Luc Bourdon had been riding for 10 days before this accident. Lack of rider training is the number one cause of motorcycle accidents.
Schneider wasn't surprised Bourdon would ride a motorcycle.
"Something like this, buying a motorcycle, just fits right into his persona. Always fearless and doing whatever he felt would give him that rush or make him excited."
I told someone awhile ago that I'd never get on the back of a bike with anyone who thought that riding motorcycles was cool. Kids who are looking for "a rush" are the ones who wind up dead.
The Toronto Star asks a very important question today.
How green is wine in a box?
Experts disagree on how much of a Tetra Pak can really be recycled
May 28, 2008 04:30 AM NANCY J. WHITEWhile shoppers at Ontario's liquor stores may soon be toting their own reusable bags, they still have an eco-dilemma: is it greener to buy wine in a glass bottle or in a Tetra Pak carton?
Most disappointingly, I also learned this;
Returned Tetra Pak cartons are sent by container ship to mills in China and Korea.
(A Michigan mill recently closed, and the Tetra Pak company is looking for recycling options in Canada, says Koel.)
That Michigan mill used to handle Vancouver's recycling of Tetra-Paks, a fact that caused me to stop purchasing items when I had a choice. (Orange Juice and soup stocks are packed in little else these days.) That it's now closed means, no doubt, that Vancouver's Tetra-Paks now embark on the same worldwide journey.
It's my view that the government should pass legislation requiring local recycling for manufacturers who choose packaging to provide a local recycling option where one is not available.
Refillable glass bottles. That's a better way to go. Avalon Milk does it in Vancouver, and it's the only milk I buy.
Tetra Paks are horrible, and I'm offended by the fact that wines like French Rabbit wrap themselves in an environmental flag without a second thought to the real impact of their products.
A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines is a wonderful book, written by physicist Janna Levin.
Though I've long been familiar with Turing, and an admirer of his I had no idea that Turing had committed suicide (at least that's the book's thesis, and appears to be the most commonly shared opinion.) I also had no idea that he had been prosecuted for homosexuality.
It's shocking to think of how different the world might have been if Turing had been allowed to continue his work.
Is anybody falling for this?
Bernier quits cabinet post over security breach
Foreign affairs minister departs ahead of ex-girlfriend's TV interview
Last Updated: Monday, May 26, 2008 | 11:04 PM ET CBC NewsEmbattled Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier has resigned from cabinet over a security breach involving classified documents, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told reporters on Monday.
This isn't a new story, but when I've mentioned it to people in the past they never seem to take me seriously. Bananas are going extinct, in large part because of a lack of varietal diversity.
Why bananas are a parable for our times
JOHANN HARIBelow the headlines about rocketing food prices and rocking governments, there lays a largely unnoticed fact: Bananas are dying. The foodstuff, more heavily consumed even than rice or potatoes, has its own form of cancer. It is a fungus called Panama Disease, and it turns bananas brick-red and inedible.
There is no cure. They all die as it spreads, and it spreads quickly. Soon -- in five, 10 or 30 years -- the yellow creamy fruit as we know it will not exist. The story of how the banana rose and fell can be seen a strange parable about the corporations that increasingly dominate the world -- and where they are leading us.
The Phoenix Lander has touched down on Mars, using a highly accurate jet based landing system. This is a change from earlier landing methods which essentially use air bags to soften a landing and allow rovers to bounce to a stop. Sufficient for robotics, but probably not for a human landing (it's also a less accurate method."
Wired has an article as does the New Scientist while Scientific American's site hasn't yet been updated, but I'm sure it will be.
Wired also has a link to mission control's chatter line during the landing. Very cool.
This is the a key step in a hopefully renewed push for space exploration.
is that you're just hiding from the reality of the situation. Everybody needs to pay their way on carbon emissions, not just the rich ones. A sliding scale for necessities makes sense (charge more for automotive fuel, less for home heating) but cap and trade doesn't address this either.
Layton raises carbon-tax alarm
BILL CURRY From Friday's Globe and Mail
May 23, 2008 at 4:56 AM EDT
_OTTAWA--_NDP Leader Jack Layton launched a vehement campaign against carbon taxes yesterday and was quickly accused of alarmist pandering by prominent Canadian environmentalists.Speaking to a fundraiser for an Ottawa homeless shelter, Mr. Layton said carbon taxes would raise home heating costs and hurt Canadians living on the margins. He said big corporations should bear the lion's share of Canada's climate-change tab and a federal ombudsman should ensure those costs aren't passed on to consumers.
"With energy costs soaring in Canada, we've got to ensure that the solutions to climate change don't aggravate an already dire situation for those who struggle to make ends meet," Mr. Layton said.
Written by David Quammen and published in Harper's Magazine in October of 1998 everybody should read this article in its fully.
It's a reminder of our small place in the world, and the dangerous potential of the future--a future that's already 10 years old.
"...why has the rate of extinction--low throughout most of Earth's history--spiked upward cataclysmically on just a few occasion?...The Ordovician extinction, 439 million years ago, entailed the disappearance of roughly 85 percent of marine animal species...The Devonian extinction, 367 million years ago, seems to have been almost as severe. About 245 million years ago came the Permian extinction, the worst ever, claiming 95 percent of all known animal species." pp. 58
"How long is the lag between a nadir of impoverishment and a recoverty to ecological fullness? That's another of [David] Jablonski's research interests. His rough estimates run to 5 or 10 million years." pp. 58
It should come as no secret who I'm cheering for in this year's Stanley Cup Final.
Yes yes, according to my Swedish Rocket it was 37 degrees celsius today. I think it lacks credibility, but it was a fun number to see.
Trails were hiked, pedals were pushed and I sparked up the motorcycle and headed to Richmond for some fish and chips. It's officially summertime, at least in my life.
