Stephen Hawking says the Earth is doomed

TECHNOLOGY - Famed astro physicist Stephen Hawking says the Earth is doomed and that mankind should flee to space. (We disagree with the doomed bit.)

But really, if you're at all familiar with some of his previous public statements, you'd probably also know he's lost touch with reality and is "off his freaking rocker" so-to-speak. Some of his comments are logical, but other times you'd swear he's been smoking something.

According to Stephen Hawking the human race is angry, gluttonous and growing too fast, destroying the planet and risking extinction via nuclear war. To avoid extinction, Hawking insists that people must colonize space within the next two centuries.

“It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn’t have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet,” says Hawking.

Likely candidates for colonization are Mars, various moons surrounding Jupiter, asteroids floating in space and after that it becomes more difficult because we will have to terraform planets to become warm enough to support life.

The next nearest solar systems are 4 lightyears away and with our current technology its unreachable in a single lifetime.

NASA however believes it would be easier to build space stations and harvest minerals/water from asteroids and planets that are uninhabitable. Space stations orbiting the sun would be able to support life, gain solar energy... the only real trick would be food production, which means life in space would have to be mostly vegan because milk and meat would be unheard of.

Meanwhile more quotes from 68-year-old Stephen Hawking give you a glimpse of a man who has become obsessed with humans exploring space.

"I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image." - Stephen Hawking.

"Although September 11 was horrible, it didn't threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do." - Stephen Hawking.

"The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?" - Stephen Hawking.

"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." - Stephen Hawking.

"We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special." - Stephen Hawking.

Sh*t My Dad Says

By Ai Lung Nguyen - May 2010.

ENTERTAINMENT - Sh*t My Dad Says is a Twitter page wherein Justin Halpern, a 29 year old man in the USA posts quotes from his 74 year old father who lives with him. The quotes are so humourous and popular that CBS is now turning it into a TV pilot starring William Shatner as the father.

Here is a few sample quotes from the Twitter feed:

"Stop trying so hard. He doesn't like you. Jesus, don't kiss an ass if it's in the process of shitting on you."

“It’s Los Angeles, son. It’s the epicenter of the asshole earthquake. They’d fuck you twice if they had another dick.”

"Waking up when you got a baby, you feel like you drank a bottle of whiskey the night before, except the shit's in someone else's pants."

"I didn't say you were ugly. I said your girlfriend is better looking than you, and standing next to her, you look ugly."

"Don't ask for my opinion then. I said congrats on the car, just saying nobody's panties are getting wet from a fucking Honda Accord."

"War hero? No. I was a doc in Vietnam. My job was to say "This is what happens when you screw a hooker, kid. Put this cream on your pecker."

"HIDDEN roaming charges? Jesus, Sprint has 'fucking people' down to a science, like they practice it in a fucking lab on mice first."

"Science and Mother Nature are in a marriage where Science is always surprised to come home and find Mother Nature blowing the neighbor."

"Don't mess with him...Trust me, you don't fuck with a man that sleeps next to a woman he never screws. They're unpredictable."

General Rick Hillier criticizes Stephen Harper

CANADA - Canada's former top general who retired in 2008 after serving Canada in Afghanistan has written an autobiography and its shining a light on corruption and mismanagement within Stephen Harper's office.

Hillier has had a distinguished military career. He first tried to enlist at the tender age of 8. He had to wait until he graduated high school at the age of 17. Early on he commanded a NATO tank unit in Germany. In Afghanistan he commanded 6,000 troops in 2004 and was promoted to chief of defence staff in 2005.

Hillier is a man's man, he spoke plainly and bluntly and he is not the type to hide the truth. Hence why his autobiography is so important.

According to Hillier he encountered a lot of bureaucratic nonsense when dealing with the Stephen Harper's office, largely due to a combination of office politics (different bureaucrats who are too busy stabbing each other in the back) and an air of utter incompetence.

He also discovered Stephen Harper liked to meddle in military affairs...

1. Like trying to prevent the flag-draped coffins of soldiers from being seen when they are brought back to Canadian soil and the military ceremonies associated with that. Harper wanted those images censored. This was apparently Hillier's "line in the sand" because it meant Harper had no respect for fallen soldiers.

"Look, don't bring the Airbus in, or if you bring the plane in, turn it away from the cameras so that people can't see the bodies coming off, or do it after dark, or do it down behind the hangars, or just bar everybody from it," Hillier quotes the PMO staffers as saying. "They clearly didn't want that picture of the flag-draped coffin on the news."

It is Canadian military policy that every Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan will be honoured as a war hero. Harper's disrespect for soldiers was the last straw for Hillier and prompted his early retirement at the age of 53.

2. Bureaucratic interference risking the lives of soldiers in an effort to make Stephen Harper look good.

3. That Stephen Harper knew about torture allegations but chose to simply ignore them because he was too worried about bad press and his image.

4. It was Stephen Harper's decision to move Canadian troops from Kabul and reposition them in southern Kandahar province, where they are now at much more danger of being killed by roadside bombs. "It had already been largely decided that the Canadian presence in Afghanistan was shifting to the southern half of the country," Hillier writes.

5. Hillier also has tough criticism for NATO, saying the military alliance is rife with political posturing and corruption, including Canadians from the Prime Minister's staff who are more worried about making a name for themselves and schmoozing than actually fighting/winning the war.

6. Hillier also said it was "embarrassing" that Canada has to beg for equipment from other countries because Harper's approach to the war is all for show and he isn't willing to spend anything on equipment that will save the lives of Canadian soldiers.

The book "A Soldier First: Bullets, Bureaucrats and the Politics of War" is scheduled to be released next week.

Climate Change Quotes

"Soon will come a day when climate change escapes all control. We are on the verge of the irreversible. Faced with this emergency, the time is not for half measures. The time is for a revolution: a revolution of our awareness, a revolution of the economy, a revolution of political actions." - Jacques Chirac, former French President.

"The new report gives us a stark warning that the potential impact will be more dramatic, faster and more drastic in terms of consequences than previously thought. This will change in some parts of the world the fundamental way in which we live." - Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environmental programme (UNEP).

"This report is a comprehensive and accurate reflection of the current state of climate change science." - Sharon Hays, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, US.

"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from
observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures,
widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level3." - IPCC, Synthesis report

"If the last IPCC report was a wake-up call, this one is a screaming siren." - Stephanie Tunmore, Greenpeace International.

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell.

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For more information about climate change and how it will effect tourism, check out the following PDF:
The Climate Change Challenge: Implications for the Tourism Industry

Shotgun wedding as Vice-Presidential nominee's daughter announces she's pregnant

John McCain's running mate Sarah Palin announced today that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is five months pregnant. There's also an internet rumour that Palin's youngest son, born in April, was actually her daughter's son.

A statement released by the McCain/Palin campaign said that Bristol Palin will keep her baby and marry the child's father in a shotgun wedding. Bristol Palin's baby is due in late December.

The disclosure of the pregnancy came on the opening day of the Republican National Convention, scaled back because of Hurricane Gustav, and three days after McCain named Palin as his running mate. Other news was likely to overshadow the disclosure.

"Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family," they added. The father was identified in the statement as Levi, but the campaign said it was not disclosing his last name or age, sparking concern that the boy might be either quite young or even an incestuous relative.

Sarah Palin's fifth child, a son named Trig, was born in April with Down syndrome (also sparking rumours of incest in the Palin family). Internet bloggers have been suggesting that the child was actually born to Bristol Palin but that her mother, the 44-year-old Alaska governor, claimed to be the mother.

Palin spokesman Bill McAllister emphatically denied rumours of falsifying birth records and incest.

"Senator McCain's view is this is a private family matter. As parents, (the Palins) love their daughter unconditionally and are going to support their daughter," said McCain spokesman Steve Schmidt.

The advisers said Palin told them about the pregnancy during lengthy discussions about her background. At several points during the discussions, McCain's team warned Palin that the scrutiny into her private life would be intense and that there was nothing she could do to prepare for it. If the birth was the result of incest it would be necessary to refute it strongly in the effort to avoid scrutiny.

Prominent religious conservatives, many of whom have been lukewarm toward McCain's candidacy, predicted that Palin's daughter's pregnancy would not diminish conservative Christian enthusiasm over the vice presidential hopeful.

"I think it's a very private matter," said Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America. "It's a matter that should stay in the family and they have to work through it together."

NOTE: We have not changed or altered Roberta Combs quote at all. She actually said "It's a matter that should stay in the family"... after all, if you can't keep it in your pants, keep it in the family...