Disturbing but brilliant, I should say. Here, Lena Dunham teams up with fashion designer pal Rachel Antonoff to produce a short "nature documentary" about best friends, starring Dunham's sister, and narrated by Adam Driver.* [Video link] [For some reason, the embed code for this video resists resizing, but you can click the 'view full screen' icon at the bottom.] * No money shot warning required....

13 March, 2013

[caption id="attachment_11387" align="alignright" width="260"] They can strike without without warning - anytime, anywhere.[/caption] Contrarian reader Jim Guy proposes an innovative addition to the CBC's weather warning arsenal: Perhaps they should engage their meteorologists to prepare daily meteorite reports. These reports would focus on the probabilities of our island being smattered by rogue meteorite impacts, with police interviews reminding us to wear our headgear to work when meteors are in the vicinity. You can never be too careful in this world where the margin of safety is small. Previous instalments of Contrarian's inflated weather forecast meme here, here, here, and here. I'll to give the topic a rest now...

03 March, 2013

Last Friday, in one of its periodic displays of  nerdy humor, Google displaced its usual search page logo with an animated gif celebrating Earth's non-collision with Asteroid 2012 DA14, a 50-meter-wide rock that passed within 28,000 meters of our planet—closer than a geostationary communications satellite. Trouble is, another, much smaller meteor chose the same day to collide with Earth, exploding over the Siberian town of Chelyabinsk Oblast with the force of a half megaton nuclear weapon, and injuring 1,500 people below, mostly from flying glass. Google quickly yanked the animation. "Out of respect for those injured in the extraordinary meteor shower in...

18 February, 2013

The following death notice appeared in Cape Breton yesterday. Joseph Peter MacLean Hello, if you are reading this I am gone from the earth. I am here with my parents Charlie and Katie (Campbell) MacLean, also my baby sister Mary Margaret is here too. I never had a chance to know her on earth as she died when she was one and a half years old. I lived for 67 years, it was a good life. I enjoyed playing music and speaking my beloved Gaelic — my native tongue. I played with the Boisdale Trio, the Cape Breton Fiddlers Association, made a CD,...

14 January, 2013

A few weeks ago, Contrarian ran a BBC video on Uruguayan President Jose Mujica, who lives in a modest bungalow on the outskirts of Montevideo, gives away 90% of his $12,000/month salary, and drives his own '87 VW Beetle. Often called "the poorest president in the world," Mujica brushes off the label with a quotation from the Roman philosopher Seneca: “It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, who is poor.” Today, the New York Times devotes its Saturday Profile to President Mujica: Under Mr. Mujica, who took office in 2010, Uruguay has drawn attention for seeking to legalize...

05 January, 2013

Two reader responses to the angry rant from a utility customer who objected to receiving generic holiday greetings at Christmastime. Jeffrey Shallit writes: This guy represents everything that is bad about Christian North America. He doesn't understand freedom of religion; he feels so threatened by non-Christians he wants to resort to violence; and he assumes everyone who is Canadian is necessarily Christian (forget about all those damned, Jews, I suppose, not to mention native Canadians who might follow traditional native religions). Although not Jewish myself, I grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia that was predominantly Jewish. Many lost members of their family...

29 December, 2012

Shortly before Christmas, a company I work with sent out a message to its customers advising them of shorter holiday hours for telephone customer service and technical support. Imbued with the spirit of Jesus, a customer in Cumberland County saw fit to reply: I am sure that your boss has ordered compliance with the goddam politically correct and inoffensive crowd that is prevalent these days, but it is Merry Christmas or Happy Christmas in your correspondence with me, otherwise don’t bother. I once threatened that the next person that bowed and cowered to the middle East and Asian immigrants’ demands, and wished...

26 December, 2012
Show more
Loading...