Moonlight Graham

LOL no you can't predict that 100%. About 6000 years ago during the Holocene maximum, the desert east of the Nile in Egypt (one of the most desolate places on earth currently) was rather lush savanna, and the desert west of the Nile had areas of oases. The Sahara desert has gone through changes of wetter and drier periods through history. But Chad is located in some of the driest portions of the Sahara. Will it still be desert in 200 years? Extremely likely. Can you predict it with 100% certainly? Impossible. But i was talking about temperatures in climate. Can you tell me if Chad will be warmer or cooler than it is today in 200 years? 20 years? No you can't.

Really, she has said she has read the entire bible? Oh, also the count is up to 67 books. I assume she read her own book.

How many books has she read?

The academy makes weird choices sometimes for sure. But what i like about the Oscars (and Golden Globes) is that make me aware of quality films i haven't heard much about. If the Oscars didn't exist, i very likely wouldn't have watched No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Slumdog Millionaire etc. These are really good films, but aren't box-office films with buzz or much advertising. I agree the Oscars are definitely a massive marketing tool. Take the Oscars for that they are, an award show like any other. No award show is the be-all and end-all of what is "best". The thing that bothers me most about the Oscars is that they don't have any awards for some film genres. Like, i really think there should be an award for "Best Comedy" (or "funniest film"). Comedies usually aren't the most critically acclaimed films, but the movies that make people laugh are such a massive part of film history and it gets no respect from the Oscars unless that flick also happens to be an amazing "film" with artistic merit.

He wasn't speaking to 6th graders.

Virtually every large non-profit development NGO has to take some money of the top for operational expenses. Staff need to earn a wage (people don't work full-time jobs for free!), offices need to be leased etc. So yes not 100% of the money gets directly to the people. However, i believe the generally accepted % of donations from a legit charity that go should directly to those in need is 85% or more. Anything below that is considered "fishy". So check out a charities' donation spending breakdown when you donate to a particular organization, most should have these budget #'s on their websites. I have great doubts that all of the "donate-able" money will go to Haiti though. I'm sure some of the money will be used for other charity/relief projects around the world that each organization is working on. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

Agreed. The name likely would have been changed, and the letters completely reworded but saying similar things. Who knows, there's not much of a bone to chew on here so it's all speculation.

hard to say what this is. Interesting article though Shady. It could be a letter-writer simply emailing her letter to a bunch of newspapers across the country and changing her address on the email so she would printed in that city's paper. And ya it could be some propaganda machine doing it too. It's impossible to say (without more evidence) that this was done by the white house. it could have been done by anybody. Maybe some pro-Obama fan or group. Who knows.

The mastermind got a life-sentence but is eligible for parole in 6 years? Let his ass rot in jail forever, no parole.

Dominican baseball players sure make excellent economic exports. Haiti has been f'ed by Western foreign policy and economic policy just like the rest of Latin America has since Columbus, only Haiti has been f'ed more than most of the others. It's funny that we run telethons and donate mountains of cash to Haiti now in sincere caring for their well-being, but in a few months most people will be back to not reading the news & letting our gov'ts crap on Haiti and co. without giving a hoot. We are a funny lot.

Letterman is a grumpy fink. But Conan has as much respect for his audience, staff, his predecessors, and the industry itself has anyone who has ever hosted a TV show. His work ethic is also fantastic, he's on every night and rarely takes a break (unlike Jon Stewart, who doesn't have a show monday or friday...why is it called The Daily Show? lol) Conan is a true class act. Leno is a good guy for sure, i just don't find him funny. He definitely appeals to an older, more mainstream audience. Off to watch Conan's last show now....11:35!

Conan and Letterman are funny. Leno is not. I love Conan, my fav late-night host ever. Quick-witted with an off-the-wall show. I thought Jimmy Fallon would bomb because he can be quite annoying, but he's actually done fairly well i think, and has the greatest all-time late-night band ever in The Roots! Stewart and Colbert are a different category. Colbert is a much funnier comedian than Stewart, but Colbert's show gets monotonous and boring after awhile. Stewart really isn't that funny at all, never was. He always laughs at his own jokes or smiles through them. But he has a great show and great writers who make him look good, and he is likeable. And he does very good interviews. But funny? No.

Having the state let virtually all parents have free daycare is an absolute joke. It encourages both parents to work and not raise their kids. It also conveniently fills the politicians coffers with more tax revenue as more parents can work. Dear Canada, RAISE YOUR DAMN KIDS. I know some people honestly can't afford to have one parent stay at home, or and there are always single parents out there. But i think the general idea the CPC had was a good one. Let parents decide what they want to do with the money the state gives them in regards to caring for their children (Have a stay at home parent, a nanny, or put kid in childcare etc.) I honestly think its quite sick in our society that a couple with a kid would be willing to both work & send their kid to daycare everyday before school age. A half day of pre-school (ages 3-5) is fine for kids who actually benefit from it (the more social, independent children), but other than that i don't believe in daycare unless there are special circumstances as i've said above (single parents, one parent may be seriously ill etc.) Before the women's revolution in 1960's, one parent stayed home with the kids and the other worked and families did fine financially. Now we have both parents working, & household income has gone up...yet standard of living & prices of goods/services have also gone up as a result. Families aren't doing much better if at all financially than they were pre-1960's. Society is really f'ed up if you ask me.

Having read more about this story, it seems that these spending limits that were struck down were only for corporations advertising/campaigning politically. There still remains restrictions on direct campaign contributions by corporations. I think there is a key difference here. Be it that free speech is in the 1st amendment, a strong case can be had for allowing these contributions. On the other hand, there are already different laws passed by the Supreme Court that restrict "free speech" in different ways, including restricting political "issue" ads, then there was all that crap about the 527 ads. I dunno, i just wish candidates (in Canada too) were elected for their merits rather than how much they can spend to get themselves in the media.

I agree.

I just don't agree with this, because the humans who interpret what other previous humans translated from portions of a book that was written by other humans who tried to remember oral stories as told to them by other humans about what other humans interpreted from what God "said" say that gay marriage is wrong.

I see the argument for free speech over spending limits, i just don't agree with it. Democracy > free political speech for large corporations The U.S. is a plutocracy 1-2-3 hurray!

Wow didn't know Lesnar married Sable. I love her she's mad hot! Yeah Lesnar is entitled to his opinion. Never heard of "malfunctioning equipment" complaints in our hospitals before. But a few years ago when i went to the ER & wait-times were GARBAGE, like 4-5 hours for me, then when i finally saw a doctor he literally told me to take a couple of tylenol and go home. The next day i had to go back and was admitted for over a week. Our healthcare system isn't perfect for sure, but some of our problems have to be looked at through the lens that we are next to the U.S. which has a private system and rakes in the dough. So many of our doctors/nurses have left for the U.S. for more money, and this certainly has contributed to the some of the wait time and quality of care problems, as well as the ability for anyone to find a GP here. If you want to look at universal healthcare & its effectiveness, go look at the different European countries instead for a better comparison than Canada as we are in quite a unique situation. I'm certainly rooting for gov't-run universal healthcare in the U.S. because it would mean the Canadian system would imrpove. woo-hoo!

Before the proroguing, Harper polled 10 points higher at around 38%. That's about the same % of Canadians who voted for him/his party last election. The CPC is polling at about 29% right now, which is about the same as Harper's ratings now. So that's about consistent all the way around.

Good lord man, a generation??? No way, things can change very quickly in politics. I'm not a "Liberal", i don't affiliate myself with any party - actually i think they all mostly suck, but i think the ideology of most Canadians falls into left-of-center, which is Liberal Party territory. I think the Liberals are therefore the natural governing party of Canada federally (as much as i hate to say that), unless another left-of-center party comes along. It took a huge sponsorship scandal to knock out the Liberals from their decade+ reign. I sense a lot of people want to vote Liberal again, but the leaders since Martin have just been garbage and people seem somewhat content with a Conservative minority right now. But get a decent leader for the Liberal Party and there's a good chance to see a Liberal majority within 2 elections.

Overall, yes. There are many instances in some places where development work over the decades in the global south has done more harm than good. However, overall we in the West have improved the quality of life for those in the global south since development became an official project of the U.N. and many contributing countries post-WWII following Europe's decolonization of the global south. Some statistics, according to the United Nations Development Programme: 1960 to 1987: Life expectancy in the global South increased by a third 1970 to 1985: literacy rates up from 43% to 60% in the global South 1965 to 1980: Per capita income increased on average 3% per annum 1960 to 1988: Under 5 mortality rate reduced by 50% There are still many horrible problems facing most of the world's population, but the situation is significantly better than it was. Damn those dogooders!

I have to saw that i agree with you somewhat. On one hand I am proud of Canadians and seemingly all these people in the West who are donating money to Haiti and seem genuinely concerned about the situation and want to help. I'm a bit surprised how strong people's reaction to help has been. The last time one a big natural disaster hit a developing country, i believe it was a tsunami somewhere in south Asia several years ago, and people donated to the Red Cross and it was a big deal in the media, but it didn't seem quite this big of a deal. Maybe it's because Haiti is closer and hits closer to home? On the flip side, i'm wondering where these people have been? As my signature refers to, about 9 million children under the age of 5 die every year of preventable causes (mostly from malnutrition, disease, and lack of clean water/proper sanitation). A billion people in the world live on less than a dollar a day. Why does it take a flashy disaster to get people to care, when horrors are happening to a tragic amount of people every day? I wish more of the worlds' brilliant minds were concentrating on helping solve the many problems of development rather than how to make themselves more money or how to build the next deadliest killing technology.

What a ridiculous thing to say!! First of all, anything anyone ever does can be called "self-interested". Name me one act a human can do that isn't self-interested, and i will gladly spin your same logic back at you. The majority of people who help the poor do so because....they want to help the poor. Does it make them feel good to help a another person? Yes, it's supposed to. It's called being a decent human being. If there were a lot more "dogooders" in this world, instead of people driven by money/greed, power, intolerance, revenge etc. then this world would be a much better place. You are lost.

A weekend, a season, a year of hot or cold weather doesn't suggest an overall global warming or cooling trend. You need years of accurate data to see a trend, and even then current science and lousy computer models can't predict the future 10 years from now. Let alone 50-100 years!

I can't even begin to imagine the horrors that the people of Haiti are experiencing right now. My thoughts go out to them.