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Can You Go to Canada If You Have a DUI?
Almost 7 years ago, while going through some personal issues, I made a terrible mistake and ended up being convicted of driving under the influence (DUI) in the State of California. It was a dark period in my life, but I have moved on and learned my lesson. This spring, however, my intoxicated driving conviction […]
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Computer Scientist Richard Stallman Resigns From MIT Over Epstein Comments
Posted September 16, 2019 by Joseph Cox
Stallman said the “most plausible scenario” is that one of Epstein’s underage victims was “entirely willing.”
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Where the Hong Kong Protests Stand After 100 Days: Rubber Bullets, Petrol Bombs, and 5 Demands
Posted September 16, 2019 by Anonymous
“All Hong Kongers are afraid, but what more do we have to lose?”
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Most of the Women’s March Leaders Are Out
Posted September 16, 2019 by Anonymous
The group behind the wildly successful Women’s March on Washington in 2017 is cutting ties with some of its bold-faced names and recommitting to its agenda ahead of 2020.
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Celebrities Will Say Almost Anything on This App for the Right Price
Posted September 16, 2019 by Anonymous
This is what being famous in 2019 looks like.
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The DEA Shares Blame for the Opioid Crisis
Posted September 16, 2019 by Anonymous
The Drug Enforcement Agency’s role in the opioid crisis makes clear that law enforcement shouldn’t be regulating medicine.
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Epstein’s Victims Just Lost Their Battle to Get the Government to Pay for His Cushy Plea Deal
Posted September 16, 2019 by Anonymous
Victims had hoped to win compensation from the government arguing their rights were violated by Epstein’s 2007 plea deal.
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Librarian Finds Returned Book with Entire Soft Taco Used as Bookmark
Posted September 16, 2019 by Anonymous
Before all the brands started dumping food in books for #content, a public librarian said that someone actually did this in real life.
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Manhattan DA Has Subpoenaed 8 Years of Trump’s Tax Returns
Posted September 16, 2019 by Anonymous
It remains unclear why the Manhattan DA wants to see Trump’s tax returns.
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Vape Pods Taste Minty Thanks to Extremely High Levels of a Chemical Banned in Food
Posted September 16, 2019 by Anonymous
The FDA regulates the chemical, called pulegone, in food, but not in e-cigs—so it’s unclear which brands contain it.
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The Hidden Psychological Crisis That Hurricanes Leave in Their Wake
Posted September 16, 2019 by Anonymous
Some local Hurricane Dorian relief efforts in the Bahamas are hoping to address the PTSD that results from our increasingly frequent weather disasters.
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Fossil Fuel Ad Campaigns Emphasize ‘Positives’ After Climate Science Denial PR Lands Industry in Hot Seat
Posted September 16, 2019 by Sharon Kelly
Read time: 7 mins
This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.
Public relations experts keep a careful eye on the multitude of ways that PR can go wrong: tracking the year’s biggest “PR blunders,” assessing flopped ads for lessons learned, and noting when to remain silent and when to circulate a particular point of view.
PR blunders have been blamed for causing stock prices to dip, powerful executives to lose jobs, and occasionally even forced public apologies from PR representatives themselves.
But it takes a special kind of PR nightmare — a particularly unusual kind in the U.S., with its broad protections for free speech — to prompt investigations by state attorneys general into whether a company’s public messaging was so misleading and harmful that it should be considered illegal.
That is the situation facing one of the world’s most powerful industries, on one of the most consequential issues of our time, climate change. The subject of these investigations isn’t the direct harm from the fossil fuel industry’s actions, it’s the ways that companies communicated about their actions, and how that misled investors or the public.
And right on cue, the fossil fuel industry’s PR professionals have been stepping in to help reshape the narratives propping up their bottom lines.
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Plastics are everywhere — even in us
Posted September 16, 2019 by Anonymous
Photo: Adobe Stock
The environmental dangers of microplastics are becoming well known. These tiny particles — most all but invisible at less than half a millimetre across — form when larger pieces of plastic break down or are shed from water bottles, plastic packaging, or synthetic clothes, and have been found throughout the oceans, and even in Arctic ice.
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Let’s Stop Using The Terms “Healthy Weight” And “Normal Weight”
Posted September 16, 2019 by Yoni Freedhoff
Words matter, and your weight cannot determine whether you’re “healthy“, or “normal“.
Honestly.
Firstly, scales don’t measure the presence or absence of health, and so the term “healthy weight“, means literally nothing.
Secondly, the CDC defines a “normal weight” as one giving a person a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 yet if we were using the word normal correctly, it would differ by country and would reflect its population’s mean BMI. So in Nauru for instance normal weight would be a person whose BMI was 32.5, whereas in Eritrea it would be someone whose BMI was 20.5. Given mean BMIs in the US and Canada are 28.8 and 27.2 respectively, in North America, it should be considered abnormal to have a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9.
So what could we use instead?
Risk based terms.
Weight, though not a guarantee for any medical problem, does increase the risk of many, and so I’m proposing that rather than terms which confer judgment, we categorize weight as low-risk, medium-risk, and high-risk, and by doing so we’ll stop the erroneous use of healthy and normal terminology that constantly and insidiously promotes weight bias, shame, and stereotype.
Related Stories
- Cancer Research UK (@CR_UK) Launches Awful New Fat Shaming Advertising Campaign
- Bullying Or Teasing Kids With Obesity Doesn’t Lead Them To Lose Weight But It May Lead Them To Gain
- President Trump May Be A Racist, Antisemitic, Xenophobic, Man-Child, But Despite What You May Have Heard Yesterday, He’s Not Obese
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“Murdoch Mysteries” star Yannick Bisson shares his favourite place in Canada
Posted September 16, 2019 by Anonymous
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#416 When you try cooking something new and somehow everyone likes it
Posted September 16, 2019 by Anonymous
I blew it last week. A friend came over after work for that homemade meal I’d been promising her. Since my standard dinner lately has been a plate of nachos and a couple spoons of Nutella I figured it was high time to cook a proper meal. It started well: I snagged a fancy pasta […]
The post #416 When you try cooking something new and somehow everyone likes it appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.
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Why DeSmog Is Joining a Global News Collaboration to ‘Cover Climate Now’
Posted September 15, 2019 by Anonymous
Read time: 4 mins
It may come as something of a surprise to regular readers of DeSmog that we are joining more than 250 other news outlets in a global collaboration called “Covering Climate Now,” led by The Nation and the Columbia Journalism Review. After all, DeSmog has a very long “now” that we’ve been covering climate change — all the way back to our launch in January 2006.
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Attacks on Greta Thunberg Are About More Than Anti-Environmentalism
Posted September 15, 2019 by Anonymous
Read time: 6 mins
This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.
“Freak yachting accidents do happen…”
That was how British businessman, Trump ally, and Brexit bankroller Arron Banks responded to the news that Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teen who inspired the school climate strikes movement, was sailing to America to attend the UN Climate Action Summit. His scorn was not unique.
Many people have already spilled thousands of words of commentary explaining how personal attacks on Greta — often lobbed by old white men, sometimes mocking her Aspergers — are unacceptable. But understanding where those attackers come from, ideologically and professionally, casts an important light on some of their dark statements.
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Saturday Stories: Crane Wife, Domestically Violent Cops, and Brain Boosting
Posted September 14, 2019 by Yoni Freedhoff
CJ Hauser, in The Paris Review, with the crane wife.
Kyle Hopkins, in Propublica, on the village where every cop has been convicted of domestic violence.
Kaitlyn Tiffany, in Vox, on brain boosting.
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Cheap Renewables Could Make 90% of Proposed Gas Power Plants — and Many Pipelines — Obsolete by 2035
Posted September 13, 2019 by Sharon Kelly
Read time: 12 mins
There’s one big reason that analysts say America’s electrical power should soon run on clean energy sources like wind and solar rather than fossil fuels like coal and natural gas: your power bill.
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Ground zero for dinosaur extinction, space archeology, toes on the brain, Finding a lost jet engine on Greenland, mystery of the wandering whales and barren tablelands
Posted September 13, 2019 by Anonymous
Please note: We are discontinuing our segmented podcast feed. Please subscribe to the whole show feed.
Rocks recovered from ground zero reveal how the dinosaurs died; Archaeology from space – discovering history from a few hundred kilometres up; A jumbo jet lost an engine over Greenland — these researchers found it; The toes of foot painters are mapped in the brain as if they were fingers; Why are right whales roaming into danger off the East coast?; Why are the Tablelands of Gros Morne National Park barren?
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Building connections in the Canadian High Arctic
Posted September 13, 2019 by Anonymous
The main building of the Canadian High Arctic Research Station in Iqaluktuttiaq. (Photo: Neha Acharya-Patel)
I am in the Arctic!
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How a four-man crew traversed one of Canada’s last wilderness frontiers by canoe
Posted September 13, 2019 by Anonymous
(From left) Chris Giard, Alex Traynor, Noah Booth and David Greene pose with the RCGS expedition flag in front of Mistastin Falls, Labrador. (Photo: Boreal to Barrenlands Expedition)
If the first day of our 840-kilometre expedition through the wil…
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#417 The sound of water lapping against a dock on a summer night
Posted September 13, 2019 by Anonymous
It sounds like the warm and windy start of summer. It sounds like the cool and quiet finish to fall. AWESOME! Photo from: here — Follow me on Facebook —
The post #417 The sound of water lapping against a dock on a summer night appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.
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Fracked Gas Well Blowout in Louisiana Likely to Burn for the Next Month
Posted September 12, 2019 by Julie Dermansky
Read time: 8 mins
A fracked natural gas well in northwest Louisiana has been burning for two weeks after suffering a blowout. A state official said the fire will likely burn for the next month before the flames can be brought under control by drilling a relief well.
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Greenpeace Shuts Down Houston Ship Channel to Protest Oil Exports as Democratic Candidates Arrive in Texas for Debate
Posted September 12, 2019 by Sharon Kelly
Read time: 4 mins
Today, as Democratic presidential contenders arrive for a major debate this evening in Houston, 22 activists from Greenpeace sought to shut down what they called the country’s “largest fossil fuel thoroughfare,” the Houston Ship Channel, by rappelling from the Fred Hartman Bridge in Baytown, Texas.
Greenpeace said the rappellers plan to stay in place for 24 hours, through tonight’s Democratic debates.
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#418 Carrying the ice cube tray you just filled up all the way back to the freezer without spilling anything
Posted September 12, 2019 by Anonymous
Say goodbye kitchen puddles, wet socks, and half-filled cubes. Say hello to AWESOME! Photo from: here — Pre-order my new book You Are Awesome —
The post #418 Carrying the ice cube tray you just filled up all the way back to the freezer without spilling anything appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.
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Fees on Electric Cars, Inspired by Koch Network, Are Unfairly Penalizing Drivers, Says Consumer Reports
Posted September 11, 2019 by Ben Jervey
Read time: 6 mins
Drivers of electric cars are being unfairly punished by punitive fees in several states, according to a newly published analysis by Consumer Reports. Legislators in 26 states have enacted or proposed special registration fees for electric vehicles (EVs) that the consumer advocacy group found to be more expensive than the gas taxes paid by the driver of an average new gasoline vehicle.
These punitive EV fees have been pushed in many states by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate-funded group which produces model legislation and voted on a model resolution supporting “equal tax treatment for all vehicles” — a move that bears the fingerprints of the fossil fueled–Koch network.
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The Political Excommunication of Erin Weir Betrays the Face of Modern Political Cowardice
Posted September 11, 2019 by Anonymous
By Eric Cline
Former Saskatchewan New Democrat Minister of Justice
Erin Weir is not well-known outside of Canada. Even many Canadian readers won’t recognize the politician’s name. But the story of how he was smeared and excommunicated by his own political party presents a stunning indictment of political cowardice in the age of #MeToo. And what happened to him could happen to virtually anyone who runs for office.
Weir is a federal Member of Parliament (MP), having been elected in 2015 to represent the Saskatchewan riding of Regina-Lewvan. He ran in that election as a candidate for the New Democratic Party (NDP), which sits to the political left of Justin Trudeau’s governing Liberals, and constitutes the third-largest party in the Canadian parliament. His downfall began on January 30, 2018, the day he announced his candidacy for NDP caucus chair by sending an email to other NDP MPs, and to the leader of the federal NDP, Jagmeet Singh (who, at the time, had not yet become a Member of Parliament). The email set off a chain of events that eventually led to his expulsion from the NDP caucus, and stripped him of the opportunity to stand as a candidate for the party in the upcoming Fall, 2019, federal election. Under the Canadian political system, party leaders are free to unilaterally block candidates, no matter the views of voters or the rank-and-file. Without party affiliation, Weir’s political career is effectively over.
Weir’s undoing was the work of Christine Moore, an NDP MP for the Quebec riding of Abitibi-Temiscamingue. In a reply-all email responding to Weir’s expressed interest in becoming caucus chair, she wrote that she could never support him because “there are too many women (mostly employee[s]) who complained to me that you were harassing to them.” She then added: “As a woman, I would not feel comfortable to meet with you alone.”
Like Weir, Moore was not well-known—except insofar as she already had helped ruin the career of two MPs in Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party after advancing claims that they, too, were sexual harassers (a subject discussed in more detail below). And her new accusation would have come as a surprise (and still does) to anyone who knows Weir, a 37-year-old economist who once worked for the Canadian section of the United Steelworkers union.
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#419 Correctly guessing if that terribly designed door is push or pull
Posted September 11, 2019 by Anonymous
Doors can be trouble. Strutting to the mall, strolling to the store, you spy those glassy doubles in the distance just waiting for you to size them up and give them a big push or pull. Sure, it looks easy, but we all know it’s nothing but. Nope, thanks to years of tense negotiations, backroom […]
The post #419 Correctly guessing if that terribly designed door is push or pull appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.
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Key Facts About the New EPA Plan to Reverse the Obama-era Methane Leaks Rule
Posted September 10, 2019 by guest
Read time: 5 mins
By Dana Nuccitelli. Originally posted on Yale Climate Connections.
President Trump’s EPA is moving to roll back 2016 Obama administration methane leak regulations for key parts of the oil and gas industry, another example of what seems an across-the-board repudiation of Obama-era environmental and climate change initiatives. The new proposal, if made final, is certain to face legal challenges, with its ultimate fate perhaps being decided only by the administration in office in 2021.
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Exploring beyond fear
Posted September 10, 2019 by Anonymous
A cave selfie in the Devil’s Eye Spring in Florida. Cave diver Jill Heinerth has made a career of exploring inside the earth, a vocation that requires her to balance confidence and fear. (Photo: Jill Heinerth)
If I die, it will be in the most glorious place that nobody has ever seen.
I can no longer feel the fingers in my left hand. The glacial Antarctic water has seeped through a tiny puncture in my formerly waterproof glove. If this water were one-tenth of a degree colder, the ocean would become solid. Fighting the knife-edged freeze is depleting my strength, my blood vessels throbbing in a futile attempt to deliver warmth to my extremities.
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Video: Images from space show intense lightning activity inside Hurricane Dorian
Posted September 10, 2019 by Anonymous
A screenshot from a video by Dakota Smith showing lightning activity in the outer bands of Hurricane Dorian. Smith used images from the GOES-16 geostationary satellite to create a video of Dorian’s life cycle.
A new video of Hurricane Dorian from space offers a remarkable perspective on the life cycle of a destructive storm — and highlights how far satellite imaging has come in recent years.
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#420 Using some random thing as some random back scratcher
Posted September 10, 2019 by Anonymous
The middle of your back is no hands land. Those itchy islands off the coast of Spine Beach see a lot of shade and a lot of showers but not much scratchy, scratchy fingernail loving. When you’re itching hard you might try the ol’ Reverse Angle Elbow Bender a couple times before giving up and […]
The post #420 Using some random thing as some random back scratcher appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.
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NOAA Directed Staffers Not to Contradict Trump on Misleading Dorian Claims
Posted September 9, 2019 by guest
Read time: 4 mins
By Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch. Reposted with permission from EcoWatch.
Can the U.S. under President Donald Trump still trust government-issued weather reports?
That’s the question at the heart of a Saturday report from The Washington Post that leadership at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) directed staff not to contradict Trump’s claims that Hurricane Dorian would impact Alabama.
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If There Were Quick, Easy, Flying Leaps That Lasted, You’d Have Already Taken Them
Posted September 9, 2019 by Yoni Freedhoff
The saying is that long journeys begin with first steps, not flying leaps, and if there were flying leaps that routinely led to lasting change, you’d have already taken them.
It’s a straightforward message, but when applied to weight management, diet culture regularly asks us to ignore it.
The inconvenient truth of healthy living is that it will certainly require effort.
Yes, there are likely those who will succeed by changing everything all at once, but for most, slowly building and layering change, and respecting the fact that their roads will absolutely also see their share of disappointments and setbacks, is the way to finally get somewhere.
Your first step might be as small as losing one restaurant meal a week in place of cooking, or trying to reduce your sugar sweetened beverages by 50%, or actually scheduling a day to buy, or a service to deliver, weekly groceries, but if you choose steps you can actually accomplish without suffering, you’re more likely not to fall, which in turn, will help keep you moving forward.
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#421 Singing the guitar solo (or drum solo) (or piano solo)
Posted September 9, 2019 by Anonymous
Never stop wailing. When you’re singing along with the lyrics of a song and a guitar solo starts up make sure you keep onnnnnn going. We can’t have dead air in your steamy morning shower or all the fans will just hear the sound of you soaping up your armpits and blowing your nose. And […]
The post #421 Singing the guitar solo (or drum solo) (or piano solo) appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.
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Saturday Stories: Running While Fat, Running While Female, And Frustrating, Confusing, Israel
Posted September 7, 2019 by Yoni Freedhoff
Kate Brown, in Runners World, on running while fat.
Cara Harbstreet, in Human Parts, on running while female.
David Horowitz, in The Times of Israel, with an incredibly insightful interview with Matt Friedman with some background on how and why for many, Israel may baffle or infuriate.
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Following Pushback, Chinese-owned Chemical Giant Pulls Plug on Massive Plastics Project in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley
Posted September 6, 2019 by Julie Dermansky
Read time: 5 mins
Chinese giant Wanhua Chemical officially withdrew its plans to build a $1.25 billion plastics manufacturing complex in St. James, Louisiana, in the heart of the already industrialized Cancer Alley. The news bought relief to opponents of the plant.
“I’m glad they won’t be coming,” Eve Butler, a lifelong resident of St. James Parish, told me in a call. “I live straight across the river from where the plant was going to be built.” Butler was part of a group of residents, local community groups, and environmental advocacy nonprofits that took part in a concentrated battle to stop the Wanhua plant from being built.
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Quirks & Quarks ‘science in the field’ special — the summer adventures of scientists working in exotic and remote locations
Posted September 6, 2019 by Anonymous
Please note: We are discontinuing our segmented feed. Please subscribe to the whole show feed.
Dodging venomous vipers and plant poachers to study how climate change impacts insects; Searching for dinosaurs in BC’s rockies — and finding grizzly bears instead; When the desert doesn’t bloom fake flowers are a scientist’s solution; A moment of distraction leads to near disaster while studying insects in a tropical paradise; Projectile vomiting birds are among the challenges in studying arctic lakes.
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How an Ottawa photographer helps bring Canada’s pastime to the North
Posted September 6, 2019 by Anonymous
Mark Napier (left) and Lanny McDonald play hockey on the Arctic Ocean with youth from Arctic Bay. (Photo: Michelle Valberg)
Michelle Valberg has been to the Arctic 56 times. The celebrated adventurer, nature photographer and Canadian Geographic Photographer-In-Residence first visited the North in 2009, and was captivated by the region’s beauty and cultures. She has since focused her photography on revealing Northern wildlife, landscapes and peoples to audiences in southern Canada and around the world.
