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By Rob Maguire, on May 20, 2013, at 4:40 pm How large of a solar farm is needed to completely power the United States?
The simple answer is that a solar farm 100 miles long and 100 miles wide would be “more than enough to meet the country’s entire energy demand.”
The far more interesting answer, however, is that this hypothetical solar farm could be contained by a 460-mile line of chalk currently being drawn across Arizona by artist and activist Joseph DeLappe.
Project 929: Mapping the Solar, is both a long-distance bike ride and work of performance art. DeLappe hit the road on May 19 with a (Read more…)
By Ezra Winton, on May 17, 2013, at 11:41 am
If this isn’t the strangest and most awesome video you’ll watch today, then you are watching some pretty strange and awesome stuff. Tawainese animators have taken on the story of Toronto mayor’s crack-smoking with the speed of, well you guessed it.
By Rob Maguire, on May 16, 2013, at 2:16 pm Openly gay South Korean film director Kim Jho Gwang-soo announced he will symbolically marry his partner in a ceremony designed to both celebrate their love and make a statement on LGBTQ rights in the conservative country.
“We wanted to convey the message that all sexual minorities should be given rights equally in a beautiful way,” Kim told a news conference in Seoul.
Very few Korean celebrities are openly gay. Actor Hong Seok-cheon was the first to come out in 2000, and found that his work quickly dried up.
Another actor, Kim Ji-hoo, announced he was gay in 2008 on (Read more…)
By Rob Maguire, on May 15, 2013, at 2:36 pm The latest work by American artist Michael D’Antuono has once again drawn ire from US conservatives for pointing out the hypocrisy amongst their ranks.
His latest work, The Conservative Christ, depicts Jesus with an AK-47 hoisted into their air, clutching tightly to a pot of gold, and sneering derisively at a poor, old man. By illustrating precisely what Jesus would not do, D’Antuono draws attention to the awkward dissonance between Conservative’s sociopolitical beliefs and their supposed adherence to Christian values.
It was in an attempt to understand this conflict that inspired him to create the work.
It seems like (Read more…)
By Dan Moutal, on May 13, 2013, at 2:30 am A, sadly, earthbound Commander Chris Hadfield in what is definitely the most awesome and extraordinary version of David Bowie’s classic song:
By Bryan Crockett, on May 13, 2013, at 12:48 am Commander Chris Hadfield, a Canadian astronaut spending his last night aboard the International Space Station tonight, is a Canadian hero, a brilliant role model, and a representation of Canada on the international stage of which we should all be proud. And not just because he’s a Canadian astronaut in space. And not just because he served as the Commander of Expedition 35. And not just because of that sweet mustache.
Commander Hadfield should be applauded for making space, and science cool again. Through his Twitter and Facebook pages, regular photo updates, and regular YouTube videos demonstrating cool things in space, Commander Hadfield (Read more…)
By Bryan Crockett, on May 11, 2013, at 5:11 am Friends,
I’ve decided to run for President of the Liberal Party of Canada in Nanaimo-Cowichan.
I’d love it if you would vote for me. To do that, you’ll have to be a member of the Liberal Party. You can join at http://lpc.ca/join. And you’ll have to attend our AGM on June 9th, 2013 at Costin Hall (7242 Lantzville Rd) in Lantzville, BC at 1pm.
Attached is my plan for the riding association. It’s my plan in hopes of electing a Liberal MP.
I hope I can count on your support. Sincerely,
Bryan
http://www.scribd.com/doc/140768673/Bryan-Crockett-for-Nanaimo-Cowichan-Liberal-President
By Ezra Winton, on May 10, 2013, at 2:20 pm Remember when crowdfunding was a baby? It was an innocent but fierce little phenomenon that you would feed, along with a whole community, and lo and behold, a project would be raised, big and strong ready to tackle the world.
Amazing things like literacy projects, art therapy, and independent documentaries were among the steadily highlighted cultural offerings on sites like Indiegogo.com.
Example of the weekly Indiegogo newsletter.
These days I look at my weekly emails from Indiegogo and I see nothing but entrepreneurs trying to raise money to sell stuff right back to us — like the Ridogulous pet (Read more…)
By Rob Maguire, on May 8, 2013, at 1:13 pm Thanks to a wave of online backlash, Disney is withdrawing its application to trademark the term Dia de los Muertos — otherwise known as the traditional Mexican Day of the Dead holiday.
The trademark filing was done in advance of an upcoming animated film release by Disney-owned Pixar based on the cultural celebration in which people gather to remember and honour their ancestors. Dia de los Muertos is a national holiday in Mexico and is also observed in other parts of Latin America and by Mexican communities around the world.
Disney apparently sought ownership over the phrase for merchandising purposes. (Read more…)
By Rob Maguire, on May 4, 2013, at 10:27 am It was 43 years ago today that four students were killed at Kent State University, shot dead by the Ohio National Guard as they protested US military involvement in Cambodia. The bloody tragedy would move Neil Young to write the timeless protest song Ohio, which was recorded and heard on the radio within weeks of the incident.
In his liner notes for the song on his later Decade retrospective, Young would call the massacre “probably the biggest lesson ever learned at an American place of learning.” In our current political climate where dissent in increasingly repressed and criminalized, (Read more…)
By Ezra Winton, on May 3, 2013, at 4:30 pm
The newest agit-POP video from the folks at the Albino Squirrel Vimeo Channel asks Morgan Freeman and CBC Radio host Jian Ghomeshi to stand with Palestinians and consider cancelling an event set to take place in a few days.
By Bryan Crockett, on May 3, 2013, at 12:16 am Two years ago today, the Liberal Party of Canada, my party, was reduced in the House of Commons to a mere 34 seats. It was two years ago that I realized, quite firmly, that I’m a Liberal. It’s my belief that the Liberal Party of Canada is currently the best vehicle to get to a better Canada.
The Conservatives claimed they had defeated us. The “experts” in Canadian politics wrote us off as a relic of the past, claiming that our glory days were over. Our own talking heads seemed to turn against us, saying that we were “dead”, and (Read more…)
By Bryan Crockett, on May 2, 2013, at 5:27 pm Canada’s really big. But it doesn’t have a tremendous number of people, and it doesn’t have the resources to be abel to afford going around acting like the world police. Historically, we’ve never been interested in that anyway. Canada has been involved in peace-keeping efforts, and humanitarian aid, largely acting through other groups that Canada has been a member of.
That’s where Canada’s strength is. That’s what Canada is good at. While Canada might not be powerful enough of a nation to act as a massive force on the international stage by itself, it’s always been good at acting within (Read more…)
By Bryan Crockett, on May 2, 2013, at 1:13 pm Marc Garneau is a Canadian hero.
As one of the first Canadian astronauts in space, and a former President of the Canadian Space Agency, he’s made his mark on Canada’s history, and the country is better for it. Marc’s contribution to Canada is tremendous.
Marc also happens to be a Liberal Member of Parliament. His contribution to Canada is extraordinary, and his devotion to public service should be applauded. Every Canadian interested in public service should regard Marc highly, no matter their partisan political affiliations.
The Conservative Government should be applauding Marc Garneau for his contributions to science, and, at (Read more…)
By Bryan Crockett, on May 1, 2013, at 10:06 am Stephen Harper and the Conservatives, who have put tremendous effort over the years to paint themselves as “sound fiscal managers” (despite turning the largest surplus ever into the largest deficit ever) have lost $3.1 billion.
They have absolutely no idea what happened to it.
They are absolutely not sound fiscal managers.
Maybe if the Conservatives were actually focused on governing, instead of constant attacking of the opposition, they’d be able to do their basic job and handle the country’s finances. I sure miss the days of Liberal surpluses.
By Bryan Crockett, on April 26, 2013, at 11:04 pm Which of these makes more sense to you?
Stephen Harper, Conservative Leader
A leader who says that this is no time to “commit sociology“, and believes that the root cause of terrorism is terrorism?
Or a leader who understands that finding the reasoning behind terrorism is important to preventing terrorism.
Justin Trudeau, Liberal Leader
What Stephen Harper’s talking about is ignoring evidence, accusing anyone, and blindly reacting whenever something terrible happens, without using what happened to prevent another tragedy. What he’s done is politicized tragedy, and used them to score cheap political points with his base. Not only (Read more…)
By Dan Moutal, on April 26, 2013, at 9:11 pm It’s been much longer than I intended when I wrote part 1 of an ideal replacement for Google Reader. But I haven’t forgotten that I promised a part 2
As you might recall the first (and probably most important) requirement for an ideal replacement for Google was that the back-end syncing service become an open standard. Think of it like IMAP for feed readers.
Ok so that is the back-end, what about the front end? You know the part people actually see and interact with?
Even before the untimely demise of Google Reader there has been a long-standing debate about (Read more…)
By Ezra Winton, on April 26, 2013, at 2:40 pm Salmon Confidential is a new film by Twyla Roscovich on the government cover up of what is killing BC’s wild salmon. It is absolutely shocking to see the lengths the provincial and federal governments are going to in order to not allow the dissemination of information about the role of BC fish farms in the destruction of wild salmon populations.
According to the doc, wild salmon are being killed off in alarming numbers and independent studies show the diseases are linked to fish in West Coast farms, who are carrying viruses and pathogens from Norway. I’m particularly disturbed by a (Read more…)
By Bryan Crockett, on April 26, 2013, at 2:30 pm
Canadians deserve better than the constant attack ads and character assassinations that the Conservatives have perpetrated over the years. Canadians deserve better than the deficits and deregulation of the Conservatives.Canadians deserve a government with a vision, and a priority on national unity.
Canadians deserve a new government.
A lot of Conservatives have been attacking Justin Trudeau’s supposed lack of experience. They claim that his being a teacher is inferior to Stephen Harper’s previous jobs: mail room clerk, and director of a lobbyist organization.
I’d honestly love to see the character assassination dropped from Canadian politics. The Liberals are doing (Read more…)
By John Klein, on April 25, 2013, at 5:12 pm Life doesn’t get any easier when problems are compounded by big mistakes. I’m taking a few days away from usual blogging and social media to think, so don’t think I’ve gone anywhere. I’ll probably pop in sooner than later.
By Amanda McCuaig, on April 24, 2013, at 1:40 pm “Little girls are better at designing superhoroes than you are” is a part-time project of California based artist Alexandria Law.
Of the project she says: “Kids are more impressionable than you, but kids can also be less restricted by cultural gender norms than you. Kids are more creative than you, and they’re better at making superheroes than you. This is a mini art project where I draw superheroes based on the costumes worn by little girls.”
It’s practically tragic that there are so few opportunities to play with gender norms the way we did as kids, when we didn’t (Read more…)
By Ezra Winton, on April 24, 2013, at 9:42 am Twenty years ago today, it was a year like any other. The ceremonial swap between less liberal and more liberal leader of the United States took place when Clinton picked up where Bush left off (launching a cruise missile attack on Iraq just half a year into his term and fine-tuning the ongoing regime of domestic and international deregulation for the next eight), Czechoslovakia emitted more post-Soviet fragmentation moans and became two independent states, North Korea announced its imminent withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and Canada saw the four-month reign of its first and last female Prime Minister, Kim (Read more…)
By Bryan Crockett, on April 17, 2013, at 4:35 pm 31 years ago today, the Queen of Canada signed into law the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, along with the rest of the newly-patriated Constitution of Canada. The Charter was brought in thanks to the work of many people from many different partisan stripes, but the Charter itself was spearheaded by the Liberal government of Pierre Elliot Trudeau.
Every Canadian is equal under the Charter, and is therefore protected by it equally. The Charter of Rights enshrines in our Constitution what many of us hold to be true: we have rights that can’t be taken away.
I know (Read more…)
By Rob Maguire, on April 17, 2013, at 3:40 pm The Raincoast Conservation Foundation had a permit from the City of Calgary to display their travelling art exhibition, Artists for an Oil-Free Coast, at city hall. However, once the show opened, a backlash from conservative politicians caused the city to revoke the permit, arguing the show was too “political” and violated municipal bylaws banning demonstrations inside the building.
Despite the show’s unambiguous title, the city claims they “weren’t aware there was a specific political agenda or cause associated with the art exhibit,” according to Sharon Purvis, the city’s director with corporate properties and buildings.
While the city is (Read more…)
By Dan Moutal, on April 16, 2013, at 12:31 am Bruce Schneier on the best response to the Boston bombing:
As the details about the bombings in Boston unfold, it’d be easy to be scared. It’d be easy to feel powerless and demand that our elected leaders do something — anything — to keep us safe.
It’d be easy, but it’d be wrong. We need to be angry and empathize with the victims without being scared. Our fears would play right into the perpetrators’ hands — and magnify the power of their victory for whichever goals whatever group behind this, still to be uncovered, has. We don’t have to
. . . → Read More: Mind of Dan: Keep Calm and Carry on
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