Why paddling is better than sex

Abridged from links above:

13. It's perfectly respectable to paddle with a total stranger.

10. Nobody will ever tell you that you will go blind if you paddle by yourself.

7. You can have a paddling calendar on your wall at the office, tell paddling jokes and invite coworkers to paddle with you without getting sued for harassment.

3. Nobody expects you to give up paddling if your partner loses interest in the sport.

1. Your paddling partner will never say, "What? We just paddled last week! Is that all you ever think about?"

FRANCE !!

A quick trip to France !

The Rock Rocks

On my second day in Newfoundland I drove from St. John's up to Twillingate to see what was reported to be the biggest iceberg in twenty years (white blob in the photo behind me just before it start to rain, sideways). Along the way I picked up a hitchhiker and eventually we discover that he worked with my father 30-some years ago at Come By Chance and Bay "Despair." What's the Chance of that? You gotta love some of the names of places there too: Cupids, Blow Me Down, Dildo.

There is something noticeably and wonderfully pleasant about folks in Newfoundland. It isn't just people in the tourist industry, but people in general. I imagine there are some cranky folks too, but not the ones I met. It is not unlike many of the people we met last summer in small communities across the Prairies during the David Thompson Brigade. I would be tempted to say it is a rural thing, but I continue to meet grumpy, miserable and rude rural folks in Ontario.

Aboriginal Community Book Drive

My shelves aren't overflowing with ideal examples, but please consider donating books for "youth up to age 14" to refresh the libraries in fly-in First Nation communities in northern Ontario. Follow the link for details.

Do Real Science at Home

This is fun - help sort through images of galaxies. Ordinary people have already helped discover new things.

Please sign this petition

It will take less than a minute to sign this petition to help encourage the provincial and federal leaders to advance the commitments that have already been made for conserving essential forests in northern Canada.

Why doesn't Canada have a National Science Advisor?

The answer is our Prime Minister Stephen Harper eliminated the role in late 2007. A few weeks ago President Obama recruited Harvard professor John Holdren as his primary science advisor and to run the White House Office of Science and Technology. Holdren directly advises Obama; who brings such issues directly to our PM and who does the PM consult when he has a gap in his strategic or tactical understanding of how public policy may be influenced by science and technology ? In theory the Advisor role was to be replaced by the Science, Technology and Innovation Council. In the last 23 months the STIC has published one document on their website and list an underwhelming five press releases. Holden has been on the job for less than a month and he already has the following 2 minute video on the OST site.


Is it possible Mr. Harper feels his knowledge of science and technology requires no assistance? Or perhaps he defers to Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear who recently refused to say he believes in evolution. That is kind of like the Minister of Finance refusing to agree that he believes in capitalism. Goodyear said evolution was a religious issue – even the Vatican agrees that evolution is a scientific fact. AAAS have recently published an interesting interview with Holdren that is worth reading as well.

The Great Disruption ?

In his NY Times column Thomas Friedman, author of the books The World is Flat and Hot Flat and Crowded, recently hypothesized:

What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.”
For more from Friendman check out his NY Times columns and videos.

What is this?

Have a look at the attached photo and let me know where you think I am:

A) A bar
B) A hotel lobby
C) The Microsoft VIP Centre
D) A high-end home design centre
E) A high-end movie theatre
F) A high-end airport lounge
G) A wine boutique.

Hint ... I am in the Seattle area, my flight is in about six hours, I am done with work for the day and they serve wine.

Don

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EWB conference

For three days I have attended the annual Engineers Without Borders conference where 600 student and professional chapter members were probing the challenges of effective international development and the continued growth of EWB. Unlike a typical cheerleader conferences, the folks at EWB actively pursue the limits and limitations of their efforts. They promote Fair Trade as a strategic direction by spending Thursday evening on the streets of Toronto talking to thousands of commuters while inviting vocal opponents to speak at the conference. Every breakout session is at least two-thirds participant workshop rather than speaker monologue. Their founders & co-CEOs ask "where are we going" and literally set flame to their published mission statement without an immediate roll out of a replacement solution and encourage a decentralized analysis of future direction.



World leading physicist and Perimeter Institute director Neil Turuk gave the Gala dinner talk about his African Institute for Mathematical Sciences and Jim Balsillie opened Friday by suggesting EWB take advantage of his Centre for International Governance Innovation's IGLOO information sharing platform. Roy Steiner, Deputy Director of the Gates Foundation opened Thursday with a 45 minute talk but stayed an extra day to gather data from EWB's oversea volunteers.

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Sent from my BlackBerry