I was impressed and surprised by the Nationals episode, 3rd season.

Paradise by the Dashboard Light. Brilliant.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

“Pinball Wizard”, by Unique and Vocal Adrenaline, insanely great.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I could end this TV series right now.

The beautiful losers. Are winners.

Header image is called The Old Wild Stampede.

Photo by Stuck in Customs. A travel photography site by Trey Ratcliff. I’m subscribed.

Next week I’m honoured to be a Gymnastics Saskatchewan coach at Nationals, being hosted in my newly adopted home town of Regina.

I have two girls competing, Bre Franklin and Mia Dimas. Cheer us on.

George Zimmerman bloodied and bruised, files show
Gunman who killed Trayvon Martin suffered a broken nose from a fight

For the first time I’m starting to wonder if he did (recklessly) use a gun in self-defense.

MARILYNN MARCHIONE – AP – Coffee drinkers live longer, big study finds; regular and decaf are equally good

Remember the housing meltdown? Tough to forget isn’t it. The formula for the housing boom and bust was simple. A lot of easy money being lent to buyers who couldn’t afford the money they were borrowing. …

Can someone please explain to me how what is happening in higher education is any different ?

Its far too easy to borrow money for college. Did you know that there is more outstanding debt for student loans than there is for Auto Loans or Credit Card loans ? That’s right. The 37mm holders of student loans have more debt than the 175mm or so credit card owners in this country and more than the all of the debt on cars in this country. While the average student loan debt is about 23k. The median is close to $12,500. And growing. Past 1 TRILLION DOLLARS.

We freak out about the Trillions of dollars in debt our country faces. What about the TRILLION DOLLARs plus in debt college kids are facing? …

The Higher Education Industry is very analogous to the Newspaper industry. By the time they realize they need to change their business model it will be too late. Higher Education’s legacy infrastructure, employee costs /structures and debt costs will keep them from being able to re calibrate to a new generation of competitors. …

The Coming Meltdown in College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Any Time Soon

Controversial. Read the many, many comments on that post.

But I think Cuban’s got a good point. In 10-20yrs Universities will be far different than today. What we are doing now is unsustainable.

Shouldn’t we send in the Aircraft Carriers?

It worked so well for Vietnam and Iraq. …

My opinion is that we should do everything non-violent to protest the brutality of North Korea. Gandhian resistance.

A new book brings this issue to the attention of the general public:

Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West.

North Korea is isolated and hungry, bankrupt and belligerent. It is also armed with nuclear weapons. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people are being held in its political prison camps, which have existed twice as long as Stalin’s Soviet gulags and twelve times as long as the Nazi concentration camps. Very few born and raised in these camps have escaped. But Shin Donghyuk did.

In Escape from Camp 14, acclaimed journalist Blaine Harden tells the story of Shin Dong-hyuk and through the lens of Shin’s life unlocks the secrets of the world’s most repressive totalitarian state.

Shin knew nothing of civilized existence-he saw his mother as a competitor for food, guards raised him to be a snitch, and he witnessed the execution of his own family. Through Harden’s harrowing narrative of Shin’s life and remarkable escape, he offers an unequaled inside account of one of the world’s darkest nations and a riveting tale of endurance, courage, and survival.

Symbolic of the grandiose stupidity of Soviet Communism.

Check some of Timothy Allen’s photos.

… In September 2011, the Bulgarian cabinet transferred ownership of the monument to the Bulgarian Socialist party.

Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boyko Borisov declared, “We shall let them take care of it because here it also holds true that a party which does not respect its past and its symbols has no future”.

They have still not come to an agreement about what to do with it.

To date, every year at the end of July, 30-40,000 Bulgarian Socialists still congregate at Buzludzha to mark the founding of the Bulgarian Social-Democratic Party.

read more – Human Planet

… “We need a toilet with a big … capacity,” he boomed.

I went crimson. “We have a dog,” I added hastily. …

Kate of Late – Talking about the big white telephone

… Another of the crazy things folks get up to on the left coast of Canada. I told them to get a robo-dog in the first place.