Ghotit - Dyslexic Checker for writing

Dyslexics get it with Ghotit - ISRAEL21c
...
For damage control Chermesh started thinking of a program that could help him find the right words he needed, even when the original spelling of how he perceived the word to look was unrecognizable by a spellchecker. He partnered with a technology graduate from the Weizmann Institute in Israel, and they created Ghotit.
...

I'm not feeling anything

14328186677.jpg (JPEG Image, 526x424 pixels)

Oh God...

294590m.jpg (JPEG Image, 994x657 pixels)

Debunking myths abou the Canadian healthcare system

Debunking Canadian health care myths

Comparing the Canadian and the US systems...

Sega Robot Girlfriend

Sega Makes Robot Girlfriend for Lonely Men

Science Fiction books that launched their own genres

io9 - Science Fiction Books That Launched Their Own Genres - Books

First Person Shooter Disease video

Living with First-Person Shooter Disease

Baconnaise and other delicious condiments

8 Crazy Condiments

Hi Rez images from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland movie

9 High Resolution Photos/Concept Art From Tim Burton’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’

Incredible Shadow Art

Incredible Shadow Art Created From Junk

4,000 year old tomb discovered in Bethlehem

4000 year old untouched tomb uncovered in Bethlehem

Scientology Star Chart

Celebrity Scientologists | Cracked.com

Underground Dark Matter Lab

io9 - Dark Matter Lab Dedicated 5,000 Feet Underground - Physics

Dead Like Me actor Callum Blue to be the new superbad on Smallville

io9 - Now Smallville Has A New Villain To Kneel Before - smallville

RCMP Overdoing It - Handcuffing An 11-Year-Old Girl

11-year-old N.W.T. girl handcuffed, put in jail, mother says

A complaint has been filed against the RCMP after an 11-year-old girl in Fort Resolution, N.W.T., was handcuffed and put in a jail cell, according to the girl's mother.
...

NDP: A record of results for everyday families

A record of results for everyday families | NDP
At a time when ordinary Canadians are working to make ends meet, or are sadly having to struggle to find work, they need to know their MPs are working for them. That’s what New Democrats have been doing in this session – taking action to get pragmatic solutions adopted and hold the Harper government to account.
...

Effective Opposition: By The Numbers

Effective opposition: by the numbers | NDP


Fewer than 15 percent of MPs are New Democrats, yet New Democrats have been doing more than 50 percent of the work of private members’ in this minority parliament.

Each New Democrat MP did the equivalent work of 41 Conservative backbenchers, 19 Bloc Quebecois MPs and 3 Liberal MPs.

...

The ongoing LIsteriosis saga in Canada

Two reports, one committee: a public inquiry into listeriosis and the CFIA

“Twenty-two people died in this country. That cannot be swept under the rug.”
- Wayne Easter on June 18, 2009
...

io9 interview with Samuel Delany

io9 - Samuel Delany Answers Your Science Fiction Questions! - Samuel R. Delany

Samuel R. Delany has been away from science fiction for over twenty years — and now he's coming back to it, sort of. His new novel Through The Valley Of The Nest Of Spiders is an introspective future history.

When we talked to Samuel R. Delany for our mega-feature about writers we wished would return to science fiction last week, he was gracious enough to stay on the phone and answer some more questions. And since we promised almost a year ago to ask him some of your questions — back when we had a failed game of phone tag with him — we decided to ask as many as we could. Along the way, he told us a lot more about his new novel.

...

A no side-effects anti-anxiety drug?

io9 - An Anti-Anxiety Drug That Could Create Super-Soldiers - biology

Soon you may be able to buy a drug that can make you calm by mimicking the body's natural self-soothing process. But you wouldn't feel drugged. What would happen to people who suddenly became fearless without side-effects?

A group of European researchers discovered a ligand, or a chemical that binds with molecules, can soothe even the most anxious of creatures. As they write in an article published today in Science, they induced anxiety attacks in mice and men, administered the ligand XBD173, and found that their fear subsided immediately. The best part is that this treatment isn't addictive, doesn't take weeks to be effective, and doesn't make you feel dopey or drowsy.

A Cashless Japan?

io9 - Japan Could Avoid Deflation By Resorting To "Economic Science Fiction" - mad economics

New Asian Vampire Movies - Thirst and Blood

io9 - Two Asian Vampires Mix School-Girl Uniforms And Troubled Priests - thirst

Stephen Harper: The Completion of Police State

LeDaro: Stephen Harper: The completion of police state



READ THIS!

Authors' (including Ursula LeGuin and Michael Moorcock) top 5 fantasy/real cities

SharedWorlds

Excerpt (Michael Moorcock):
"Old maps of Europe always showed Jerusalem as the centre of the world and symbolically, of course, this is understandable; but for me Marrakesh is the centre, where so many of the old trade routes met and where, still, Mercedes limousines, camels, donkeys and overloaded Peugeot trucks struggle to enter the narrow gates of a walled city which, rather more often than Casablanca, was where world leaders came to argue over the fates of millions. Marrakesh was where the balance of power between France and Morocco was held. It's where the Taureq, swathed in indigo and riding white camels, come in their haughty magnificence to trade with the Rif and the Bedouin, where privileged tourists lounge beside the pool at the Mamounia hotel, hardly aware of the long and bloody history which everywhere surrounds them."

English Cave Dweller off to EU court to save his cave

Eco-warrior evicted from cave dwelling without fire exit - Telegraph

I hope they speak Norwegian in Hell

0ekux3808481.jpg (JPEG Image, 675x845 pixels)

Ignatief backs down, NDP begin dialogue with Canadians about the isotope shortage

Accidental Deliberations: "Ignatieff backs down on..."
...
So in Ignatieff's view, his job is to be seen complaining without actually caring whether anything gets done as a result. Which explains a lot about the Libs' strategy since he took over.

Meanwhile, at least one opposition party sees itself having a role in trying to bring about change by pointing out the need for action:
...

Huge pre-Stonehenge complex found in England

Photo: Huge Pre-Stonehenge Complex Found via "Crop Circles"

Conservatives continue to talk big with still no regard for our health

Public Values - Number of new food inspectors: 57. Number assigned to meat plant inspection: 0.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has hired 57 new inspectors but none are dedicated to front-line meat inspection despite 22 deaths resulting from Canada's listeriosis crisis and promises made by federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz.
...

Flaherty, with his $50 Billion Deficit, feels he now has an excuse to cut our services

Why Flaherty Loves His $50 Billion Deficit :: Views :: thetyee.ca
That was the plan all along.

Lost Aztec tomb under Mexico City

TheStar.com | World | Lost Aztec tomb lies under Mexico City

Raitt cares more about her career and pleasing Harper than the issues that Canadians pay her to look after

Bouquets of Gray: Tapes show that Raitt cares most about pleasing Harper
...
What I find most surprising about the recording of Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt is not what she says, but what she doesn’t say. …

At no point does she show any concern for the issues that Canadians pay her to look after.

When she discusses wind power and the medical isotope crisis, she only expresses concern for them in relation to her career hopes.
...

The reactors can be made to work. Harper is lying to you (again)

Impolitical: What if we had a solution to the isotope crisis...and our government ignored it

...

The Conservatives are precipitously walking us away from an area of scientific research that Canada has led in. An area of research that is likely to be more important going forward. They have no vision. They don't believe in government fostering such projects despite what the Professor Ryans of the world say. It's too hard to manage, being a complex governmental task. And running it doesn't jibe with their ideology which pushes them to privatize wherever and whenever possible. Sell it off to the French or the Americans. A crisis is a perfect opportunity. Meanwhile, the respected scientists and experts are telling us to wake up to what will be gone after decades of monetary and intellectual commitment. Canada is changing radically under these Conservatives and the nuclear issue at Chalk River is a symptom of that.

And secondly, and perhaps most importantly at the moment, they're not being up front with us on the fact that these MAPLE reactors could be working. At this time of isotope shortage, that's something Canadians need to know.

Bullshit Predictions, including the end of the world in 2012

The 6 Best 2012 Apocalypse Theories (Are All Bullshit) | Cracked.com

Badger Badger Badger.... no, wait. Shatner Shatner Shatner ...

b3ta.com board

Okay, now this needs music and to be turned into a flash video. Someone get to it!

Goths in Hot Weather blog

Goths In Hot Weather ©
Very goth
Very black
Very sweaty.

Globe and Mail spin - everything is pro-Conservative

Rusty Idols: The Globe and Mail's Cognitive Dissonance

After suggesting on Tuesday that the surge of the far right and nativist vote in the recent EU election was actually a vote of confidence in capitalism, today our paper of record suggests that the landslide NDP win in Nova Scotia is actually a sign of how conservative Nova Scotians are.
...

New cloud type?

TheStar.com | World | Iowa woman's photo sparks push for new cloud type

THE question to ask on the medical isotopes issue

A BCer in Toronto: A question I'd ask in QP today

... if it is just about money, why is this government turning tail and running on the isotope file?

Creepy Places

The World's 5 Creepiest Places | Interesting Pictures

Feed your Brain

Speeding up brain networks might boost IQ - life - 09 June 2009 - New Scientist
...
Intriguingly, the researchers found no link between the total number of connections in a subject's brain network and their IQ. "We show that more intelligent people don't have more connections, but they have more efficiently placed connections," he says.
...

6 Retarded Publicity Stunts (That Fooled Everyone)

6 Retarded Publicity Stunts (That Fooled Everyone)

Steampunk USB Key

Steampunk USB Key is Full of Win and 100 Year Old Parts | Maximum PC

Canadian leadership lacking in Canada on the Isotope issue.

Impolitical: Experts skewer the Harper team on the isotope file

"The government does not seem to be able to recognize this catastrophe," Francois Lamoureux, president of the Quebec Association of Nuclear Medicine Specialists, told MPs on a Commons committee studying the four-week-old medical isotope shortage. "First of all, they denied there was a crisis. Now it's described as sexy. How sad. How sad to be a Canadian."

Drag Me To Hell movie review

6 Reasons More Horror Movies Should Be Like ‘Drag Me To Hell’ | Film Roster

Can't wait to see it!

Modernized version of Alice In Wonderland miniseries coming to TV

io9 - Many Old Friends Fall Through The Looking Glass In New Alice - Alice In Wonderland

The mini-series is being described as "a modern day take" on the Lewis Carroll original, with Alice (Caterina Scorsone) updated to a twentysomething who ends up going down the wrong rabbit hole at the wrong time. The series will debut in December.

Guillermo del Toro on the Future of Film

QA: Hobbit Director Guillermo del Toro on the Future of Film

Possible upcoming films:
The Hobbit
Hellboy III
Drood
Pinocchio
Slaughterhouse-Five
At the Mountains of Madness
Frankenstein
The Witches
Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Doctor Strange

Air Doll movie trailer

io9 - "Air Doll" Trailer: Sex Toy Comes to Life, Dumps Owner - Air doll

Here's the trailer for Japanese art-film director Hirokazu Kore-eda's Air Doll, a lyrical Pygmalion tale that played Cannes last month

Mickey Rourke dressing in style

io9 - First Look At Mickey Rourke's Iron Man 2 Bondage Harness - iron man 2

NDP make history in Nova Scotia

PP 2.0 - Dispatches by Northwestern Lad: Majority History In Nova Scotia

And take note of the mention of the piece in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald by columnist Ralph Surette.

"Being a Tory means never having to say you're sorry for being an asshole"

Hell, Upside Down: John Baird Blurts Out What Stephen Harper's Been Thinking All Along

Top Tory Curses Toronto

...

In an unguarded moment, Baird told aides Toronto stood alone in not
meeting the technical criteria for federal cash, yet was complaining
about Ottawa dragging its feet.

"Twenty-seven hundred people got it right. They didn't. That is not a partnership and they're bitching at us," he said.

"They should f--- off."

...
Mayor David Miller said Toronto only wants funds to buy 204
streetcars from Bombardier, to be built at a cost of $1.2 billion. The
proposed deal will expire June 27 and will collapse if federal and
provincial money isn't forthcoming by then.

The city said, based on its population, its share of the stimulus announced in January's budget would be about $312 million.

Miller said last night Toronto's proposal fits the federal criteria.

...

Councillor Linda Rydholm of Thunder Bay, home of the Bombardier
plant, said the project needs approval. "Our workers need the contract
to continue or start."

Miller said Toronto's bid will help the overall economy in Ontario and create immediate jobs.

...

Why Do Conservatives Hate Toronto?

Ridiculous-but-true Sex Myths

6 Ridiculous Sex Myths (That Are Actually True)

Rare Animal Photos from South America

RARE ANIMAL PHOTOS: Giant Armadillo, Bush Dog, More

GDP vs National Debt by Country

National Debt by Country (WORLD MAP)

Pirate Party Wins A Seat at EU Parliament!

Pirate Party wins seat at EU Parliament
...
The Pirate Party (PiratPartiet) was set up in Sweden in 2006 to compete
in domestic and European elections and yesterday gained 7.1 percent of
the vote in EU elections winning them a seat in the European Parliament.

From there they will continue to fight for the abolition of the patent system and to strengthen the rights to privacy online.
...

The Raitt & MacDonnell tape - Sexy radioactivity...

Raitt 'ready to roll dice' on 'sexy' isotope crisis - Nova Scotia News - TheChronicleHerald.ca

...

Ms. MacDonnell said the isotope issue is hard to control, “because it’s confusing to a lot of people.”

“But it’s sexy,” says Ms. Raitt. “Radioactive leaks. Cancer.”

“Nuclear contamination,” says Ms. MacDonnell.

“But it’s only about money,” say Ms. Raitt.

...

New breakthroughs in electronic component minaturization

io9 - Three Recent Breakthroughs That Will Change Your Computer Forever - Science of miniaturization

Scientists are engaged in a race to make electronics components even
tinier. Now, three breakthroughs in the manufacture of chips and
superconductors are about to make computer components so small that
they can operate on the quantum level. ...

The Plan - BSG from the Cylon perspective - due in Sept 2009

Battlestar's Olmos: 'The Plan' Will Leave You Gasping



88 minutes - on-air version. DVD version 2 hours and 6 minutes.

Missing Women in Africa and Asia

TheStar.com | Insight | How did 100,000,000 women disappear?

Frank Klees - let's have more racism in Ontario

Bouquets of Gray: Are Whites-Only Signs part of the Conservative vision for Ontario?

This is why the Conservatives won't be winning any elections in Ontario anytime soon.

Federal court fighting for Canadians' rights against the Harper government

Impolitical: Four cheers for the Federal Court: attempting to correct Harper government international incompetence
...
"Ottawa says it has no duty to protect Canadians outside country." Remarkable that a Canadian government goes to court to take such a position. ...

Conservative government lying to Canadians, again.

Scott’s DiaTribes » Focus on the real scandal.

...
Sixteen months ago, the Harper government ordered the reactor restarted
after a shutdown for safety reasons, saying cancer and heart patients
would die without an immediate isotope supply. At that time, the
shutdown lasted four weeks and the world’s other four isotope reactors
were operating. This time, the situation is far worse — Chalk River is
out of order indefinitely and two of the other reactors are also down.
Yet, Raitt testified at a Commons committee this week there is nothing
to panic about. Either the Harper government lied to Canadians
16 months ago, or it is lying today. Either way, government deceit is a
far bigger issue than lost documents.
...

Odin for the new Thor movie found

io9 - Brian Blessed To Bring Booming Voice, Brian Blessed-ness To Thor's Odin? - odin
Hooray!

Brain diagram

hardi3.jpg (JPEG Image, 4502x2862 pixels) - Scaled (32%)

Fun(?) album covers

20 Weirdest Album Covers

Harper awarded for supporting genocide in Palestine

LeDaro: Stephen Harper - Reasons for his "Human Rights" Award
watch the video.
This is the reason that Harper received a "human rights" award from the
Canadian Jewish Council. It is sad. Do these children have no human
rights? If Harper had any credibility as a leader, this should put an
end to it. If the Canadian Jewish Congress had any claims of being an
organization for human rights, then this kind of award should put an
end to it.

Conservative government actually tightened the purse strings in this time of a need for increased spending

Far and Wide: Strange Timing

The Conservative government in Canada would have you believe that they actually are spending more to boost the economy in this time of recession. But, as reported in the Globe and Mail, and referenced in the Far and Wide's blog post, they are spending less. They promised a stimulus package, but they are not releasing the money as promised.

Excerpt from the Far and Wide post:
Government spending growth in Canada actually slowed to below the
historical average in the first three months of 2009, even as the
recession's grip tightened...

Government spending rose only 0.3
per cent in that period over the previous quarter. This increase even
fell short of the 30-year historical average of 0.5 per cent for
quarterly government spending growth.

"In a quarter they're
supposedly rolling out big stimulus, government spending actually rose
less than a typical quarter," BMO Nesbitt Burns deputy chief economist
Doug Porter noted.

As Mr. Porter observed, it's a surprise that government spending growth actually softened as the downturn grew.

Gamer trailer - Gerard Butler, Michael C. Hall

io9 - New Trailer Shows That Gamer = Crank + Death Race - gamer

Could be meat...

Life-size blue whale

At the WDCS (Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society)

A peek into a bit of Season 2 of Fringe

io9 - The Shocking Truth About Fringe's Newest FBI Agent - fringe

Canada withdraws aid from the world's poorest

If Necessary Blogging But Not Necessarily Blogging: Diminishing Canada abroad, impacting the world's poorest

Further to last week's post on a multitude of Conservative sins that
were impacting Canada at home and abroad, I would like to draw your
attention to this Geoffrey York article in today's G&M: Banned Aid.
 It brings home the effects the Harper changes to foreign aid is having
on one of the world's poorest countries and how it is damaging our
international reputation. Excerpts follow with my highlights in bold.
 Read the whole thing.  Not because it is funny or there are pictures
of kittens or some such.  Because it deserves to be read.
(continue reading at the link)

Scary canned food in Russia

English Russia » Atlantic Herring Is Going Wild
(Thanks Raff!)

Church of Scientology Banned from Wikipedia

Church of Scientology Banned From Wikipedia | Maximum PC

Harper's Law

LeDaro: Harper’s Law

Have you ever sat around a round table which has a big hole in the
middle and wondered that, besides occupying some space, what is the
purpose of that hole? I once dropped my pen in that middle during a
meeting and had a hell of an embarrassing time to retrieve it.

Now
think of Harper and a hole in his head. He is going to come up with a
law where you can sue terrorists in Canada. Firstly, terrorist for us
is someone else's freedom fighter and a freedom fighter for us is
someone else's terrorist. We go and occupy others' land or countries,
we should fully expect that there will be resistance. So we
conveniently call resisters terrorists. That is the way it goes. (This
is no way condones violence on either side - personally I condemn
violence - but illustrates the nature of the discourse).
...

Liberal leader believes in lies, again.

He can see for miles - Peace, order and good government, eh?
...
But what really caught my eye in her reporting on the speeches at
the Canadian Jewish Congress celebration held in Toronto yesterday
evening was her quote from Michael Ignatieff, who said of Iran (among
other things):

This is a state seeking weapons of mass destruction.

It's interesting that someone who finally had to issue a mea culpa
in the matter of an invasion of Iraq based on lies about weapons of
mass destruction would be so quick to repeat such an accusation.
...