Environment Canada scientists have apparently been ‘muzzled’ by the Conservative government. Apparently, a couple of scientists have been saying things that caught managers and politicians by surprise. t says all media queries must now be routed through the federal government, where “media relations will work with individual staff to decide how to best handle the […] More »
Sigh, repression in Burma continues. Burmese poet Saw Wai has been put under arrest for a love poem he recently wrote. Turns out he hid an anti-government message in his poem “February 14.” The Guardian has the scoop: The eight-line poem in Burmese is about a man broken-hearted after falling for a fashion model, whom […] More »
Earlier this month the Library of Congress partnered up with photosharing site Flickr. They’ve put up thousands of images to be tagged by the online community. Boing Boing found this amazing image that could have very easily inspired the iconic Rosie the Riveter poster of the 1940s. If you love archival photos be sure to […] More »
The Economist has this piece about the decline of American shopping malls. Some of the problems: oversaturation, changing demographics (suburbs are getting poorer or becoming more diverse), online shopping. Some culture jammers are lopping off the heads of plastic mascots and photos in ads. I’d like to think this is a culture jam, but it […] More »
We ran into this great roundup of drinks inspired by Charles Dickens novels on the Guardian’s book blog. Perfect for those year end parties. Cheers guv’ner. Toronto ad company Taxi are creating coats for the homeless which will be distributed across North America in 2008. From Torontoist: The waterproof, windproof, and plentily-pocketed coat serves as […] More »
With most of Toronto paralyzed by a doozy of a winter storm I’m bringing you an extra large package of links this week: While, most of us probably aren’t thinking about cycling right now, Ontarians are getting a bit of a break when they buy bike stuff. Queen’s Park has removed the 8% PST on […] More »
Advertising is a pretty ubiquitous part of modern life sometimes it’s good: Like this artist who took the subject lines from spam e-mails and turned them into some pretty gorgeous art. Sometimes it’s ugly: Like when advertisers invade your head space. And other times it’s just plain funny. Like when Greenpeace reminds you that sunlight […] More »
The Japanese space agency has these beautiful photos and video of an “earth rise” taken from their satellite Kaguya. For musicians with an eco-conscience, going on tour must come with a twinge of guilt. All that driving around can’t be good. Well one band we like, Toronto/Montreal indie-pop sweethearts, Stars, is carbon offsetting their tour. […] More »
Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing reports on a bank in Delhi run by street kids. The kids get to save a bit of money (which otherwise would be squandered or worse stolen) and learn valuable skills. Let’s face it long-form magazine articles are pesky. I mean c’mon we all know everyone buys magazines for charticles […] More »
First the bad news you already know, the mainstream media is an awfully concentrated place, with most of the stuff you watch owned by the same batch of people. Case in point, this chart and article done by U.S. lefty mag the Nation. Now, bad news you don’t know. Apparently emo-pop band Death Cab for […] More »
Every single time I see an abandoned bike in Toronto I’ll think of this project that sends bikes to Rwanda. This week on the frontier of biofuels… The first biodiesel jet takes flight! What about using algae… to fuel the plane? Finally, can we turn some of those shipping containers into homes? More »