Scientific American calls bullshit on wind chill: [I]f the air temperature is, say, 15 degrees F, and a 20–mile per hour wind makes the wind chill –2 degrees F, would the temperature of your exposed skin drop to that temperature? No. Your skin temperature cannot drop below the actual air temperature. The coldest your uncovered face could get would be 15 degrees F whether the wind is calm or howling at 40 mph...
On the eve of Stephen Harper's eighth anniversary in office, writer and statistics buff Alex Roberts has a must-read piece in the Ottawa Citizen, cleverly tagged, "Harper's Economic Index.*" It casts a jaundiced numerical eye at how well he has managed the economy, the thing pundits constantly tell us he's so good at. A few samples: Estimated amount spent on taxpayer-funded advertisements since 2009 touting the “Economic Action Plan” and the government’s economic record : $113,000,000 National unemployment rate in January, 2006: 6.6 National unemployment rate in December, 2013: 7.2 Number of consecutive annual federal budget deficits: 6 Number of consecutive annual federal budget surpluses under...
To make sport of bad English translations by non-English speakers is to flirt with, nay dive headfirst into, unbecoming condescension. But sometimes, it's irresistible. "Please use it referring to as equipped," has been an all-purpose mantra in my house ever since those words arrived on the wrapper of a Honda Civic air filter sometime in the 1980s. Last weekend, my son Silas received a set of Chinese-made Edifier speakers he had ordered on line. Among the packaging, he found this poetic brand testimonial: I believe this can only be fully appreciated as blank verse: Big surprise, astonishment, and enjoyment. Ever from the sparkles of ideas...
Two years ago, I pointed to an admiring account of Nova Scotia's unorthodox online business and politics journal, AllNovaScotia.com, on the website of Harvard's prestigious Nieman Foundation for Journalism. Halifax freelancer Tim Currie described how a "tightly paywalled, social-media-ignoring, anti-copy-paste, gossipy news site became a dominant force in Nova Scotia." Last month, Kelly Toughill, director of the King's Journalism School in Halifax, fleshed out the story in an 18-page "case study" submitted to the equally prestigious Columbia University School of Journalism. From the abstract: This case tells the story of a small, online publication in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which has confounded the...
[See Update in second to last paragraph.] Just 64 days after taking her seat in the Nova Scotia Legislature, newly elected Liberal MLA Pam Eyking left Canada for a 28-day family trip to Australia and Taiwan. Eyking and her husband Mark, MP for Sydney-Victoria, left Canada on Boxing Day. Her office said she is expected back in Nova Scotia Thursday, the 23rd. Contrarian learned about the trip from a prominent Cape Breton Liberal who asked not to be identified, but said party members are annoyed at her taking a long foreign vacation so early in her term as MLA. Elected October...
See if this sounds familiar: (1) A teenage girl becomes involved in sexual activity that most grownups, regardless of their own sexual behaviour as teens, find shocking and horrific. (2) The girl’s parent or parents learn of the activity and are utterly devastated. (3) A family crisis ensues, with outcomes that can range from good to horrendous. (4) In their struggle to process shocking new information about the child they love, the distraught parent or parents construct a frame to explain and cope with this cognitive dissonance. (5) The frame invariably posits the existence of a large but hitherto unacknowledged social problem that explains how...
[caption id="attachment_13208" align="aligncenter" width="550"] A Washington, DC, city bus[/caption] Briefly, because I can't say it better than these people did, please check out the links below for eloquent arguments about the value of Edward Snowden's lawbreaking, and the Obama administration's pernicious folly in persecuting him. On the last day of October, from his exile in Russia, Snowden wrote a letter seeking clemency. On the first day of January, a New York Times editorial endorsed his request. Considering the enormous value of the information he has revealed, and the abuses he has exposed, Mr. Snowden deserves better than a life of permanent exile, fear and...
A friend called tonight, en route from Halifax to Cape Breton, wondering if I could recommend a restaurant in Truro where he and his partner could eat supper. A quick Google search turned up TripAdvisor.ca's listing of 79 Truro eateries. That's right: 79 restaurants in Truro, one for every 159 residents. Moreover, 60 of the 79 had user reviews. Those that did not were mostly predictable chain outlets like McDonald's, Tim Horton's, and Subway. In seconds, I was able to call up the dozen or so with the highest user rankings, eliminate those whose cuisine did not interest my friends, click through...
Chris Peters of Halifax took this photo of an American Tree Sparrow at Grand Pre, King's County, December 28. I am re-posting it here with his permission. Clicking the image will bring up a larger copy. The seed-eating American Tree Sparrow nests on the tundra from Alaska to Labrador, and winters throughout the continental US, the southern fringes of the prairie provinces and Quebec, and in the southern Maritimes. It's considered common in Nova Scotia in winter. Chris's photo illustrates the species' habit of fluffing out its feathers in cold weather, keeping it warmer and making its plump body look even chubbier. According to...
This is a must-have for anyone living along the Strait of Canso superport, and for 14 residents of Goldboro, soon to be the site of an LNG terminal. Denizens of HRM may also want to bone up in anticipation of warships soon to be flying off the assembly line at the Irving Shipyard. Be sure to read the reviews, especially the third one down. H/T: Sue, via Jane Kansas...