BabbleFest

Massive asteroid could hit Earth in 2182, warn scientists

But since the Mayan Doomsday Prophecy says the world will end in 2012, nobody cares.

China rushes to keep oil from international waters

China rushed to keep an oil spill from reaching international waters Tuesday, while an environmental group tried to assess if the country’s largest reported spill was worse than has been disclosed.

Crude oil started pouring into the Yellow Sea off a busy northeastern port after a pipeline exploded late last week, sparking a massive 15-hour fire. The government says the slick has spread across a 70-square-mile (180-square-kilometer) stretch of ocean.

For some strange reason, the Chinese government didn’t wait two months to start paying serious attention to the spill.

BRITAIN faces years of blackouts and soaring electricity bills because of the drive toward green power, a leading energy expert warned last night.

Why Did Obama’s DOJ Botch Roman Polanski’s Extradition?

The Weingarten angle is tantalizing; did Holder’s pal broker a Washington deal to keep Polanski free? Did Holder agree — he does have a history of killing prosecutions, doesn’t he? — in order to keep faith with Obama’s supporters and donors among the Hollywood Left?

Legal incompetence or corrupt backroom deal?

We suggest you go read the article and decide for yourself.

Looking for the land of opportunity? Or maybe just a job? Or a house? Try Canada:

Canada’s economy created six times more jobs than forecast in June, a near-record gain that pressures the central bank to raise interest rates again this month even as cracks in the U.S. recovery threaten to cool the country’s scorching growth.

Note that economists in Canada are worried about the U.S., a huge export market for Canada, creating a drag on their economic recovery. Manufacturing jobs actually declined last month in Canada over uncertainty about the economic condition of the U.S., according to the President of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters association.

And in Canada, news that housing starts declined in June is actually something of a positive development as there had been fears that housing was overheating as it helped power the economic recovery.

Why is Canada’s recovery faring so much better that ours? Well, let’s start with the facts that the Canadian government didn’t incur a trillion dollars in “stimulus” debt that created few jobs but delivered a healthy serving of pork to special interest constituencies, didn’t seize control of major companies at public expense, didn’t block market adjustments in the housing and automotive sectors by meddling with illusory and expensive “fixes”, and isn’t headed toward monumental tax increases to reduce the deficit and debt created by its own reckless spending.

Read the full article here:

Canada’s Economy Sees Massive Jobs Increase

Maybe none of this should be surprising. Given the British tradition of nannies, maybe the nanny state was inevitable. And how better to administer the nanny state than through the public school system?

Two out of three schools are rewarding all pupils on sports days to ensure that nobody feels left out, according to a survey. Teachers want to be ‘inclusive’ and give prizes to both winners and losers to stop anyone’s feelings being hurt.

Read the original article here.

Teachers have used ‘Big Brother’ tactics to spy on children’s lunchboxes, it has been revealed.

They secretly photographed pupils’ packed lunches over six months and analysed the contents. Staff awarded marks to the food and then showed their findings to outraged parents, offering them advice on how to improve nutrition.

Read the original article here.

Turns out Ralphie’s mom was right after all. Not about shooting his eye out with his Red Ryder 200 shot carbine action BB gun, but about falling icicles being known to kill people.

According to this Reuters report

Six people have been killed in three days by icicles falling from buildings in a central Russian region, ITAR-TASS news agency reported Tuesday.

The latest round of six-party talks between North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia, Japan and South Korea was cancelled by North Korea, touching off some speculation that it had something to do with the alleged North Korean-Syrian nuclear connection suggested after last week’s Israeli airstrike in Syria.

I’m skeptical about whole nuclear connection theory in the first place, and I suspect the reason Pyongyang cancelled this round of talks is probably what the South Koreans have suggested: China has failed to deliver 50,000 tons of aid supplies promised in February, and North Korea is a bit miffed.

It seems some are doubtful of Russia’s claim to have detonated “the world’s most powerful conventional weapon.”

At least one retired American general, now a consultant and expert TV talking head, is of the opinion that the U.S. arsenal already contains a conventional “bunker buster” or penetration type bomb that is actually more powerful releasing more destructive force, than what the Russians claim to have detonated.

And a German analyst is skeptical of the Russian claims in their entirety, suggesting that the video released by the Russians not only doesn’t show what it purports to show, but is actually spliced together from more than one source and shows no signs of any destroyed buildings, as claimed by the Russians.

Could this simply be empty Russian boasting, like Khrushchev’s claim that Russia was “cranking out missiles like sausages”‘?

… something went boom.

First reports came as Syria complained that Israeli jets had violated Syrian airspace. Syria said they had fired on the Israeli planes, but didn’t claim to have shot them down. That surely means that, if they actually fired, they didn’t hit anything. Had the Syrians shot down an Israeli warplane in Syrian airspace, the wreckage would have been promptly put on display and Syria would be claiming it was the wreckage of 15 planes. (continue reading…)

When you’ve got Buddhist monks taking government officials hostage and setting fire to cars, you’ve got to figure you’ve got some serious problems. That’s the situation in the Myanmar Republic, formerly Burma:

YANGON, Myanmar  —  Angry Buddhist monks in northern Myanmar took about 20 officials hostage for several hours Thursday until a senior abbot intervened, but tensions remained high over the beating of monks during an anti-government protest the previous day, witnesses said.

In an escalation of recent protests against the military junta’s economic policies, hundreds of monks — highly revered in Buddhist Myanmar — marched Wednesday in the town of Pakokku, political activists and town residents said. Soldiers fired warning shots into the air and kicked and beat some of the monks to break up the march, they said.

On Thursday, local government and religion department officials went to the monastery to apologize for the confrontation and ask that no further protests be held, a senior monk said. Young monks seized the officials and held them captive because of anger over their rough treatment Wednesday, he said. Four of the officials’ cars were burned, witnesses said.

“Bystanders cheered as the monks torched the cars one by one,” an activist who witnessed the events said when contacted by phone. The senior monk and activists spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of official retaliation.

This is the latest round of escalating unrest since the government imposed huge hikes in fuel prices last month, cost for some types of fuel jumping as much as 500%.  Protest marches and demonstrations have been taking place regularly, but this is apparently the first time shots have been fired – albeit, warning shots fired into the air.

Surprisingly to most westerners, who generally assume Buddhist monks are strict pacifists, the Burmese monasteries have historically been politically active,  protesting British colonialism and the military junta that seized power in  1962, and figuring prominently in a failed uprising against the junta in 1988.

Did you know . . .

The solar lighting concept is truly a remarkable discovery. Everyone has gone crazy about lights now. Previously, fancy lights were limited to the annual led christmas lights.  Now attention is being paid to garden lighting as well. Even in night lights home makers now demand variety.