building their nests.

In her radio show, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura, penned by a US resident, which was posted on the Internet. It's funny, as well as informative:

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination ... End of debate.

From Our Family to Yours.

Canuck, Haydn & Frosty (Eski-Poo0

—the discoverer was never funded to develop his remarkable ideas. Boats, and vehicles without engines, houses with lights, but no wires! Nikola Tesla, the forgotten wizard’s birthday is today

How very differently the planet would be today had his ideas been financially supported. Perhaps with peaked oil, at long last, a partnership between a scientist and a financial backer will look through his inventions and make 'some' of them work.

from my family to yours:





To view a video that a young couple living in London, Ontario made, click to watch: Canadian, Please

Hunger Strikes in Bolivia

(snip)

This controversy erupted just weeks after Bolivia's new constitution was approved in a January 25 national referendum. Among other significant changes, the constitution grants unprecedented rights to the country's indigenous majority and establishes a broader role for the state in management of the economy and natural resources.

Summit of the Americas: Cuba, Obama and Chávez

(snip)

Before the larger Summit begins, a Summit for the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA) will take place in Venezuela from April 14-15. Those planning to attend this gathering include President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Evo Morales, Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo and others. Chávez announced that this ALBA meeting will take place with the objective of formulating common positions to bring to Trinidad and Tobago, including plans regarding the formation of a regional currency, called the Sucre.

Cell Phone Towers Pretending To Be Trees

Some of the evergreens, the designers failed stupendously! :-)

The first evergreen’s branches look realistic, but it’s far too tall.

Many more at the above link.

change

I’ve read several of Liu’s articles in the past and he’s always championed labour and the first of the five articles is from that perspective.

He’s called for economic stability for the middle and lower classes—something that no western leader is promoting, least of all Canada's Prime Minister Harper.

Lieu continues in part two, seeing the Chinese government as communist with strong sociological underpinnings.

Thankfully the course I took last year in Chinese history gave me 'brief' exposure to the Chinese politicians/personalities he speaks about.

Talks Juan Enriquez: Beyond the crisis, mindboggling science and the arrival of Homo Evolutis

An interesting talk, but I'm not convinced that socities will allow scientists to improve mankind as much as Juan believes. Science invented the bomb and tampering with genes is potentially just as destructive.

If I were still capable of getting pregnant, would I want to know even the gender of the baby being carried? Surprise does have merits and so do does parenting a child to the best of my ability without pre-knowledge of the child's intelligence, personality and what the adult will chose to become. Wouldn't having a family be rather boring? Wouldn't it be preferable to just grow the child in a test tube if my interaction has no effect?

(13 pictures)


Picture #1: Nissan announced plans to cut its Sunderland workforce by 1,200. Thousands of unsold cars are stored around the factory's test track

Seven Amazing Holes:


These holes are not only amazing, but some of them are really terrifying - especially #7!
The sheer scale of these holes reminds you of just how tiny you are.

#1 Kimberley Big Hole - South Africa

Apparently the largest ever hand-dug excavation in the world, this 1097 meter deep mine yielded over 3 tons of diamonds before being closed in 1914.

#2 Glory Hole - Monticello Dam, California

A glory hole is used when a dam is at full capacity and water needs to be drained from the reservoir and it's the largest in the world of this type of spillway, its size enabling it to consume 14,400 cubic feet of water every second.

#3 Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah

This is supposedly the largest man-made excavation on earth. Extraction began in 1863 and still continues today, the pit increasing in size constantly. In its current state the hole is 1½ miles deep and 2.5 miles wide.

#4 Great Blue Hole , Belize

This incredible geographical phenomenon known as a blue hole is situated 60 miles off the mainland of Belize. There are numerous blue holes around the world, but none as stunning as this one.

#5 Diavik Mine, Canada

The mine is so huge and the area so remote that it has its own airport with a runway large enough to accommodate a Boeing 737. It looks equally cool when the surrounding water is frozen.

#6 Sinkhole in Guatemala

These photos are of a sinkhole that occurred early this year in Guatemala . The hole swallowed a dozen homes and killed at least three people.

And the really terrifying one! after the jump

Sweden suggested to the United States that they nationalize their banks

Sweden did it right when they nationalized banks by giving ownership. Iceland tried doing it without and is now bankrupt. A Brit economist, believes, UK cannot take Iceland's soft option

Roubini: US Banks are effectively insolvent

The U.S. v Omar Khadr Watch the full program on line.

Yes, it is shameful that the Canadian government hasn’t demanded that Khadr be released. Great psychological and emotional harm has been done to this child, by his parents and being in custody for such a long time along with his government deserting him who normally demand that citizen's rights be protected.

Further, it's revolting to read comments by my fellow Canadians that follow news reports. Every other country has demanded their citizens be returned with my country being the lone exception.

Article 10 ways to be happier

Article The Happiest Places in the World

In Pictures The Happiest Places in the World

Canada ranks in the top ten. Not as socialistic as the lead countries, but close enough to be ranked highly. Literally all the top countries' governments tend to be supportive of its population. Wealth isn’t a factor nor do countries with an abundance of sunshine rank particularly high. Countries with cold climates rate highly on the scale of happiness.

wrap

There’s lots of crafts at Christmas time that enhance presents or could be used for decorating the tree, using pine cones. I made the pine cone squirrel which turned out very well using red pipe cleaners, with a red pom pom, hot gun, glued smaller black pom pom for nose, eyes with a red ribbon for hanging.

One year I collected really, large pine cones in the campground where we keep our RV in North Carolina. Unbeknown to me at the time was it isn’t legal to transport them across the US/Canadian border because of soil borne diseases attaching themselves to the cone. I had washed them off and put them in a large garbage bag. Haydn, however, did know and hide the bag under our luggage. I’ll never collect pine cones again that need transporting over the border, but I still have many of them left that make ideal decorations for large trees or used for enhancing Christmas-wrapped presents.

Spraying them different colours is easy to do; glitter embellishments adds to their festival appearance. It’s super easy to attach a ribbon for hanging on trees by using a glue gun.

An Adirondack couple fix up an injured monarch butterfly so that it can make it to Mexico





LAKE LUZERNE, N.Y. — A southern Adirondack couple used their skill at handicrafts, their homemade honey and their gumption to mend a monarch butterfly's wing, nurse it back to health and find it a ride to a warmer climate.

Jeannette Brandt spied the butterfly about three weeks ago when, out for a bike ride in rural Hadley, N.Y., about 70 kilometres north of Albany, she pulled over on the shoulder to take off her coat. Noticing the butterfly's broken wing, she poured out her water bottle and placed the butterfly inside it.

Click for the first of three 3-parts





Can you detect the US Coast Guard ship amongst that leviathan-sized, rogue wave?


Nature tosses huge vessels around as if they were a child's play toy. Ice does need removing or the weight of it sinks large vessels. Storms inflict incredible damage! Tankers sometimes do not survive. What’s surprising is that more vessels don’t go down!

By Garrison Keillor
November 19, 2008

I don't know why flight attendants put a skinny plastic swizzle stick in your cup of coffee, but there it is, and the other day, I brought the coffee to my lips and stuck the stick way up into my nostril, which gives an odd sensation, pain and also shame of course and slight nausea like when a doctor snaked a probe with a tiny video camera into my nostril and down into my gullet and on the video monitor I saw red inflamed tissue all wet and twitching and some droopy things that might have been adenoids or the rudiments of gills, the creaturely innards of me that I do my best to ignore. I prefer the white shirt and herringbone jacket aspect of myself.

from The Atlantic, titled, “Sea Change”

Introduction:

“November 2008
By Scott Borgerson

"The opening of a new waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans is akin in historic significance to the opening of the Suez Canal, in 1869, or is Panamanian cousin, in 1914. With this sea change will come the rise and fall of international seaports, new found access to nearly a quarter of the world's remaining undiscovered oil and gas reserves, and a recalibration of geo-strategic power."

Clickable map or the rapidly changing Arctic

The Archipelago of Fear





After reading the article and viewing the photographs, I’m no longer surprised that bombings take place because they're fostered by the miserable living conditions of the Afghanistan people who live there—45% of whom are unemployed. Surrounded by luxury and high walls, doesn’t encourage populations to be law-abiding. Quite, the contrary, the visibility of wealth must anger the ordinary people of Kabel making them feel jealous, as well as dispirited by the enormity of the waste of so-called "reconstruction."

By Kenneth Tran

To a large number of observers, the now financial center of the universe is London, not New York City (see this and this. [1] I’m sure many of you will find it ridiculous but well, whatever you believe doesn’t change the deteriorating reality. Let’s see why what is what from an immigration view point [1.5]. Historically, America was famous as the Disneyland for talents. It doesn’t seem to be the case nowadays.

and other very, modern, architectural buildings


From the above link, the Gazprom ‘green’ tower in St. Petersburgh reminds me of what was dubbed the Marilyn Monroe luxury condo tower being built in Mississauga (bedroom town of Toronto, Ontario.) The building scheduled for occupancy 2010, sold out so quickly, it sired a mate that gets fatter in the middle. Locals refer to the two condos as a couple.

July 22, 2008
Bill Schiller, Asia Bureau

BEIJING–Building sites in this booming city usually teem with trucks, cranes and earth moving machines that roar from dawn until dusk.

But yesterday all of that was silent here and a major exodus was underway.

Over the weekend authorities shut down thousands of construction sites across Beijing forcing more than a million migrant construction workers into flight. It's all part of the grand effort to tame the city's pollution and reduce airborne dust before the Olympic Games.

With 17 days to go before the opening ceremonies, China is doing everything it can to put its best face forward – that includes making sure the dust settles.

as it turns out, I was academically denied an A average by .9 of a mark. My overall average for the year was 79.1%. Not too shabby for a 65-year-old person but have to admit being disappointed not to achieve an A in my final year.

I need to step back several years to when I started my BA in 1970 at Huron College, affiliate of University of Western Ontario. I entered University as an adult student by taking three grade 13 credits, two in English and one in History, then writing an University qualification examination that I managed to pass. In 1970 started my first year--extremely difficult to adapt to being back in school, but by the end of the year was managing A's and B's in all my courses and selected Psychology as my Major.