I told you so! There have been five bear sightings in the area in the past week.

A rash of recent bear sightings has prompted Saugeen Shores Police Chief Dan Rivett to caution residents to keep garbage indoors overnight and to keep clear of the animals if they see one. “My fear is somebody’s going to get hurt or haphazardly come across one of these while going out to the backyard and end up being injured,” he said in an interview Monday. [Owen Sound Sun Times]

They’ve been spotted mainly in the Southampton and Port Elgin area, but it won’t be long before they get bored there and move on to bigger and better things. Like Owen Sound! I’ve been warning you for months. Those bears are going to get you.

As the experts say:

“If you go out in the woods today,
You’d better not go alone.
It’s lovely out in the woods today,
But safer to stay at home.”

I finally got my free burger from Harvey’s today. Then I got another. I stole it from a 3 year old, because the only thing better than a free burger someone else’s free burger. Besides, the last thing children need right now is more free burgers!

OS Sun Times - Cuddy to headline Summerfolk
TheStar.com - ‘Obstruction’ handbook leaked
TheStar.com - Ethics scandal topples Wolfowitz
TheStar.com - Citizen panel urges electoral-system overhaul
CollegeHumor video - Colbert Behind the Scenes
MatthewGood.org - News-Comedy, The Bizarre Last Bastion Of The Fourth Estate?
DAILY FILM DOSE - The Long Take
TheStar.com - Study suggests iPods can affect pacemakers

[Recent Links Archive]

Don’t forget. We’re going camping this weekend!

Saturday May 19 - Sunday May 20
Meet @ Jon’s around 4:20pm, or call his cell if you get up there later. Contact Calvin for more details.

Gwen Dyer visited O.S.C.V.I. on Wednesday May 9th and spoke to us on the topic of global warming.

I’m sure we all know about the effects of global warming regarding the starving polar bears, and increasing tropical storms and their severity. But does anyone realize the most serious consequence of mass starvation?
According to Gwen the facts are that the deserts near the major breadbaskets of the world will expand to eliminate these major areas of food production. Obviously this means a lot less (he mentioned if the world’s temperature increased by 2 degrees Celsius that India would lose 25% of its food production, its population is 1.1billion people – you do the math).

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It’s mother’s day. Go tell your mom you love her and do something nice for her, becasue I bet you were all little hellish brats when you were younger.

Zero Sum Mind - l337 Katz0rz
David’s Corner - An open letter to Larry The Cable Guy
MSNBC.com - Scotty’s space ashes still lost on Earth
myspace.com - The Suicide Pilots
TheStar.com - The anarchist and the leak
TheStar.com - Man dies in parking lot dance faceoff
MatthewGood.org - A Plan For Iraq’s Future By, Of All People, Iraqis
YouTube - South Park Mac vs. PC
TheStar.com - Rich, poor gap widens
CRACKED.com - Attack of the Clones: Suspiciously Similar Movie Showdown
TheStar.com - U.S. feared poppy quarter
Bored.com - New Office Slang
TheStar.com - Deserters lose refugee status bid
MSNBC.com - Docs Change the Way They Think About Death
Adbusters - Iraq Misinformant Off the Hook
Owen Sound Sun Times - looking for local musicians…

[Recent Links Archive]

The co-author of a new book on post-secondary education in Canada says too many students expect top marks without putting in the effort required to achieve them, because of a “sense of entitlement,” partly fostered by their parents.

“It really is a wider systemic crisis that we can locate at the level of our culture,” he said. “It’s tied to the idea of grade inflation and credential inflation, which begins at the lower grades, at high school and so on.”

If students don’t get an “A” on an assignment, they think they have failed. At one time, a C was considered acceptable, said Allahar, but now it’s said to be “a slap in the face,” something that gets in the way of students’ rush to get into graduate schools or secure grants or jobs.

[For more, read the whole story at CBC Canada]

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Since the history of man, and prehistoric man, media has been influencing our population’s view on right and wrong. Cave paintings, statues,stories, performances, the bible, novels, poetry, newspapers, radio, movies, television, and now the internet.

Each person, due to upbringing around certain mediums, observations, and experiences, has a different idea of right and wrong. Some aspects of each persons idealogy corespond, and others clash.

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what: Coffee House
where: the Downtown Bookstore
date: Thursday May 10th
time: 7:00pm (doors at 6:30 probably)
contact: laurenbest AT gmail.com

what: May Pie Day
when: Friday May 11 @ 5:00pm
where: Harrison Park @ the picnic tables
contact: calvin@tcow.org
also: Bring pie, or something like that!

New Worst Webcomic Ever by Bert coming tomorrow!

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” (Moncur & Moncur, n.d., para. 24). Those very words were spoken by a very courageous man, Mahatma Gandhi. Who was this man, what did he do, and how is he remembered today?

Who was Gandhi? He was a native to India born in 1869 and attended school there. Interestingly, he was married at the age of 13 to Kasturba in an arranged marriage. Surprisingly, even though he studied to be a lawyer in England and opened his own practice in Bombay, he was too shy to speak in front of the courts; thus, his career of being a lawyer was very short. (Bombay, 1987, chap. 3, para.2) Gandhi had a lot of personal values and practices that he held very dear to himself, such as truth, non-violence, vegetarianism, brahmacharya, and simplicity. Gandhi did many great things in his life, and two of the major places he had an effect on were India and Africa.

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MatthewGood.org - Afghanistan - A Historical Crossroads Of Strife
CollegeHumor video - Robot Chicken/Star Wars
TheStar.com - Jail time for Paris Hilton?
TheStar.com - Arctic thawing faster than forecast
MatthewGood.org - A Last Minute Deflection
Wikipedia - Giant squid
National Geographic - First Live Giant Squid Photographed
LiveScience.com - Moving Your Eyes Improves Memory, Study Suggests
TheStar.com - Bush issues veto in historic showdown
The Dilbert Blog - I Need Pictures!
The Dilbert Blog - Define Free Speech
TheStar.com - Tories’ green plan a fraud: Gore

[Recent Links Archive]

Some quotes regarding the latest American “invasion”/”liberation” of Iraq:

George W. Bush

“America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children.” [10-07-2002] “We’re not going to have any casualties.” [Pre-March 2003] “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.” [05-02-2003] “My answer is bring ‘em on.” [07-03-2003]

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From The Toronto Star: Software blamed for couch label slur

He explained that when the Chinese characters for “dark brown” are typed into an older version of the company’s Chinese-English translation software, the word “nigger” comes up.

The description ended up on the packing label on a couch delivered to Toronto resident Doris Moore, whose 7-year-old daughter asked her what “nigger” meant. Moore, 30, is consulting with a lawyer and wants compensation. Last week, she filed a report with the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

“Something more has to be done. We don’t just need a personal apology, but someone needs to own up to where these labels were made, and someone needs to apologize to all people of colour,” Moore said last week. “I had friends over from St. Lucia yesterday and they wouldn’t sit on the couch.”

Am I racist or insensitive for thinking this is rediculous? The company should probably update their software, or hire a real translator, for their own good, but apologizing to all people of colour and financial compensation seems like a bit much to me. Your thoughts?

I was hoping to save this until much later. But I find myself ready to drop on the spot from exhaustion, with nothing to post for tomorrow…

I got this message in a spam the other day, and decided I should save it in case I didn’t have anything to post some day. Possibly one of the strangest spam yet.

It should not be used unless absolutely necessary.

I — ” as she spoke, her image square-blurred into low-frequency components. “Huui.
This is necessary in fixed form, to handle lines that don’t extend to column 72, assuming that’s the line length in effect.
He made no friends at all in the pub that lunchtime. Looking down into what would have been Lung Chun Road.
The Vasilek is being produced on a self-propelled, armoured chassis and also in a towed variant.
Valley Of The Dolls 34.
If the original operand is out of range, these instructions set the C2 flag and leave st(0) unchanged.
Not at all, good lady.
We shall wait and see, we shall wait and see.
For now, suddenly, I knew what had seemed so wrong. The impact would be even bigger for longer strings.
Index, ax mov bx, Down. The shops didn’t have groceries.
Ne komprenas mi vin.

Out of curiostiy, I Googled Lung Chun Road.

There is a coffeehouse being organized for the evening of May 10th at the Downtown Bookstore. We are looking for more performers, so if you have interest in playing some music or reading poetry or being generally entertaining, comment or email laurenbest AT gmail.com.