CBC News Windshield crack forces landing in St. John's

CBC News - Toronto - Windshield crack forces landing in St. John's

I was on this flight. I have to say the captain was very calm about it and knew exactly what to do. He explained that there was a crack in the windscreen and he had descended to a lower altitude to relieve the pressure but had to turn around back to St. Johns as we would not make it on fuel.

It was a scary hour and a half until we got back to St. Johns and the captain did a real nice job of landing the plane, very gentle it was indeed. We were held up for about 12 hours in total but the airline took care of us, we had a nice hotel where I was able to get some much needed sleep and they gave us a 100.00 dollar voucher towards our next flight, so all in all, it worked out ok.

I have just seen the picture for the first time of the crack and it looks really bad. There but for the grace of..... go I.

The Portal of Healing.

Baby Turns Up The Music

Baby Turns Up The Music

Baby Turns Up The Music @ Yahoo! Video

This is wonderful! Yeah crank it up and dance!

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Pouring on the Pounds

BBC NEWS | Americas | Anti-obesity ad shocks New Yorkers

"Sugar-sweetened drinks can contain up to 17 teaspoons of sugar per 550ml bottle. Obesity can lead to early heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, cancers, stroke and arthritis."

From the Portal:

Just two quotes from an article highlighting the damage the convenience, fast food life style is doing to many people. New York state is leading the way with this campaign and encouraging local business to sell fresh fruit and veg. The problem is, if you cannot afford the good food, what do you do?

Education is important, people need to know what harm some food is doing to them. They need to know that obesity is not an option, it is a death sentence.

But people need to be able to access real food, without colouring and preservatives, free from genetically modified ingredients AND at a price they can afford.

When or if the government of any country makes that happen, then there will be hope for people with obesity. Instead of letting the food companies and the pharmaceutical companies acquire gross profits through the fact that they provide medicine for people with obesity, tax those companies more heavily and invest in local people by encouraging them to grow their own vegetables and fresh produce, as they do in places like Havana Cuba see here: http://theportalofhealing.blogspot.com/2009/08/urban-vegetable-garden-in-havana-cuba.html.

Probably what will happen is those same companies will use all their power and wealth to block any such schemes. People have to be responsible for what they eat but as I said, if you can only get rubbish food what can you do?

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Carl Sagan - A Glorious Dawn ft Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed)

Now for something completely different! Have you ever wondered where we all came from? How we got to be here?

Lyrics:

[Sagan]
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch
You must first invent the universe

Space is filled with a network of wormholes
You might emerge somewhere else in space
Some where else in time

The sky calls to us
If we do not destroy ourselves
We will one day venture to the stars

A still more glorious dawn awaits
Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise
A morning filled with 400 billion suns
The rising of the milky way

The Cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths
Of exquisite inter relationships
Of the awesome machinery of nature

I believe our future depends powerfully
On how well we understand this cosmos
In which we float like a mote of dust
In the morning sky

But the brain does much more than just recollect
It inter-compares, it synthesizes, it analyzes
it generates abstractions

The simplest thought like the concept of the number one
Has an elaborate logical underpinning
The brain has it's own language
For testing the structure and consistency of the world

[Hawking]
For thousands of years
People have wondered about the universe
Did it stretch out forever
Or was there a limit

From the big bang to black holes
From dark matter to a possible big crunch
Our image of the universe today
Is full of strange sounding ideas

[Sagan}
How lucky we are to live in this time
The first moment in human history
When we are in fact visiting other worlds

The surface of the earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean
Recently we've waded a little way out
And the water seems inviting

Who - Won't get fooled again 1971

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again,
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie

There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

A classic song, a fantastic lyric which is still relevant and a brillaint arrangement especially that electronic sound!

Sting sends his Rainforests SOS for The Prince's Rainforests Project

I have previously blogged about this massively important issue for us all. Everyone must keep applying pressure on all the politicians to change what is happening with the rain forests.

We must stop deforestation as it is and will continue to effect climate change for the worse. Please go to the Prince's Rainforest Project website which can be found here http://www.rainforestsos.org/ and sign up, send a message of support and do whatever you can to stop the deforestation.

The Portal of Healing

Kodō japanese drums

Kodō is an elite taiko drumming troupe. Based on Sado Island, Japan, they have been a major force in the post-World War II revitalization of taiko drumming, both in Japan and abroad. They regularly tour Japan, Europe, and the United States.

In Japanese the word "Kodo" conveys two meanings: "heartbeat" the primal source of all rhythm and, read in a different way, the word can mean "children of the drum," a reflection of Kodo's desire to play their drums simply, with the heart of a child.