Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Update on the Thor movie - news on plot and list of cast members
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Rene Russo, Stellan Skarsgard, Jaimie Alexander, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Josh Dallas, Tadanobu Asano, Idris Elba, Clark Gregg, Colm Feore
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Ridley Scott's Alien prequel to be in 3D
Excerpt:
Put the rumours to rest as to whether H.R. Giger's metamorph will be truly leaping out of your screen in Ridley Scott's pending Alien prequel:
"Ridley's doing the next Alien in 3D." Christian told me.
When I asked the director if he thought the new prequel could set the Alien franchise straight again, he responded:
"I do. Ridley told me some of his ideas when we were here in Toronto. He has a very clear understanding of where this should go. They kind of stopped dead one of the greatest horror franchises there's ever been, and it had legs to go on. So I'm hoping he'll revive another three. The world certainly wants it, and the fans want it - everybody. "
Christian, who created the 'cannibalisation' technique of using stripped-out WWII bombers to dress SF movie classics Star Wars and Alien, is quite firm about the Alien prequel being in 3D, but less committed about it constituting the start of a new Alien trilogy. But it doesn't seem reasonable to presume that the 'trilogy' comment is completely random. So that's one rumour confirmed, but another springing up in its place, I guess.
Asked if he would have any involvement in Scott's new Alien movie, Christian responded:
"I hope so. I actually met Ridley here at the film festival. We had a chat to catch up, and he was going on about how much I'd 'got it' on the first one. I guess that's because of Star Wars, where I had a trained crew with me...and we learnt how to do it. It's not a technique that's easy to do - it's something I'd learnt. So [Scott] kept saying how I was the one responsible, really."
Friday, March 5, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Israel Apartheid: Plain and Simple
Israel is an apartheid state and that is why they are losing legitimacy - by Judy Rebick, March 2, 2010
Click the link to read the post.
Excerpt:
Before Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) even began members of the Ontario Legislature and the Canadian Parliament are falling all over each other to denounce it. I can't remember another time when elected legislators formally denounced a student activity like this. Perhaps during the 1950's when McCarthyism was rampant but that was before my time.
Last week the Ontario Legislature unanimously passed a resolution denouncing Israel Apartheid Week submitted by PC Peter Shure who said calling Israel an apartheid state was "close to hate speech." While there were only 30 MPP's in the Legislature at the time, NDP MPP Cheri di Novo was one of them and spoke in favour of the resolution. This week a Conservative MP is introducing a resolution calling IAW anti-Semitic.
Before I deal with why these unprecedented attacks are taking place, I'd like to share with you a great talk I heard last night at Ryerson from Na'eem Jeena: , a leading activist and academic from South Africa who works for Palestinian solidarity. He told us that South African apartheid had three pillars of apartheid and Israel shares all three.
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Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Lame Superpowers
I like Bee Boy (Red Bee) - who releases one trained bee to sting the enemy.
Third-Hand smoke is also deadly
A California research lab has found in a recent that third-hand smoke, or the residue of cigarettes that is left on clothing, paper or walls, is extremely carcinogenic when combined with an indoor pollutant.
“The biggest message is the study reveals that the tobacco smoke residue that remains after smoking, sometimes days or weeks later, could pose a risk to people who occupy that space or use it,” said Lara Gundel, the co-principal investigator in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
That risk increases when the residue combines with a common indoor pollutant, nitrous acid, Gundel said. Nitrous acid usually floats inside a building and is generated by unvented gas appliances or diesel engines.
Together the residue and pollutant become potentially even more carcinogenic, forming a tobacco-specific nitrosamine, which is extremely hazardous, the scientist explained. In fact Gundel said when nicotine and nitrous acid combine, Gundel said, they are much more dangerous than just nicotine.
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Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Underwater skyscraper
A window-washer job would be interesting on this (cleaning the algae off the windows).
Opposition MPs call for probe into how the Conservative government is not releasing documents
Opposition parties are calling on the information commissioner to investigate how the government censors records and whether there has been any political interference from the Prime Minister's Office.
"There's been a pattern of delay and obstruction with this government that should worry Canadians with regard to access to information," NDP Leader Jack Layton told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday.
The request from both the Liberals and NDP follows news that a top political aide to the Public Works Department's minister overruled bureaucrats and had forbidden the release of a sensitive report to The Canadian Press.
...
Saturday, February 6, 2010
URGENT - Harper signing away our sovereignty while parliament is closed
excerpt:
In return for this “concession” from Washington, Ottawa has agreed to pay an unacceptably high price. Under the deal, Canadian provinces and municipalities will permanently give up the right to favour local companies in awarding contracts. Government procurement at the municipal and provincial levels is an extremely important economic development tool, crucial for job creation, the encouragement of Canadian firms and the development of home-grown technology. At a time when cities are rebuilding their transit systems and are refitting homes to make them more energy efficient, it is the height of folly to open all these contracts to American bidders. (Given the multiplicity of measures used to protect them from outside bidders, it is foolish to imagine that Canadian firms will have an equal opportunity to bid on U.S. state and municipal contracts.)
What makes the Harper government’s deal particularly maddening is that the Buy American provisions in the U.S. Recovery Act violate the spirit if not the terms of NAFTA that guarantee the right of Canadian firms to bid on U.S. federal government projects with the exception of defence contracts. Instead of publicly and loudly asserting that Washington is violating NAFTA, the Harper government is bribing the Obama administration to stop doing that by opening up tens of billions of dollars worth of public contracts in Canada to American corporations.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
World's leading medical journal finally admits that Wakefield was wrong - vaccines don't cause autism
The anti-vaccine movement lost steam Tuesday after the world’s leading medical journal officially retracted a controversial autism study that has caused millions of parents around the world to fear childhood vaccines.
The study, published in 1998 in the British journal the The Lancet was the first to report a purported link between a vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella and the onset of autism. That reported association, which has since been discredited, formed the crux for the argument that MMR vaccines can cause autism and many in the anti-vaccine movement used the paper as proof of their claims.
Experts say the rare move by the Lancet to pull a published paper should help to correct the public record, though many added that more work is needed to remove the publication’s harmful legacy.
“This sends a very strong signal this research is not to be believed,” said Paul Hebert, editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. “For something that is published, taking it out of the public record is effectively saying it never existed.”
...
Sunday, January 31, 2010
CBC to begin charging to be quoted
Not that I quote a lot of CBC articles, but this is ridiculous.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has signed up with iCopyright, the American copyright bounty hunters used by the Associated Press, to offer ridiculous licenses for the quotation of CBC articles on the web (these are the same jokers who sell you a "license" to quote 5 words from the AP).
...
Friday, January 29, 2010
Harper, accountability and democracy
Lawrence Martin:
(The Conservatives) campaigned heavily against Liberal abuse of power and promised a new era of accountability. And the Accountability Act did, in fact, contain many fine reforms. But as Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch (who advised the Conservatives on the legislation) will tell you, a goodly number of the proposed reforms never made it to the table, and others that were enacted have since been violated in spirit. When Stephen Harper's all-controlling proclivities are factored in, the end result has been a further worsening of the problem.
...
Thursday, January 28, 2010
More people in Quebec think Elvis is alive than like Stephen Harper
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To begin, CROP (Quebec's most credible pollster) reports that only 5 per cent of Quebecers are "very satisfied" with the job the Harper government is doing, a number well below the Elvis Threshold -- the number of respondents who would also report that Elvis is still alive. Another 32 per cent are somewhat satisfied.
...
"Harper and his too-clever-by-half cronies in the PMO neglected to consider a very important constituency"
News on an interesting report on Canada and Canadians by the Institute of Wellbeing.
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