... why British political parties get to have more fun with their commercials than anybody else. Start here
Update: Too good to be true.
Toyota is dubious, and doing it just might void the warranty on a $30,000 car, but a group of Prius enthusiasts have found that it’s actually possible to top up the battery by plugging it into a wall outlet:
The whole idea of a hybrid-electric car like a Toyota Prius or Honda Civic Hybrid is that you don't need to plug it in, eliminating what many people would consider an inconvenience. The battery is charged when the small gas-engine component of the vehicle kicks in, as well as through a complex process called regenerative braking that captures energy when the brakes are pressed.
But according to a recent story in the Christian Science Monitor, a small group of hybrid owners has begun to tamper with the cars, modifying them with plugs so the batteries can be charged overnight through a standard wall socket. This allows the vehicles to travel further in a zero-emission, battery-only mode before the gas engine is required.
It raises the question: Why aren't hybrid cars being built with the plug-in option?
full story
CSM article here:
In effect, these backyard mechanics have turned the hybrid car's appeal on its head. Instead of emphasizing gasoline over electric power and the convenience of today's cars, they're aiming to create less polluting higher-mileage vehicles that emphasize electricity over gasoline - even if it's a bit less convenient.
"One guy I know plugs his Honda hybrid into a windmill for power," Kroushl says. "It costs him practically nothing to drive."
(With all due respect to the zero-emission vehicle people, who I accept are basically on the side of the angels: the electricity their cars run on was made by burning coal, among other things. These are coal-fired vehicles. Hardly the maker’s fault, but still.)
the Free Stanley people might actually get somewhere in court.
Colby quotes from their legal opinion:
We are of the view the trustees of the cup, Mr. O’Neill and Mr. Morrison, act as fiduciaries. As such, the trustees may not simply exercise their power in favour of those objects who "happen to be at hand or to claim their attention." ... In our opinion, the Memorandum of Agreement entered into between the league and the Trustees on June 30, 1947, is not only voidable, but void.
... The simple fact the trustees sought to relieve themselves of the duty of custody as to who should compete for the Stanley Cup is not, in our view, sufficient to suggest the NHL has control over the trophy. The trustees were not entitled to delegate their powers and discretion in such matters and the agreement, as such, is not valid at law. Moreover, the present trustees have a duty, in our view, to seek to set aside the agreement and restore the terms of the trust.
see also: justiceforstanley.ca
It's potentially the basis for a pretty good PG-13 movie. The Mighty Ducks beginning with a courtroom drama – something along those lines.
So, yes, I watched the thing.
The St. George’s Chapel part was a bit of a fudge – it seemed to have been designed to have a lot of the look and feel of the Anglican marriage service without actually being one. If you weren’t paying a lot of attention, it would have been easy to jump to the conclusion that it was in fact the wedding. CP’s story began:
WINDSOR, England (CP) - After a two-month engagement riddled with headaches and hiccups, Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles finally made it to the altar on Saturday in a wedding that had flashes of the majesty of the prince’s first wedding and attracted crowds of cheering well-wishers.
I guess that once you say that a couple can come from the registry office to have their civil marriage blessed in church, which is fair enough, all things considered, you leave the door open to having a couple come to have their civil marriage blessed in a 14th-century chapel by the Archbishop of Canterbury with a full choir and string orchestra on live TV and troops presenting arms.
Charles looked gloomy and trapped, like a great morose turtle. Camilla had a perfect gray poker face. Harry looked murderous at one point, but I thought the sons showed a certain amount of generosity in showing up at all to ‘face the woman with whom their father had carried out an adulterous affair while he was married to their mother, now painfully taken away from them,’ as Angry in the Great White North put it.
The service began with a general confession and absolution, which seemed to be a fudgy sort of half-reaction to the Bishop of Salisbury’s demand that Charles apologize to Parker Bowles’ ex-husband. In other words, the pair acknowledged and bewailed their manifold sins and wickednesses, at least in principle, kneeling upon their knees, meekly or otherwise, and without burdening us with the details (the tabloids took care of that, I guess). At the same time, all 800-odd people present did too, including William and Harry. Rowan Williams absolved them all on the bulk economy rate, and the service carried on.
Salisbury explained why he didn’t think that was good enough, and I see his point.
The Diana cultists are creepy – one showed up with a placard reading
ANNUS HORRIBLIS
MA’AM, WE NEED YOU
PUT RIGHT THIS WRONGDOING
MAKE WILLIAM YOUR SUCCESSOR
but, honestly, Charles and Camilla deserve them, as a kind of karmic payback.
The succession is up to Parliament, not the Queen, but you can see what she meant.
Englishwomen of a certain background have a weakness for wearing hats on occasions like this which always end up looking like mushrooms, over-wrapped Christmas presents or waterfowl. Camilla’s daughter was wearing an indescribable object like a hollow dried flower arrangement on her head, easily as big as her head itself. It tilted a bit - whether deliberately or through structural failure wasn’t clear. The CBC’s camera crew kept focusing on the confection, I think in alarmed fascination – I don’t know where you’d see anything like it on somebody’s head in North America outside of a performance art event. (Update: C. says it looks like a Grade 3 school project on the solar system, quickly slapped together the night before it was due.)
(In today’s Star: Jennifer Wells and Lynda Hurst compete to describe the essential awfulness of the whole story. Hurst wins on points, if only for the savagery of the last few grafs, but they’re both worth a look.)
One of the many problems with the heir to the throne is that while he wasn’t man enough to keep his expensively tailored pants on when he ought to have, he also didn’t have the stones to look us all in the eye and sin boldly, as Charles II would have done. (The man employs a servant whose duties include putting the royal toothpaste on the royal toothbrush – this one fact tells us much.)
Charles owes Rowan Williams for putting his credibility on the line and bailing him out – I hope Williams gets something useful out of it.
All I can say is: my monarchist instincts, such as they are, may not survive the current monarch. Queen Beatrix, anyone?
Paul Wells explains everything you'll need to know about the British election.
from Vatican Press Office Bulletin 184:
Present at the moment of the death of John Paul II were: his two personal secretaries Archbishop Stanisław Dziwisz and Msgr. Mieczysław Mokrzycki, Cardinal Marian Jaworski, Archbishop Stanisław Ryłko, Fr. Tadeusz Styczeń, the three nuns, Handmaidens of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who assist in the Holy Father's apartment, guided by the Superior Sr. Tobiana Sobódka, and the Pope's personal physician Dr. Renato Buzzonetti, with the two doctors on call, Dr. Alessandro Barelli and Dr. Ciro D'Allo, and the two nurses on call.
Whoever they might be.
