What's Wrong With This Picture?

"Welcome to the 2009 Safeway Father’s Day Walk/Run, on Sunday, June 21, 2009 walkers and runners from Halifax to Victoria will join together to Tie em' Up for men." No Safeway in Newfoundland I guess. If you know of any similar Newfoundland events for prostate cancer awareness email me here. Here's a prostate cancer FAQ from the CBC. Make sure you read the comments too. This means you, brother.

Everything You Know Is Wrong

Well not everything. You may know the Habs to be the best hockey team in the world. No matter how many times they lose. But a lot of other stuff is incomprehensible too. For example, here is an older but still valid list of 13 deeply scientific things that do not make sense.

Wolfram Alpha

Keep your eyes peeled for a new way of Web searching - and a potential rival for Google. Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan has the story on Wolfram Alpha.

Update: From the Independent: "An invention that could change the Internet for ever."

Debating Prostate Cancer Screening

"A month after two large studies sparked fresh debate about whether prostate cancer screening actually saves lives, a leading doctors' group has issued new guidelines, encouraging men to start getting screened at age 40." See your doctors guys. Don't delay. And talk it up! If we don't, who will?

Now The Muggles Have Done It

"The great science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke famously noted the similarities between advanced technology and magic. University of California Berkeley’s Nano-scale Science and Engineering Center has created a “carpet cloak” from nanostructured silicon that conceals the presence of objects placed under it from optical detection." It looks like the wizards have truly developed a Cloak of Invisibility.

Top Of The Ocean Food Chain

"Just when the seabirds had the herring all rounded up and were starting to feast ... the whole thing was gone. It was a bit of a shock for the underwater cameraman." To say the least. Great video from the BBC wildlife series Nature's Great Events: The Great Feast. An accompanying photo caption places the action in the Pacific Ocean.

How To Paint A Car

1. In Photoshop. Virtually .
2. With a roller and fifty bucks. Really.

I know you won't believe you can get a good paint job with a roller, so here's a snap of the finished product:

Hilariously Violent Toyota Commercial

This British commercial made the Internet rounds a couple of years ago but if you haven't seen it, prepare to laugh out loud. Or not. And when was the last time you heard The Turtles anyway?

FoxNews Is The Wrong News. Apparently.

FoxNews is right. So therefore it must be wrong. That's the opinion of a Michigan teacher who berated one of his students for reading the "wrong" news. What did he think was the correct news? The BBC. Once upon a time teachers espoused diversity of thought and encouraged discussion on all points of view. But hey, it's the 21st century and lots of mainstream teachers, like lots of mainstream media, must conform to the narrative.

Cars And Photography

If there's something in this world I've loved as much as cars since I was a kid, it's cameras and photography. And among the hardest subjects to photograph well (after kids), is cars. With lots of old cars waking from winter slumber and new photo ops looming, Hemmings Auto Blog writer Jeff Koch contributes 10 easy steps to making your car photos better than ever.

Antarctic Wilkins Ice Shelf Collapses. Again. And Again. And...

Lots of news recently about the collapse of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica. Most media report the phenomenon as if it never happened before and tie it to "catastrophic man-made global warming" here, here and here. Boy, this is getting too easy. Also see this. Note too that the CBC article also unwittingly recycles the same photograph wrongly stating it was taken on March 6.

Follow The Green-backs II

Al Gore has said that greed and corporate profiteering are behind efforts to discredit his global warming alarmism. And yet Gore has not only richly profited already from manufacturing this crisis, he stands to make much, much more as his radical agenda succeeds even beyond his wildest dreams.

A Magic Allergy Switch?

I was sneezing and snuffling and wheezing as I digested, er glanced through, er didn't read the latest issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology only to find this link to an article that scientists have identified a previously unknown cellular switch that turns allergies and asthma both on and off. More of this please. And faster.

I've Aways Wondered About "Ratings"

"Either Nielsen's ratings for the past 20 years were flawed before they switched to people meters, or they are flawed now that they have switched to people meters." Ansin asked, which is it? Nielsen's answer: neither." A new lawsuit in Florida tries to get at why one TV station's ratings dropped 50% overnight even though they were showing American Idol.

Off The Pigs!

"Swine flu is "more serious than the hydrogen bomb", the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition group, said in a symposium on the health scare on Wednesday. No cases of swine flu have yet been reported in Egypt, although the Cairo parliament on Tuesday voted to slaughter the country's entire pig livestock of around 250 000 animals in a precautionary measure. The Muslim Brotherhood - which although banned is Egypt's largest opposition bloc in parliament - voted for the cull, and said on Wednesday that the swine flu outbreak demonstrated the wisdom of the Islamic ban on pork." This in spite of the scientific fact that swine flu is not spread by eating pork. Sigh.

Greg Baum's 1919 Willy's T, Rat Rod

Sometimes a Rat Rod, er "work of art" is so inappropriate and so politically incorrect it is hilarious. Close to the end of this display some guy yells "Git yer hotdogs". You gotta love it. What an entrance this would make to your school reunion. I want one.

Wine Adds Years To Life

New studies show wine and beer add years to your life. Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds for the pointer to this glorious news.

A Miracle Of Epidemiology And IT

In the National Post today - "The very fact that doctors and health regulators are already talking in an educated way about swine flu is itself a miracle of modern epidemiology and information technology. As we write this, on April 29, a mere 27 days have passed since the first confirmed patient -- five-year-old Edgar Enrique Hernandez of La Gloria, Mexico -- got sick on April 2." Many in the media are breathlessly chasing the swine flu story but they are well behind the truly breathtaking pace set by the epidemiologists in responding to the outbreak.

Here's a Pontiac GTO commercial from 1966. We didn't see it in Canada because we didn't get the GTO until 1968. Maybe thaaaaat's why I wanted one so bad. Nimble, agile, wide track? I mean, do you get any sense of innuendo here? I have to ask - would this be allowed on TV today? Hell no!



Afterthought: Mechanics must have been scared to lift the hood back in the day.

A Bull Market Coming?

"Sumner Redstone, executive chairman of CBS Corp, said on Wednesday that he thinks the U.S. stock market is at the start of a bull market. The octogenarian media mogul also said he has no plans to step down anytime soon or give up his controlling positions in CBS or Viacom ."The one thing I would never do is lose control of CBS and Viacom," he said, adding, "I have no intention of retiring or dying. I could live and work forever," he said, attributing his robust health to antioxidants, exercise and a shot of vodka a day."

I admire this man's style and I love optimists in general. But read on to see what he thinks about the future (or lack thereof) of newspapers.