Life in the Atomic Age

Follow the link.

Worst. Superbowl. Officiating. Ever.

Maybe there’s some remnant of the old Cowboy-Steelers rivalry coloring my thoughts, but I felt that the officiating was horrendous, completely slanted in favor of the Steelers, and directly determined the outcome of the game.

UPDATE:

From the Foxsports website:

Apparently a lot of you agree.

The things you find on the internets.

If you don’t know - this is Vincent Gallo.

You can buy his sperm for $1,000,000 - as long as you have the right, um, “qualifications”.

You don’t even know where to begin, ya know?

I’m assuming that the artist won’t have to worry about suffering a similar fate to Theo van Gogh, however.

01-03-06_1657.3gp

Go here, read this, get back to me later.

the shootings in Toronto are obviously the fault of the United States.

“It’s a sign that the lack of gun laws in the U.S. is allowing guns to flood across the border that are literally being used to kill people in the streets of Toronto,” (Toronto Mayor - ed) Miller said.

There is, however, a recognition that other factors are at play:

“There are neighborhoods in Toronto where young people face barriers of poverty, discrimination and don’t have real hope and opportunity. The kind of programs that we once took for granted in Canada that would reach out to young people have systematically disappeared over the past decade and I think that gun violence is a symptom of a much bigger problem,” Miller said.

Of course the root problem is that Canada can no longer afford to pay for all of the giveaway programs she once could - a trend that will continue unless the folly of Kyoto is abandoned.

Finally, way down at the bottom of the article, is a suggestion that Canada has a different kind of “g” problem:

John Thompson, a security analyst with the Toronto-based Mackenzie Institute, says the number of guns smuggled from the United States is a problem, but that Canada has a gang problem — not a gun problem — and that Canada should stop pointing the finger at the United States. “It’s a cop out. It’s an easy way of looking at one symptom rather than addressing a whole disease,” Thompson said.

And copping out is exactly what politicians do best. So, if Paul Martin wins re-election on the 23rd, I don’t expect him to address any of the findings of the Gomery commission. But I do expect him to start trying to confiscate people’s handguns. And that may be when I have to call for an emergency extraction - and I won’t even be a full time resident yet.

What’s the difference between refusing to sign the Kyoto accords, and signing them and refusing to meet your commitments? Hypocrisy?

Although the US is portrayed as the ecological villain for refusing to sign up to the agreement, 10 out of the 15 European Union signatories - including Ireland, Italy and Spain - will miss their targets without urgent action, the Institute for Public Policy Research found.

And I love this bit:

Tony Grayling, the institute’s associate director, said the world was near the point of no return on climate change. “We have little time left to start reducing global greenhouse gas emissions before irreparable damage is done. It is vital that EU countries keep their promises to cut pollution. They must take action now to get back on the Kyoto track, including energy saving and investment in renewable energy.”

Opinion spoken as irrefutable fact - all to advance a political agenda. Kyoto is bad science based on suspect (if not outright bogus) data - the infamous hockey stick (technical discussion of the statistical errors made is here, in PDF format). Certainly there is room to debate the significance of the errors made by Mann et al - but Grayling ignores the errors altogether and presents his side as fact. More chicken little environmentalism based on feeling rather than fact.

More stories from my my adopted country.

I guess clamping down on political corruption was too big of a task for Martin’s government to tackle. Did anyone not see this coming when the national registration program was initiated in Canada?

They come in all flavors, and of all political inclinations.

I took this photo in the Calgary Airport, to remind me to talk about series fatigue. Is there anyone out there other than me that gave up on Robert Jordan? I read the first 6 books in the “Wheel of Time” series eagerly. The next couple I struggled through. I didn’t even finish book 9, and haven’t bothered to buy volumes 10 or 11. Do you really need 10,000 pages to tell a good story? Fantasy is my favorite genre, so it’s pretty bad when you manage to lose my interest in a story.

My all time favorites, even more than Tolkein (heresy, I know) are the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.

Read the reviews - it’s a series of books you either love or hate, there’s no middle ground. For me, it was the first fantasy I ever read where the hero wasn’t, you know, heroic.

You scored as Calvin. You are Calvin! You are an obnoxious little six-year-old who knows way too much to be getting Fs in school. You know how to have the best time playing, and can annoy adults to no end.

Calvin		93%
Mrs. Wormwood		57%
Hobbes		43%
Susie		36%
Mom and Dad		29%

What Calvin & Hobbes character are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

Found via Doodles

I believe my mother would find this assessment to be frighteningly accurate. And my students and residents even more so.

GReat Images in NASA.

Found over at Stackable Bards.

Just, wow.

This type of posturing just boggles my mind.