economists and paleopathologists who have completed a wide-ranging study of the health of people living in the Western Hemisphere in the last 7,000 years.

The researchers, whose work is regarded as the most comprehensive yet, say their findings in no way diminish the dreadful impact Old World diseases had on the people of the New World. But it suggests that the New World was hardly a healthful Eden."
[---]
"More than 12,500 skeletons from 65 sites in North and South America -- slightly more than half of them from pre-Columbians -- were analyzed for evidence of infections, malnutrition and other health problems in various social and geographical settings.

The researchers used standardized criteria to rate the incidence and degree of these health factors by time and geography. Some trends leapt out from the resulting index. The healthiest sites for Native Americans were typically the oldest sites, predating Columbus by more than 1,000 years. Then came a marked decline.

'Our research shows that health was on a downward trajectory long before Columbus arrived,' Dr. Richard H. Steckel and Dr. Jerome C. Rose, study leaders, wrote in "The Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the Western Hemisphere," a book they edited. It was published in August."
[---]
"Similar signs of deleterious health effects have been found in the ancient Middle East, where agriculture started some 10,000 years ago. But the health consequences of farming and urbanism, Dr. Rose said, appeared to have been more abrupt in the New World.

The more mobile, less densely settled populations were usually the healthiest pre-Columbians. They were taller and had fewer signs of infectious lesions in their bones than residents of large settlements. Their diet was sufficiently rich and varied, the researchers said, for them to largely avoid the symptoms of childhood deprivation, like stunting and anemia. Even so, in the simplest hunter-gatherer societies, few people survived past age 50. In the healthiest cultures in the 1,000 years before Columbus, a life span of no more than 35 years might be usual."
[---]
"'Pre-Columbian populations were among the healthiest and the least healthy in our sample,' Dr. Steckel and Dr. Rose said. 'While pre-Columbian natives may have lived in a disease environment substantially different from that in other parts of the globe, the original inhabitants also brought with them, or evolved with, enough pathogens to create chronic conditions of ill health under conditions of systematic agriculture and urban living.'

In recent examinations of 1,000-year-old Peruvian mummies, for example, paleopathologists discovered clear traces of tuberculosis in their lungs, more evidence that native Americans might already have been infected with some of the diseases that were thought to have been brought to the New World by European explorers.

Tuberculosis bears another message: as an opportunistic disease, it strikes when times are tough, often overwhelming the bodies of people already weakened by malnutrition, poor sanitation in urban centers and debilitated immune systems.
"
Moving right along....The destruction of The Industry is neigh.

Labels: , , , ,

Saturday, January 25, 2014

ROTFLMAO!!

Oh, the stuff you find on Facebook!
"Little David was in his 4th grade class when the teacher asked the children what their fathers did for a living. All the typical answers came up - fireman, policeman, salesman, etc. David was being uncharacteristically quiet and so the teacher asked him about his Father.

"My father's an exotic dancer in a gay bar and takes off all his clothes in front of other men. Sometimes, if the offer's really good, he'll go out to the alley with some guy and make love with him for money."

The teacher, obviously shaken by this statement, hurriedly set the other children to work on some colouring, and took little David aside to ask him, Is that really true about your father?"

"No," said David, "He plays for the Toronto Maple Leafs but I was too embarrassed to say that in front of the other kids.""

Labels: , ,

Luv It

Hey!

If I were to use the name I was always known as, Louise, even though it's my 3rd given name, I would be a Fierce Beast. I'll stick with that. Up until now I've always liked the fact that "Louise" means warrior maiden. I'm down with either one.

Labels: , ,

Another Trip Down Memory Lane

Labels: ,

Wow!!!

Just WOW!!

Labels: , , ,

No Comment

Bad News For Our Left Coast

Reporters Just Don't Get It! Duh!!

Harper to reporter: Ask some different questions about the Middle East
"Stephen Harper and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu essentially teamed up to say that, when it comes to politics in the Middle East, reporters just don't get it."
[---]
"...after spending a good chunk of his historic 2,400-word speech to the Knesset on Monday explaining that there was no way he was going to single out Israel for criticism in any public forum, Harper must have been wondering why the heck reporters continued to try to get him to do just that.

So he turned the tables.

'Yesterday in the Palestinian Authority, no one asked me there to single out the Palestinian Authority for any criticism in terms of governance or human rights or anything else," Harper said, speaking about the press conference he'd held Monday in Ramallah side-by-side with P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas. "When I'm in Israel, I'm asked to single out Israel. When I'm in Palestinian Authority I'm asked to single out Israel and in half the other places around the world you ask me to single out Israel.'"
[---]
"...Harper makes a reasonable point.

Since August, 2005, 16,000 rockets have been fired into Israel from Hamas-controlled Gaza. The Palestinians have forever — long before Jewish settlements in the West Bank started going up — rejected Israel's right to exist.

Why didn't we ask what Abbas was doing to improve governance in his territory? What about the accountability of Abbas and the Palestinians? Canadian reporters had two chances to ask Abbas a question — in Ramallah, of all places — and instead of asking him why the Palestinians will not acknowledge Israel's right to exist, we wanted Harper to explain why the Jewish settlements were illegal.

Netanyahu spent a remarkable 10 minutes explaining to us why Harper was right, why those were the wrong questions.

"The core of the conflict is not settlements. The core of the conflict is not the absence of a Palestinian state. The core of the conflict is the persistent refusal to reconcile to an independent nation state of the Jewish people. That's what this conflict is about," Netanyahu said.

And in an any event, the major issue in the Middle East today is no longer Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Netanyahu explained. Journalists were missing the big picture.

"I think it's important for commentators in the Middle East to adopt their commentary on Canada-Israel relations to the new Middle East," he said. What are the concerns of many of the world's leading Arab countries these days?

"The first is the arming of Iran with nuclear weapons. And the second is the spread of the Muslim Brotherhood. And in meeting those twin challenges, these (leading Arab) countries do not see Israel as their enemy but as being on the same side of a difficult conflict.""
Indeed!

Related. Hypocrisy on display here.
"Mr. Chrétien was basking in plaudits on Tuesday in Toronto, where scores of variously partisan worthies gathered to sing his praises on the occasion of his 80th birthday. In light of Mr. Harper’s divisive trip, it might also be a good time to reflect on Mr. Chrétien’s own visit to Israel in 2000 — back in the glory days of Canadian diplomacy.

Day One: Mr. Chrétien meets with Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak in West Jerusalem, but doesn’t visit Arab East Jerusalem.

Day Two: With Mr. Barak jetting off to Washington to talk peace with President Clinton, Mr. Chrétien goes off-script at a joint news conference with Yasser Arafat and says Canada might support a unilateral declaration of independence by the Palestinians. “I believe, personally, it is better to keep it as a pressure point for the negotiations and that is the position of Canada,” he says.

Nonplussed Israeli officials respond that Mr. Chrétien is welcome to his “inaccurate” opinion, even though such an idea would jeopardize the peace process. At some point, Mr. Chrétien realizes his position is spectacularly misguided in light of Quebec’s sovereignty movement and his government’s soon-to-be-passed Clarity Act. His communications director is eventually reduced to explaining to reporters that whatever Mr. Chrétien said, that was not what he meant.

Day Three: At a news conference in Nazareth with Shimon Peres, Mr. Chrétien endorses Israel’s claim to the Sea of Galilee — a sticking point in peace negotiations between Israel and Syria, where Mr. Chrétien was due to travel on the same trip. His statesmanlike reasoning follows: “Apparently there was a border that was occupied a long time ago and there was war and so on. For a Canadian, we have 30 million lakes so we don’t see it in the same perspective but I can understand the need for Israel to keep the only lake they got.”

Day Four: Reports say Mr. Chrétien, in conversation with Mr. Barak, has offered to resettle as many as 15,000 Palestinian refugees in Canada. Jaws drop, as Canada had been officially neutral on refugee issues such as the right of return. Liberal staffers frantically try to spin the conversation out of existence, while the PLO politely tells Mr. Chrétien where he can stick his offer.

Day Five: Having managed to anger the Palestinians somewhat more than the Israelis, Mr. Chrétien is accused by a Syrian cabinet minister and a Lebanese newspaper of — of all things — abandoning Canada’s “honest broker” tradition. Nevertheless, his visit to Damascus goes ahead as planned.

In short, Mr. Chrétien’s trip was a thoroughgoing disaster in which he came off as a poorly briefed bumpkin. “If we needed further evidence that Mr. Chrétien’s self-image as le petit gars from Shawinigan excludes even the appearance of worldliness and the discipline of thinking ahead, this trip is providing it,” the Globe wrote in a scathing editorial. (“You can’t take Jean Chrétien anywhere,” was the lede.)"

Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Another "Who Knew"?


Labels: ,

Who Knew????


Labels: , , ,

Monday, January 20, 2014

My Avatar

Queen Boudica.


Labels: , ,

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Shamelessly Stolen From Snoopy The Goon's Blog...

...Simply Jews. (Which is a mighty fine blog, too, I might add.  It's in my sidebar.)  This joke was originally about Putin, but as Snoopy suggests, it is versatile. It can be used for just about any leader you wish.


"A journalist (J) is interviewing a farmer (F).

J: So, Mr ..., what can you tell me about the last year on your farm?
F. Well, all in all it was not a bad year. The grain harvest was good and we'll not want for bread this winter. And potatoes... the potatoes definitely surprised - we have a full cellar. And the old sow of ours, she farrowed, again a surprise...
J: And don't you think it fitting to thank the President for this good year?
F: Why? I have plowed the fields myself, harvested myself, all we have I done myself.. why would I thank...
J (in a harsher tone): Why? Think again why.
F (after considering the issue some): Well, upon a second thought, grains and potatoes - it is purely my work from start to finish. As for the sow... I can't rightly say, anything could have happened..."

Labels: , ,

Friday, January 17, 2014

ROTFLMAO!!

Labels: ,

An Excellent Series About War

I especially like #9 Peter van Uhm: Why I chose a gun, if for no other reason than it mentions Neimegan, which my father helped to liberate in WWII. Some of them are brain-dead leftards, though.

War Stories







Labels: , ,

A Little Bit Of Ancient History About The Middle East...

...Iran, Iraq snd the Jews. Funny though, no mention of the Palestinians.





My, how things have changed.


Labels: , , ,

Thursday, January 16, 2014

I Always Loved These Lyrics



Cover Of The Rolling Stone Lyrics

Ha, ha, ha, I don't believe it
Da, da, ah, ooh, don't touch me
Hey, Ray!
Hey, Sugar!
Tell them who we are ...

Well, we're big rock singers
We've got golden fingers
And we're loved everywhere we go (that sounds like us)
We sing about beauty and we sing about truth
For ten-thousand dollars a show (right)
We take all kinds of pills that give us all kind of thrills
But the thrill we've never known
Is the thrill that'll get ya when you get your picture

On the cover of the Rolling Stone

(Rolling Stone) Wanna see my picture on the cover
(Stone)Wanna buy five copies for my mother (yeah)
(Stone)Wanna see my smilin' face
On the cover of the Rolling Stone (that's a very, very, good idea)

I got a freaky ole lady name a cocaine Katy
Who embroideries on my jeans
I got my poor old grey haired daddy
Drivin' my limousine
Now, it's all designed to blow our minds
But our minds won't really be blown
Like the blow that'll get ya when you get your picture
On the cover of the Rolling Stone

(Rolling Stone) Wanna see our pictures on the cover
[ From: http://www.elyrics.net ]
(Stone) Wanna buy five copies for our mothers (yeah)
(Stone) Wanna see my smilin' face
On the cover of the Rolling Stone

(Hey, I know how, rock and roll!)

[Freaky Guitar Break]

(Ah, that's beautiful)

We got a lot of little teenage blue-eyed groupies
Who do anything we say
We got a genuine Indian Guru
Who's teaching us a better way
We got all the friends that money can buy
So we never have to be alone
And we keep getting richer but we can't get our picture
On the cover of the Rolling Stone

(Rolling Stone) Wanna see my picture on the cover
(Stone) Wanna buy five copies for my mother (I want one!)
(Stone) Wanna see my smilin' face
On the cover of the Rolling Stone
On the cover of the Rolling Stone

(Man, I don't know why we ain't on the cover, Baby)
(We're beautiful people)
(I ain't kiddin', why, we would make a beautiful cover
(Fresh shot, right up front, man)
(I can see it now, we'll be up on the front)
(Smilin', man ... ahh, beautiful!)

Labels: ,

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Tell Me About It...

...I just got back from buying groceries..

Wicked winds: one dead as gusts stir up trouble across Western Canada

That wind IS wicked. Must be that climate change. We've never had wind before./sarc

Labels: , ,

Pot. Meet Kettle.

Saudi ideology a threat to world: Al Assad
"Damascus: Syrian President Bashar Al Assad warned during a meeting in Damascus on Wednesday with Iran’s foreign minister that Saudi Arabia’s political and religious ideology is “a threat to the world”, state television reported.

He was referring to Wahhabism, an ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim tradition, which is predominant in Saudi Arabia, a key backer of Syria’s revolt against Al Assad.

“President Al Assad warns during his meeting with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif of the threat posed by Wahhabi thinking to all the world, not just to the region,” the report said."
You can't make this shit up.

Meanwhile, in Egypt. It ain't over 'till it's over. And it ain't over.

Labels: , , , , , , , ,

There's A Bad Small Moon Rising

Mini-Moon 2014: Smallest Full Moon of 2014 Rises Tonight

Commence howling, at a low tone.

Labels:

Digging...

...up the past. It's amazing what they find:

One of the oldest cases of tuberculosis is discovered Seven thousand years, or more, and I had the dumb luck to be born just about the time when effective treatment and prevention routines were developed!!

Discovery of 1.4 million-year-old fossil closes human evolution gap
"Humans have a distinctive hand anatomy that allows them to make and use tools. Apes and other nonhuman primates do not have these distinctive anatomical features in their hands, and the point in time at which these features first appeared in human evolution is unknown.

Now, a University of Missouri researcher and her international team of colleagues have found a new hand bone from a human ancestor who roamed the earth in East Africa approximately 1.42 million years ago. They suspect the bone belonged to the early human species, Homo Erectus. The discovery of this bone is the earliest evidence of a modern human-like hand, indicating that this anatomical feature existed more than half a million years earlier than previously known."
Remember that next time you're peeling potatoes.

Why did anatomically modern humans replace European Neandertals 40,000 years ago? They're still trying to figure out what did the Neandertals in. I maintain they are still with us. Some of them are posting comments on SNN's website.

And speaking of creepy-crawly things: Tiktaalik roseae shows signs of rear-leg development

That was long before we began dragging our knuckles.

Labels: , , ,

Hmmmm!

This could be a game changer, but I won't hold my breath:

With Muslim Brotherhood crushed, Egypt sets sights on Hamas
"After crushing the Muslim Brotherhood at home, Egypt's military rulers plan to undermine the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which runs the neighboring Gaza Strip, senior Egyptian security officials told Reuters.

The aim, which the officials say could take years to pull off, includes working with Hamas's political rivals Fatah and supporting popular anti-Hamas activities in Gaza, four security and diplomatic officials said.

Since it seized power in Egypt last summer, Egypt's military has squeezed Gaza's economy by destroying most of the 1,200 tunnels used to smuggle food, cars and weapons to the coastal enclave, which is under an Israeli blockade."
Related: How a 'yes' or 'no' will shape Egypt's future
"Critics said the 100-strong Islamist-dominated panel that drafted the December 2012 constitution was unrepresentative of Egyptian society. Liberal and secularist groups said the document failed to protect the freedoms they sought in the 2011 uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak. They particularly criticised provisions relating to military courts and the principles of Sharia.

They also said it did not sufficiently protect the rights of women or Christians, who make up about 10% of the population."

Labels: , ,

I Really Wish...

...they would let Canadians choose who to send to Mars. I can think of a few I'd like to have on my list.

75 Canadians Could Be Heading To Mars In 2024

Labels: ,

Monday, January 13, 2014

Ineresting

Tiny Fungus Puts Up a Mighty Fight Against Climate Change
"You might be a person who loves to eat a portabello sandwich or one who turns your nose at the sight of a salad bar button mushroom, but no matter your feelings on the gustatory nature of fungal fruit, you’ve got to respect fungi for one thing: Helping to fight climate change in a small but mighty way."
RTWT

More here and here.




Labels: , ,

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Scandal Du Jour....No! Really...

Francois Hollande 'affair' will overshadow policy shift
"French newspapers warned Saturday that President Francois Hollande's alleged affair with an actress risked overshadowing his much-anticipated announcement of a new tack in efforts to kindle growth and create jobs.

Whilst largely defending the unmarried Hollande's right to a private life, national and regional dailies admitted the hundreds of journalists at his bi-annual press conference on Tuesday will only have one question in mind."
It wouldn't be France without a good sex scandal. And just when he was about to do something to correct his economic blunders.

Makes things easy for journalists anyway.


Labels: , ,

Thursday, January 09, 2014

Round-Up #239087 Or Something.

Canada and the Middle East: A reality check
"Critics have unfairly lambasted the government for a one-dimensional, Israel-centred policy. But as Benjamin Disraeli said of his own partisan detractors, “How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.”"
[---]
"Mr. Harper’s government has worked hard to strengthen its relations with the Arab world as a complement to its strong and principled position on unilateral Palestinian statehood and unabashed support for Israel, the region’s only genuine democracy. (Our previous United Nations record on issues affecting Israel had been one of persistent abstention.)"
Uh-Huh.
"Canada has not shut out Iran by closing our embassy there. We launched a continuing dialogue with the people of Iran via the Internet by offering a much-needed platform for Iranian dissidents and human-rights advocates. We have been champions of the Iran human-rights resolution at the UN in New York. This approach is as innovative as it is principled. It is preferable to bland, passive recognition of terrorist-spawning regimes."
RTWT
"Commander Chris Hadfield: Singing spaceman to promote Irish tourism"
Gee, Chris, nothing against he Irish, but why not Canada?

Skywatchers hoping for spectacular northern light display Thursday night

Guaranteed to be overcast. Besides, with all the lights on farms these days, it's darned hard to see anything in the sky at night even out in the country, except the sun and the moon, unless you can find some place sheltered from all that light, which is kinda hard to do and if you do, you can't see much of the sky.

Fidel Castro found alive at the opening of an art studio in Havana

Are you sure it wasn't Elvis?

Manitoba sitting on report into child's death until after byelections
"The Manitoba government is coming under fire for waiting until two byelections are held before releasing a final report into how social services failed a five-year-old girl who was murdered by her mother and stepfather.

For almost two years, a public inquiry examined the horrific death of Phoenix Sinclair, who bounced in and out of foster care before she was murdered in 2005. Commissioner Ted Hughes was tasked with determining why the little girl slipped through the cracks and how her death went undiscovered for months.

He delivered his final report to the NDP government Dec. 15."
[---]
"Phoenix was killed by her mother, Samantha Kematch, and the woman's boyfriend, Karl McKay, after repeated and horrific abuse. Both were convicted of first-degree murder in 2008.

The pair tortured and beat Phoenix over many months before she died of extensive injuries on a cold basement floor in the couple's home on the Fisher River reserve. She was buried in a shallow grave near the community dump and Kematch continued to collect child subsidy cheques.

The inquiry heard that authorities had been contacted with allegations that Phoenix was being abused shortly before her death. A social worker visited Kematch, but left without seeing Phoenix and closed the child's file.

The girl was murdered three months later."

Hmmmm. Does the report lambast the NDP? Don't want to loose any Aboriginal votes.

Labels: , , , , , ,

ARRRRRRG

I went outside this morning to bring the garbage can in from the street (garbage pickup was yesterday morning, but it was too damned cold to step outside and retrieve it later in the day yesterday, and besides, conveniently, I had completely forgotten about it). Immediately upon stepping outside I realized I had closed the door but forgotten to unlock it first - so there I was stuck outside without the key. Thank God my sister lives in town and only 2 1/2 blocks away and thank God she has a spare key. So, off I went, trudging over to her place at 8:00 - 8:30 AM, on very, very slippery streets. It was like walking on smooth ice.

I managed to remain in an upright position, and, thankfully, found my brother-in-law at home when I got there. He gave me a much appreciated cup of java and the spare key and a ride back home. Anyway, I keep telling myself - spring is on the way, spring is on the way.

Thankfully, it's a bit warmer today.

Labels: , , , , ,

Wednesday, January 08, 2014

Questions You Never Thought To Ask..

..about space travel answered by Chris Hadfield, questions like: "Do you fart more or less in space?"

Labels: ,

Tuesday, January 07, 2014

Nice Little Update From The Heartland Institute...

...,just in time for our annual deep freeze. (If any of you out there, above or below the 49th, were wondering what happened to that global warming we were promised):









Lots more at Heartland's website, and at the Non-Governmental International Panel on Climate Change.

Labels: ,

Monday, January 06, 2014

What He Really Means....

...is when The One is no longer in office:

Canada PM predicts Keystone pipeline 'will proceed'
"I am confident that in due course -- I can't put a timeline on that -- that the project will one way or another proceed," Harper told a gathering of the Vancouver Board of Trade."

Labels: , ,

Wind Chill...

...is only -49C right now. Just a little cold.

Labels: , ,

Sunday, January 05, 2014

BHWAWAWAWAWA!!

RIP, Phil



Labels: ,

Thursday, January 02, 2014

Latest From The Global Warming File

Cold makes for "worst Christmas season ever" at ski hill

I so wanted some of that global warming, but once again it seems Saskatchewan is not part of the globe.

Labels: , , ,

Ooookay...

...knuckledraggerland has shaken off (or should that be peeled off?) some of its prudishness:

Peeling on the Prairies: Stripping now legal in Sask. bars


I think I can hear some bones rattling. Must be Tommy Douglas rolling in his grave.

Labels: , , ,

This I Did Not Know

The Americans who died for Canada
"He (Richard Fuller Patterson) was also a gun-jumper: one of the more than 840 American volunteers who would not wait until their country joined the war against Hitler. Instead, they put their passports on the line, joining, training — and, eventually, dying — as members of the Royal Canadian Air Force."
A generation later, Canadians would reciprocate.

Labels: ,

Real Life Is Better Than Fiction

A Russian crew on board a Chinese ship stranded in ice. There's so much here I don't even know where to begin. Lets just make the observation that the Russians are now cooperating with the Chinese!

More here.
"He also denied information in the media from Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki who said the safe had not been used for two decades or more - which could link it to a Palestine Liberation Organisation mission in Prague in the 1980s."



Labels: , ,

Hmmmmmm?

"A Palestinian official said foul play is not suspected in the death."

What was the ambassador doing with explosive material in his apartment, then? Planning a little foul play himself? And why does the Czech Republc have diplomatic relations with the Pals?


Labels: , ,

Wednesday, January 01, 2014

Time For Another Blast From The Past

Those Russians!!

I like a manly man, but this is a bit much:

The manliest of Men

And then there's Cassinova!

And the Georgians: Human evolution, from tree to braid

More good stuff: Blow to multiple human species idea

Mystery early human revealed by DNA data

Never Put Your Dignity On The Negotiating Table

It's been a long time since a royal was assassinated. Perhaps they should be grateful they are so irrelevant.

Labels: , ,

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!

City issues cold-weather alert in face of freezing overnight temperatures
"With the temperature expected to drop to -20 C overnight, the city of Toronto issued an extreme cold-weather alert New Year’s morning."
-20C? Extreme cold?????? Wimps. Try -50 C. Now that's cold. -20 C is positively balmy.

Labels: , , , ,