Welcome to another Link-Friday. Having Link-Friday on a Friday would be a pretty
novel idea if you ask me. Ok, not
really. But, for anyone who has followed
my blog for any length of time, you already know that the day doesn’t matter –
as long as there are links, its Friday.
So, to avoid subjecting you to any further ramblings about the real
definition of “Friday,” here are your links!
Our first link is left over from the election. I know, I know… You thought that you were finished hearing
about the election. Well, some people
got together and tried to make it so every state would have the same
representation and value in elections by re-aligning the country to reflect
states by population. That’s right… Let’s redefine our nation so every state has
equal pull in the next election to eliminate three states having the ability to
disproportionately influence the success or failure of a candidate. The idea is novel and gimmicky and really has
a snowballs chance in Hades of ever happening, but for those who follow
politics it’s a fun little thing to look at.
Enjoy.
What’s more fun than playing Star Wars with Legos? Practically nothing as it combines the best
of both worlds of geekdom – science fiction and engineering. However, if you are Turkish, the Lego
Jabba-The-Hut set has been declared racist and anti-Muslim. That’s right, the Turkish Government has
decided that something that recreates a movie scene from a movie released in
1983 has just now become anti-Muslim and racist because it looks like an
existing building. Have we really gone
that far over the edge with political correctness? What’s next?!? Are Wiccans going to protest The Wizard of Oz
because of how it portrays the various witches in that movie? Hopefully my example (which is not meant to
offend anyone) shows just how absurd our society has become. However, as of today, the current addition of
the Jabba’s Palace Lego Play Set has been discontinued…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/austria/9820517/Lego-accused-of-racism-with-Star-Wars-set.html
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/01/17552848-toy-model-of-jabba-the-hutts-palace-resembles-a-mosque-group-says?lite
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/01/17552848-toy-model-of-jabba-the-hutts-palace-resembles-a-mosque-group-says?lite
This next link I kept pushing back to a later Link-Friday
post for a while now. It’s about a group
of friends who have been playing tag for the last 23 years. Yup, that’s right, a 23 year game of
tag. Apparently they have quite a few
“special rules” as to who, what, why, when and how they can tag each other and
not to mention the fact that being spread out all over the country complicates
things. It’s pretty cool that despite
all the obstacles to actually playing they have managed to keep their boyhood fun
going.
When this next story turned up on KSL I intentionally
avoided it due to the subject matter – bullying. I’ve watched my children be bullied during
their time in public schools and really didn’t want to read another depressing
story about someone being bullied. Eventually,
however, I broke down and read the article and, boy, I’m glad I did. The article is about a world famous poet who
is trying to do something to eliminate bullying. I really liked this message and have shown
the video to my three oldest children.
Besides the initial link to the KSL article I’ve also included a second
link to the YouTube video with the poet’s message.
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=24161258&nid=1010&title=animated-poem-shows-life-long-effects-of-bullying&fm=home_page&s_cid=queue-16
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltun92DfnPY&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltun92DfnPY&feature=player_embedded
My next link is to an article about Robo-Sparrow. Yes, researchers had a taxidermist hollow out
the body of a dead sparrow and fit it with motors and such to simulate a live
sparrow. They did this to research the
courtship and mating rituals (territorial fights, etc) between sparrows. It’s actually a pretty cool idea if it
weren’t for a little movie I saw while a teenager – The Terminator. Isn’t this the type of thing that Skynet did
to create robotic human assassins? Ok. I
know I’m stretching things a bit, but…
And finally I end with an interesting link about food. This is an article of the 20 worst foods that
you can order while at a restaurant.
Some of these items have 2000+ calories – and that’s just for your appetizer. Ouch.
So hopefully this will serve as a public service announcement and deter
someone from making these mistakes the next time they’re out to eat… (But to be fair, some of these mistakes are
delicious!)
Wow, six links instead of five this week. At the risk of sounding repetitive, wow… If you don’t normally follow my links please
take the time, just this once, to click on the bullying link. It is well worth it.
And on that note, take care and be safe until next time.
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