A Post, For It Is Friday

A few things before the week-end.


Did school children wear pink t-shirts for nothing?

A high-profile anti-bullying activist in New Brunswick is being criticized for the way he challenges institutions and organizations.

A school superintendent says Rob Frenette was not realistic in demanding District 14 respond within hours to a complaint about bullying at a Woodstock school.

And NB Power says it has not been able to substantiate Frenette’s allegations of 400 to 500 bullying complaints at the Crown corporation.

Frenette is standing by his actions in both cases. He would not agree to an interview but sent CBC a prepared statement responding to the criticisms.

"Do you think that t-shirt says I'm an insecure little hypocrite on a power trip?"

Anti-bullying activists are often big bullies themselves.


Parents worried about bullying, sign your kids up for tae kwon do classes.



Do you mean to tell me that the government is useless in combatting poverty?

Despite the 'sky is falling' doom and gloom scenarios painted by the Occupy crowd,  it seems Canada's poverty numbers are actually declining.

According to Statistics Canada's "Income of Canadians - 2010" publication released Monday, the percentage of Canadians who earned less than the "low-income cut-off" actually fell from 9.5 per cent in 2009 to 9.0 per cent. ...

But before Canadians start lauding their provincial and federal governments for 'lowering' the poverty rates, they might want to check-out this speech by Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institute to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee earlier this month.

"I want to emphasize the importance of individual initiative in reducing poverty and promoting economic success.

Young people can virtually assure that they and their families will avoid poverty if they follow three elementary rules for success—complete at least a high school education, work full time, and wait until age 21 and get married before having a baby.

Occupy your brains with that.



In impolite company, he would be called a "denier":

Environment Minister Peter Kent says Canada must stop the spread of disinformation on the environment by ecologists with an ideological agenda.

It's the latest example of strained relations between Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government and the environmental movement.

Kent, who is attending a United Nations conference in Brazil on the environment, says ideology has tinged criticism of the federal government's efforts.

While he says he appreciates the narrow focus of the environmental groups, the federal government has to look at the bigger picture and consider the impact on the economy.

There's nothing like an honest opinion to bring out the petulant fat girls in denial:

Adam Carolla isn't interested in making any public apologies for saying men are, in general, funnier than women during an interview with The New York Post.

Both male and female comedians quickly took to Twitter to refute Carolla's charge, some dubbing him a misogynist in the process. But Carolla told The Daily Caller the notion that he's a misogynist is "fucking insane."

If writing a fake memoir is considered honourable, I would like to say that I invented car chases and I am Batman.


Cherokee Batman.




An interesting article from One point Five Metres of Rage:

Many of these “nuns” no longer believe in the Real Presence or even the divinity of Christ.

They certainly don’t recognize the authority of the Vatican.

So why don’t they leave?

Because they’re old. The average age of an American woman religious is 70.

These women have no savings or other assets. Obviously they don’t have children who could care for them.

They have Ph.Ds in rarefied subjects with no real world applications, even assuming any company would hire them at their age.

If they stop being nuns, they give up everything.

Remember when nuns were servants of Christ, angels of mercy and devoted to the Church?



When shock value and crappy placards are all you have, you flaunt it. That's why.



John Kerry did the same thing. The famous distractions help avoid dealing with the issues (RE: ruining America) and the campaigning makes celebrities feel important. Win-win.



Let's see how classy they are in Tehran.



Flashback: hostages in Iran are released just twenty minutes after Ronald Reagan's inaugural address.



"There is no fun in Islam." You're damn right.



(with thanks to one and many)



You don't say:

Think you're making the right choice by reaching for the low-fat dressing at the salad bar? Think again.

If you want to get the most vitamins and nutrients out of your plate of greens, you need to top them with monounsaturated fat-rich dressing, new research out of Perdue University in the U.S. claims.


If you want to utilize more from your fruits and vegetables, you have to pair them correctly with fat-based dressings," says Mario Ferruzzi, the study's lead author and  associate professor of food science, in a press release. "If you have a salad with a fat-free dressing, there is a reduction in calories, but you lose some of the benefits of the vegetables."

In the study, published online in the journal Molecular Nutrition & Food Research, participants ate salads paired with saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat-based dressings. The subjects' blood was then tested for absorption of fat-soluble carotenoids, which are associated with reduced risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, macular degeneration and other chronic and degenerative diseases.

The researchers found that monounsaturated fat-rich dressings required the least amount of fat to get the most carotenoid absorption, while saturated fat and polyunsaturated fat dressings required higher amounts of fat to get the same benefit.

If Easter Island was a mystery to you before, it isn't now:

Researchers have unveiled a new theory that may redefine the historical understanding of how natives on Easter Island transported the iconic moai statues.

Writing in July's issue of National Geographic magazine, California State University at Long Beach archeologist Carl Lipo and Hawaii anthropologist Terry Hunt postulate that Polynesian natives used a system of ropes and manpower to walk the statues across the island.

"A lot of what people think they know about the island turns out to be not true," Lipo says.

Using the ropes, islanders would stand on each side of the statues, swaying them back and forth to create the walking effect.

Popular theory has held that the islanders created sled-like devices out of the island's trees to cart the statues. That theory also claims that deforestation from the island's inhabitants as part of the statue transporting process was directly tied to the population's eventual downfall.

Instead, Lipo and Hunt say the island's population was actually sustainable and instead fell victim to disease when European explorers first visited the island. In fact, Lipo said the cooperative effort involved in his transportation theory might have led to a more harmonious existence amongst Easter Island's inhabitants.