CBC news article

Title says it all - the Court of Arbitration for Sport have over-turned the IAAF's ruling that Pistorius's "feet" gave him an advantage over able-bodied runners. So now he's eligible to run for South Africa. Of course, first he has to qualify and his training routine's been messed up by the appeal process, but here's hoping we get to see him in Beijing in the summer.

A new study shows that Vitamins A, E and beta-carotene might not be quite as good for us as first thought...

from the CBC news - Vitamins A, E and beta-carotene increase mortality, not longevity: study shows

The big political news story here in Saskatchewan at the moment is a video from 1991 that was taken at a drunken Conservative party during the election tour of that year where a current federal MP is on camera making homophobic comments, and the current premier of Saskatchewan is filmed poking run at the then premier.

All hardly worthy of comment on this journal - apart from the story how a video from 16 years ago has somehow fallen into NDP hands all this time later.

Well, you see, for all of those 16 years the NDP has been in power. But in the last election they lost to the Saskatchewan Party (who are the rebranded Conservative party in these parts). Which means the Sask Party moved out of the Opposition offices, and the NDP moved in. And while clearing out the junk the Sask Party left behind, guess what the NDP found in one of the cupboards...

Lorne Calvert (leader of the NDP) must be aching with laughter at this point!

Too sleepy to think of anything sensible or witty - just read the article, it isn't long and it's fun!


Ashes to Ashes, Air to Dust

Canadian passports are black with gold lettering. It's very classy!


(Young Master TD's passport just arrived in the post! Am so proud :o) )

I haven't read the books - although I'll be looking out for them now - but I'm interested in this show if only for the eye candy of Colin Salmon and Idris Elba!

HBO and BBC team up to make the show

Top Gear reconstruction using the telemetry


Watch the G Force indicator as the crash happens. The grace of God and some soft earth are the only reasons Hammond survived that crash.

Yesterday marked two years from when the family trampledamage made the great trek across the sea from Ireland to Canada. One year to go and we can get citizenship (well, other than youngest trampledamage, he already is Canadian. We'll be getting him an Irish passport at some point just to complete the set)

After the IAAF ran tests on his running with his blades, they decided that it takes less energy for him to run at a certain speed than it does a runner using legs and feet. Because of this, the blades count as an unfair advantage and he can't enter the Olympics as an able-bodied athlete.

Details here


Pistorius is going to appeal.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080122/ap_en_ce/obit_ledger_4

Bloody hell!

(Subject line provided by Mr TD)

And everything else, I'm going to leave to the story :o)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cornwall/7179368.stm

Our holiday so far can be summed up with the words: "We're all sick".

Varying degrees of a bad head cold / cough - me the least (I just know I'm going to come down with it as soon as Mr TD goes back to work) and Young Master TD the worst, poor thing.

Luckily we did Christmas early so all the new toys were available to play with when they got sick, so being stuck in the house has not been a hardship for the Little Miss.


Well that's about it. I haven't slept more than three hours at once all holidays so I can barely remember my name let alone the past few days.



In other news, the Young Master was playing with the cable remote control today and stopped on the channel showing Law and Order Criminal Intent. Showing very good taste in TV shows I thought!

I wonder if it was because he recognised the voices from his night-time feedings back when he was a small baby (he's all of 11 months now and quite the gentleman) :o)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7117014.stm

Man dies, apparently from an exploding mobile phone battery.

... while you're actually having the conversation! I mean, how often does that happen?

Two Jehovah's Witnesses just came round. The conversation went like this:

"Can we come in and talk to you?"
"Ah no, sorry I've just started to make dinner."
"How about tomorrow?"
"Nope, tomorrow's not a good day. Everything's chaotic at the moment."
"When would be a good time?"
"I have two young children. A good time would be in a couple of years when I can have a conversation that lasts for more than five seconds without one of them shouting at me."
*pause*
"A couple of years... can I just give you a card then?"
"Sure, thanks!"


The conversation was somewhat spoiled by the Little Miss being utterly transfixed by these strange people at the door that she didn't say a word during the entire time.

The official search for Steve Fossett has been called off, although his wife is continuing a privately funded search.

Times article

I'm still undecided as to whether I think he's just skipped out for a while and is living it large in the Caribbean...


The really sad part of the story comes at the end, the bit about William Ogle.

Lots of sciency stuff about colliding atoms and discovering that neutrons don't have a neutral charge, they have two charges cancelling each other out... or something...

CBC News story

I've always found this 'making stuff up, until someone else comes along with a better idea' aspect of science to be hilarious. It makes it very difficult to take science seriously. Mathematics on the other hand... (I'm reading Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh at the moment, so I'm a little biased towards mathematicians)

Celebrate "Happiness is a warm blanket" day on November 26th, which is Charles Schulz's birthday. On that day everyone should cuddle up and get comfy with their favourite blankie (or warm and fuzzy item of your choice - duvet, teddy bear, cuddly Mr Strong... :o) )


I got this from kradical who got it from terri_osborne, if you're curious about the route these things take - like I am.

Paddington is appearing in a new commercial for Marmite, where he decides to forgo his usual marmalade sarnie to try a marmite one instead.

Before you all go nuts, it actually sounds really good, and Michael Bond himself is writing the adverts and it's using the classic animation style.

Here's the BBC report

Even better news is that Bond is also writing new stories for Paddington's 50th anniversary next year.

It's Roald Dahl's birthday!

www.google.com

A plant that flowers once in it's lifetime has flowered at Bangor University - it seems to like a damp British summer! The researchers who were looking after the plant weren't expecting anything this summer because the weather had been so bad... they were a bit surprised to find that the plant had smashed a hole in the roof of the greenhouse with it's flowering stalk...

http://u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=84723&pt=n