How to Destroy 4,703 Brand-New Cars

It all started about two years ago, when a ship carrying 4,703 shiny new Mazdas nearly sank in the Pacific. The freighter, the Cougar Ace, spent weeks bobbing on the high seas, listing at a severe 60-degree angle, before finally being righted. The mishap created a dilemma: What to do with the cars? They had remained safely strapped down throughout the ordeal -- but no one knew for sure what damage, if any, might be caused by dangling cars at such a steep angle for so long. Might corrosive fluids seep into chambers where they don't belong?

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"I'm thinking - world largest demolition derby!"

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Batman vs The Dark Knight Trailer

Why so similar?

How the Black Death Changed the World

Seven thousand people died per day in Cairo. Three-quarters of Florence's residents were buried in makeshift graves in just one macabre year. One third of China evaporated before the rest of the world knew what was coming.

By the time the tornado-like destruction of the 14th-century bubonic plague finally dissipated, nearly half the people in each of the regions it touched had succumbed to a gruesome, painful death.

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"Interesting read - some points I'd not thought about before."

A panoramic view of Dundas Square in Toronto

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Ninja Cat Strikes!

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Seven Reasons Why I’m Becoming a Polygamist’s Wife

By: Shyla Batliwalla

I want to become the wife of a polygamist. After the high-profile raid in Texas cast a disapproving light on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), everybody’s got a bone to pick with the polygamists. I, on the other hand, am jealous of their rustic and charming lifestyle. I yearn to live au naturale clad in a strapping turquoise dress with a hand-braided up-do. It’s official—I’m going to join the commune and live a life that’s back to the basics.

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"Note to the humourless - this article is written tongue-in-cheek."

How much your groceries will cost in 10 years

However much you hope that the food crisis will go away, it's difficult to ignore this week's headlines warning us that the era of cheap food is over. But which of the staples in our shopping basket will be worst hit?

The general picture is that most items will go up, some more significantly than others. With oil at $117 a barrel and rising, so are the costs rising of the three Fs of farming: feed, fuel and fertiliser. “We're in a unique situation in which numerous problems are coming together,” says Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at City University. We're not just facing rising oil prices and water shortages, but the changing dietary habits of the developing world as it becomes richer, combined with land being used to provide crops for fuel rather than food, and climate change bringing drought to countries such as Australia.

There's no doubt that we're going to have to spend more on food. And yet, compared to other parts of the world, we're lucky.

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"Sigh - higher gas prices, higher taxes, higher natural gas and electricity costs and now groeceries - one wonders how much you have to earn a year to be simply sufficient and not 'poor'?"

The Untold Story of How the Canadian Government Sabotaged Barack Obama

This is the largely untold story of how the Harper government, with the help of a television reporter, sought to sabotage the candidacy of Barack Obama. Many of the facts of this story are on the record, in pieces, from disparate sources. What is untold is how those pieces fit together into a coherent narrative. And it is only with this narrative that the severity, and maliciousness of this incident is revealed.
Ian Brodie was probably exhausted. "Budget day" was winding down and prime minister Stephen Harper's chief staffer had spent weeks negotiating a deal that would stave off an election challenge from the Liberal opposition. Now he was standing around chatting with reporters from CTV who were enjoying a rare bit of face time with the normally inaccessible Mr. Brodie. These were the circumstances in which an off the cuff remark would create an international crisis.

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"This doesn't look good..and the fact I've only read about it here lends some credence that the gov't may wish to hide it....or perhaps it's making a mountain out of a molehill? Still, we shouldn't interfere with American politics in the election year - not our business."

The $300,000 Watch That Doesn't Tell Time

A $300,000 watch? Luxury. A $300,000 watch that doesn’t tell time — and that sells out? Pure genius. wiss watchmaker Romain Jerome just launched the “Day&Night” watch. The watch won’t tell you what time it is. That’s so yesterday. But it does tell you whether it’s day or night — helpful, I guess, for billionaire types who can’t afford windows.
As the company’s Web site boasts: “With no display for the hours, minutes or seconds, the Day&Night offers a new way of measuring time, splitting the universe of time into two fundamentally opposing sections: day versus night.”

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(And now, a new way to waste your money for those who got tired of $250 H2o Bling water)