How A Year Flies By – Illustrated
Amazing video of a year in 40 seconds… you can watch the HD version here.
The End Of A Snow Promo
What are the odds that a snow promotion in Vancouver could go wrong?
Randy “Mad Dog” Bishop ran a promotion for his Mad Dog Source for Sports locations in Abbotsford and Langley if it snowed more than 12.5 centimetres at Vancouver airport on Christmas Day.
He ran the “Let it snow!” promotion 15 years ago to encourage sales. Since then, this year is the only year he’s even come close to having to pay out the prize.
He purchased special insurance to partially cover the contest, but the measurement is so close that he is waiting to officially hear from the company to see if he has to pay out.
“It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars and I’m kind of freaking out about it,” he said. “People are in here screaming at me but there is nothing I can do until first thing Monday morning. I’m very sorry, but there is nothing I can do until then.”
The airport recorded just three centimetres of snow on Dec. 25, but received 26 cm on Christmas Eve and another 13 on Boxing Day.
Looks like he dodged a bullet, but the bad feelings it created probably means that he won’t be taking a chance on this promo again.
photo credit: penmachine
Sunday Video Spectacular
Really cool video with Pink Floyd track… watch the HD version if you have a fast connection.
I was never one to sweat the little stuff like global warming.
h/t - cgi asteroid impact to the music of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. Makes the global warming scenario seem like a walk in the park.
The Vancouver Poverty Olympics
We’ve asked the International Olympic Committee to make these games part of the official 2010 program. We hope that shining the international spotlight on the dark side of our prosperous city and province might finally convince our governments to take action.
We hope, dear visitor, that you’ll take a few minutes to look around… Learn more about the poverty amid plenty… Help us make change by taking some simple actions… And don’t forget to invite your friends to visit our fair city!
Sincerely,
Poverty Olympics Organizing Committee
They even have mascots:
They won’t leave behind a huge debt… and tickets are cheap.
Something tells me that our Olympic visitors won’t miss this event.
And all they want is:
I urge your government to meet those commitments by taking the following actions:
- Increase welfare rates by 50%, and index welfare to inflation, so rates go up when the cost of living does.
- Get rid of arbitrary barriers that stop people from getting welfare when they need it.
- Stop clawing back money from welfare recipients when they get child support payments or earn small amounts from part-time work.
- Build 2,000 new units of non-market housing per year, in addition to assisted living (for low-income seniors and people with disabilities or mental illnesses) and emergency shelters.
- Increase the minimum wage to $10 per hour, and index it to inflation — this would mean a single person working full time could earn a little more than the poverty line.
Seems simple enough, doesn’t it?
Palestinian President Blames Hamas?
From Aljazeera:
Abbas blames Hamas for bloodshed
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has blamed Hamas for triggering Israel’s deadly raids on Gaza, by not extending a six-month truce with the Jewish state.
He also blamed Hamas, which controls the coastal Gaza Strip territory, for disrupting national unity talks that could have paved the way for general and presidential elections.
“We have warned of this grave danger,” he said in Cairo, Egypt, on Sunday.
“We talked to them [Hamas] and we told them, ‘please, we ask you, do not end the truce. Let the truce continue and not stop”, so that we could have avoided what happened.”
Putting Things In Perspective
Here is a great video on the progression of technology, with an optimistic view of how it provides us with global opportunities.
A whole lot of things you probably didn’t know. My favorite – “the top 10 jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004.
Food for thought as we go into 2009.
Did You Know? from Amybeth on Vimeo
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Will AP and Reuters Be The Hamas Propaganda Arm Again?
From two years ago today – sounds strangely familiar:
AP Bogus Truce Watch
Wed, Dec 27, 2006 at 11:51:26 am PST LGF
In the Bizarro world of the Associated Press, Palestinians can fire rockets into Israel every single day, yet the “truce” is only “derailed” when Israel decides to defend against the attacks:
Israel threatens to renew attacks.
JERUSALEM – After weeks of restraint, Israel said Wednesday that it will renew attacks on rocket-launching militants in the Gaza Strip, threatening to derail an already shaky, month-old truce.
So now after a few hundred unsolicited incoming missles, Israel is finally doing something.
So get ready for creative photography, staged massacres, and slanted media coverage that will rival Obama’s election run.
In 2006 we had staged massacres using bodies from the morgue, photoshop fakes of incoming missiles and a cast of angry Palestinians that oddly appeared at ever scene.
Going through the archives of the last war in August 2006, it’s interesting that most pictures and video seem to be missing from Yahoo, YouTube and Google. But luckily, the media’s propaganda is available in .pdf format (75 pages). It can be downloaded from here.
Confederate Yankee did a great job of exposing the fakes and propaganda here - and you’ll see what I mead by missing images/video when you try to click through to YouTube.
But in case they forget, here’s the infamous green helmet guy – I’m sure he should be on the scene anytime, staging photos for AP and Reuters.
So now that Israel has struck back, I’m sure we’ll see incoming from Hezbollah soon – and we may have a replay of the 2006 war.
Will Israel be beaten by the media again?
Need Traffic? Obama Delivers.
Christmas miracle:
Traffic soars on “shirtless Obama” Internet searches
On one of the most gruesomely awful traffic days of the year, with blog readers tuning out in droves to prepare for the holiday, we’re … way above our daily average. Have a look at the referrals to see why. It’s not just us, either. It’s Internet-wide, per the AP and The One’s current standing at Google Trends.
Hours of searching to find interesting Headlines, hours of toil to compose thoughtful posts — and all America wants is a Barack Obama beefcake pec-tacular.
Here’s Google Top 10 Search Trends – December 23, 2008
|
1. |
dave thomas foundation |
| 2. | anna hansen |
| 3. | anna hansen lance armstrong |
| 4. | tcu football |
| 5. | babes in toyland |
| 6. | semper fi meaning |
| 7. | obama shirtless |
| 8. | kurds |
| 9. | ian johnson |
| 10. |
Imagine if I had wrote an article that said:
At the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption’s ’10th Annual A Home for the Holidays event, Anna Hansen and Lance Armstrong announced they are expecting a baby. Following the announcement the couple left to travel to California to watch the No. 11 TCU football team and No. 9 Boise State – two of the three highest-ranked teams not to make it to a BCS game – face off in the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl. The couple, inspired bt the classic Babes in Toyland movie gave away orange bracelets printed with Semper Fi (meaning - short for the Latin term semper fidelis – always faithful). The giveaway overshadowed Boise State’s Ian Johnson broking Marshall Faulk’s Western Athletic Conference record for rushing touchdowns… and a halftime jumbotron image of Obama shirtless, alongside of a Kurd. It was almost as if the Santa tracker 2008 had failed.
Sorry, got to go and watch the incoming…
Panties for Peace?
I kid you not..
The Panties for Peace campaign in Canada
The Panties for Peace campaign in Quebec and across Canada is led by a coalition of feminist and civil society organizations coordinated by the Montreal-based Fédération des Femmes du Québec (Quebec Women’s Federation) and the Rights & Democracy Student Network.
The goal of the Canadian campaign is to raise awareness about the human rights abuses against women in Burma and to encourage Canadian support for ongoing efforts to help victims of Burma’s decades-old humanitarian crisis.
What can panties do for peace in Burma?
The Panties for Peace campaign plays on the regime leaders’ superstitious fear that contact with a woman’s underpants will rob them of their power. Women around the world are asked to post their panties to local Burmese embassies in a bid to strip the regime of its power and bring an end to its gross violations of human rights, especially those committed against Burma’s women.
Support the women of Burma
Strip the military regime’s power
Help fund relief efforts
Send your panties for peace!
Here’s what you can do :
1) Clean out your drawers,
• choose some panties,
• Write a message of solidarity on them (for example, « Solidarity with Burma », « Oust the Military Regime! » « Take that, Than Shwe! » …) and/or print the flower-shaped sticker displaying the leaders of the military regime (available on Lanna Action for Burma).
2) Send your package to the representatives of the military junta in Canada :
Embassy of the Union of Myanmar
85 Range Rd, 903
Ottawa (Ontario) K1N 8J6
I wonder which is more effective – panties or a UN military force?