Spaceship Earth has made an early crash landing: A million-dollar stone sculpture, intended to remind future generations of the Earth’s fragility, made its point a bit early — just three months after its unveiling, it collapsed. The 175-ton “Spaceship Earth” lay in ruins at Kennesaw State University after mysteriously falling to pieces last week. The [...]

One day after the state’s voters approved Proposal 2, a Constitutional amendment banning affirmative action programs, President Mary Sue Coleman vows to devote her efforts to finding a way around the ban. In a statement that has a promising second career as a college drinking game, the word “diversity” appears 21 times; I will not [...]

Or, at least, one of them. Liberal Member of Parliament (and critic for the environment) Scott Brison is one of eight remaining candidates to take over leadership of “Canada’s natural governing party”. Perhaps he was just trying to keep up with the frontrunners.

Via Dust My Broom; The B.C. Teachers Federation and its president, Jinny Sims, are suing Google Inc. over allegedly defamatory comments and images posted on a blog hosted by Google. A statement of claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court says the defamation by two unnamed contributors or authors on the blog at “bcpolyblog.blogspot.com” occurred between [...]

From the comments at SDA;

For service in Afghanistan; OTTAWA—Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada, announced today the awarding of the first four Military Valour Decorations to members of the Canadian Forces who have displayed gallantry and devotion to duty in combat. The recipients will be invited to receive their decoration from the [...]

Sweden’s new Muslim immigration minister is making waves… …arguing that all girls should be checked for evidence of female circumcision; arranged marriages should be criminalised; religious schools should receive no state funding; and immigrants should learn Swedish and find a job. Supporters of the centre-right government that came to power last month believe that her [...]

A nuclear physicist shares his views on Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons; The most likely form of nuclear attack in the modern world is one carried out by terrorists. In carrying out such an attack, the attackers might well use a device quite different from the sophisticated weapon that military experts suggest it will take [...]

Facing the consequences of 30 years hard work by the left to break down societal taboos and redefine “family”; LONDON – British Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday the state should intervene early – possibly even before birth – to stop the children of problem families growing up into troublemakers. One think-tank said the idea, [...]

At least 27 die as US occupation fails to ensure supply of sufficient flashlights; “The looters seized the security vacuum yesterday as the police protecting the pipeline withdrew from their posts,” said Dr. Hussain al-Janabi, director of the Diwaniya hospital. He said he was told that the explosion took place when one of the looters [...]

Is upholding a British court publication ban; The New York Times said on Tuesday it had blocked British Internet readers from seeing a story detailing elements of the investigation into a suspected plot to blow up airliners between Britain and the United States. The story was published in Monday’s paper. Under British laws, courts will [...]

Via Robot Guy who quips “This is going to piss off Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.” Spaceports on the first Iranian scheduled to fly to the International Space Station; As a child, Anousheh Ansari begged her mother to let her sleep on the balcony of their home near Tehran, Iran. She would gaze into the velvety [...]

“…to a ratings complaint from across the street”.

First, Saskatchewan Roughrider’s (CFL) defensive tackle Scott Schultz hammered Toronto Argonaut quarterback Spergon Wynn hard enough to rip off his helmet and lay him flat on the turf. Then they sent in 200 little girls to finish him off… (video courtesy Dodosville.) (More photos at SDA.)

The first step was to tell Canadian media who accompanied him to find their own flight home from the G8 summit to free up seats on the Airbus; Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper ordered his official plane to be diverted to Cyprus on Wednesday to pick up Canadians fleeing Israeli air strikes in Lebanon. Harper [...]

Brought to you by Google Earth. Those among you who like your skies darkened by black helicopters are invited to mosey on down to the remote Chinese village of Huangyangtan which hosts what must be the strangest military installation ever spotted by the Google Earth Community … Zooming in for a closer look, we have [...]

Women are different than men. All joking aside, the report has some interesting findings; Scrutinizing more than 23,000 genes to measure their expression level in male and female tissue, the researchers found a direct correlation between gender and the amount of gene expressed. In fact, more than half of the inspected genes have shown striking [...]

Ottawa Sun; There will be a case of criminal urination in the nation’s capital if a judge convicts a 23-year-old man in connection with the Canada Day peeing incident at the National War Memorial. Ottawa police made their intentions known yesterday, announcing they will lay charges today against the man caught on camera allegedly relieving [...]

BBC: A print of the only photograph of Mozart’s widow, Constanze Weber, has been found in Germany. The photograph was taken in 1840 in the Bavarian town of Altoetting when she was 78. She died two years later. The local authorities say detailed examination has proved the authenticity of the image, which is a copy [...]

Fusing spider silk and silica; Silica provides structural support to diatoms (single-celled organisms known for their remarkable nanostructural details) while silk proteins from spiders and silkworms are more flexible, stronger and able to self-assemble into readily defined structures. The Tufts researchers were able to design and clone genetic fusions of the encoding genes for these [...]

“The 9/11 hijacking attacks were very likely facilitated by a rogue group within the US government that created an Islamic terrorist “Pearl Harbor” event as a catalyst for the military invasion of Middle Eastern countries. This weblog will explore the incredibly strange events of 9/11/01, and other issues of US government responsibility using paper airplanes [...]

CBC; Batasar said he was given an eight-page synopsis of the allegations, including storming Parliament, blowing up some of the buildings and taking politicians hostage to demand the withdrawal of Canadian troops in Afghanistan. If the demands were not met, it is alleged, Chand wanted to behead Stephen Harper. He said his client is also [...]

A Guardian reporter ponders “Bushlandia”. “It wasn’t so long ago,” a car-rental employee said, half-jokingly, “that if you voted Democrat round here, you’d get shot.” Half-jokingly?

The line between man and Marvel Comics character blurs; Via Drudge

Toronto Sun; In a stunning development yesterday, police made a sweeping terrorist bust within the GTA and expected to make several more arrests throughout the night. “The RCMP, CSIS and the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team arrested individuals throughout the GTA today in relation to terrorist-related offences,” confirmed RCMP spokesman Corp. Michele Paradis. As of [...]

Next on the agenda for the politically correct: ensure high school physics teachers avoid the use of water in calculating displacement because, you know, a lot of people have drowned and some of them were schoolchildren. (Or, maybe David Lapp should just use a football for his experiments.) h/t Ken Woods.

Don’t bring a plane to a plane fight. A mid-air collision between jousting Greek and Turkish fighters in disputed airspace over the Aegean Sea yesterday threatened to reignite age old rivalries. The two planes are believed to have rammed each other, in full view of a passing commercial jetliner. The Turkish pilot, Halil Ozdemir, was [...]

Drudge is reporting (exclusive) that the Democratic National Committee worked “secretly” to defeat New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, with the blessing of DNC chairman Howard “Yeaaaargh!” Dean; The DNC teams actively worked to defeat Nagin under the auspice of the committee’s voting rights program. The party’s field efforts also coincided with a national effort by [...]

I know what you’re thinking – but no, it wasn’t obtained via search warrant *; As we branched off on the evolutionary tree, our ancestors look to have made a messy break from those of chimpanzees. By comparing samples of chimp, gorilla and human DNA, scientists from MIT and Harvard say they see evidence of [...]

Imagine the reaction, if, during Watergate testimony, one of the principals testified he believed the “president’s men” would murder him if he broke his silence. Now, imagine there were two such witnesses. Montreal Gazette; A former vice-president of Groupaction, told Charles Guité’s fraud trial Wednesday that he feared for his life if he were to [...]

And another worm wiggles free. An Alberta court has ruled that the law requiring a photo be taken for the purpose of drivers license identification violates the religious beliefs of Hutterites and is unconstitutional. (No link available yet) Next up: Via Canadian radio talk host John Gormley, whose callers were quick to point out that [...]

Scenta News; A team from the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research examined the genetic blueprints of individuals with schizophrenia – a neuropsychiatric disorder characterised by cognitive impairment – and then compared them with healthy volunteers. They discovered that the dysbindin-1 gene (DTNBP1), which they previously demonstrated to be associated with schizophrenia, may also be linked [...]

Robert Duncan, Spero News; After changing the definition of marriage by passing same-sex “marriage” legislation last year, now the Spanish government is bent on changing the very definition of “human.” Once again, the Spanish Socialist government is showing where its true priorities are — and it’s not about Iraq, nor immigration, and it’s certainly not [...]

Uh oh. Matthias Küntzel, in Ahmadinejad’s Demons Friday, April 14th ; The Basiji’s cult of self-destruction would be chilling in any country. In the context of the Iranian nuclear program, however, its obsession with martyrdom amounts to a lit fuse. Nowadays, Basiji are sent not into the desert, but rather into the laboratory. Basij students [...]

A report and photos from a humanitarian aid convoy, from a Canadian Forces member stationed in Kandahar; The trip was with the Romanian White Sharks so let me tell you that it is very weird travelling around Afghanistan following the old “Evil Empire’s” worn out armoured personnel carriers. The trip was quite exciting and was [...]

Telegraph(UK); The British National Party is on course to make significant gains in the local elections in England in two weeks time, according to a YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph today. It shows that seven per cent of voters are ready to back the far-Right party and that 24 per cent have considered voting [...]

This is not your grandmother’s “Humane Society”. Those of us closely involved in dog sport have been long aware that the Humane Society of the United States is nothing more than an activist animal rights movement that has “appropriated” the identity of a long established and respected animal welfare organization. It is endlessly frustrating to [...]

Previously Unknown Neil Young Songs .

Forbes.com; About half the risk of obesity is determined by the genes people carry, and half of that risk is determined by eight to 10 genes, Christman said. So, the just identified genetic variant, which sits on chromosome 2, is associated with about 5 percent of obesity, he said. The variant is present in about [...]

Via Ace; from Ohio State University, another shining moment for the politics of the academic left; Scott Savage, who serves as a reference librarian for the [Ohio State] university, suggested four best-selling conservative books for freshman reading in his role as a member of OSU Mansfield’s First Year Reading Experience Committee. The four books he [...]

“After 15 seconds you can see foam is covering all areas it has to, so the test is successful. Shut ‘er off.“ Via INDC

The tale exploded in the local spotlight Monday when The Examiner in Independence ran on its front page a photograph of the couple holding six one-piece baby outfits and announcing the births. Those who heard the Eversons’ sad story of tight finances set up a Web site to solicit contributions — including a van, washer [...]

(Click photo for story) h/t Kathy Shaidle

Breaking: developments in the worst mass murder in Ontario history – According to a spokesman for the Ontario Provincial Police (news conference is underway) the eight slain men found in an Ontario farm field were all members of the Bandidos motorcycle gang, as is at least one of the five arrested and charged with 8 [...]

A solution to global warming – pollute more! Research presented at a major European science meeting adds to other evidence that cleaner air is letting more solar energy through to the Earth’s surface. Other studies show that increased water vapour in the atmosphere is reinforcing the impact of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. [...] Between the [...]

CTV; One man is dead following an explosion at a Tim Hortons restaurant in downtown Toronto. The blast occurred in the washroom of the coffee shop located near the intersection of Yonge and Bloor Streets, just after 1 p.m. Emergency crews responded to the scene and tried to help the victim. Fire department spokesman Daryl [...]

Calgary Sun columnist Ian Robinson has a few choice words for the recently rescued members of the Christian Peacemakers Team. These smarmy, international busybodies, the Gladys Kravitzes of the Iraq occupation, peering out at the world from behind the curtains with their pursed little disapproving lips? These sanctimonious, reality challenged little creeps? And he’s just [...]

Scotland on Sunday; IT IS straight out of a nightmare: a wave almost 100ft high bears down on your helpless vessel miles from the safety of the shore. But that is exactly what a team of British scientists faced while conducting experiments off the west coast of Scotland. [...] The significance of the Rockall event [...]

Via The Corner; FRIST INTRODUCES RESOLUTION OPPOSING U.S. PARTICIPATION IN U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL “The newly created U.N. Human Rights Council fails to address the significant failures and shortcomings of the widely discredited U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Since its establishment in 1946, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights sacrificed efficacy and credibility by granting [...]