The Linkage for March 9th

Here’s a quick look at what I was reading online from January 12th to February 19th.

Astros mourn nun who kept faith in team
Sister Damian Kuhn, long-time Astros fan and retired nun, has passed away just shy of her 90th birthday.

7th Doctor says his era was a little political
All you conspiracy theories about the liberal media trying to brainwash our nation’s youth have been confirmed – well, twenty years ago in a different country. Sylvester McCoy, the actor who played the Doctor for two years in the 1980s, has revealed that left-wing scriptwriters hired by the BBC wrote propaganda into the plots in an attempt to undermine Margaret Thatcher’s premiership.

Banker keeps his job after sharing his smut with the world
An Australian banker caught viewing erotic images in the background of a live TV interview will keep his job, his employer has said. David Kiely became an internet sensation when a television interview, showing him looking at images of a nude model on his computer, was posted on YouTube.

Latvia auctions off military ghost town for $3m
Latvia has sold an entire town once used by the Soviet military as a base. The deserted town formerly known as Skrunda-1 was auctioned off to a Russian firm for $3m – about 10 times its list price.

Now they’re screwing with Monopoly.
First they took the pickle off of Heinz bottles. Now, they’re messing with Monopoly. Can’t we just leave well enough alone?

Scientist uses fiction to help explain discovery to the masses
Astronomer Dr Megan Argo was part of an international team that detected a powerful jet of energy from a star exploding in a distant galaxy as a catastrophic supernova. It’s exciting stuff, but a little technical in detail, so that’s why Argo has decided to introduce the discovery in the form of an original Doctor Who story published on her personal blog.

The quickest way to fail an art course
A woman who was taking an art class at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art accidentally fell into a Picasso painting and damaged it. D’oh!

Key MP3 pioneers unveil new music file format
Finally converted all those LPs, tapes and CDs into MP3s? Good, it’s time for another format to take over.

China won’t stand for anti-government propaganda in just two dimensions
China has pulled the 2D version of Avatar from its cinemas amid claims the plot mirrors forced land evictions in the country – but for some reason they’ve left the highly profitable 3D and IMAX versions untouched. I guess that extra dimension helps soften the blow of Cameron’s tree-hugging.

The nerdiest sweater vest in the world
I’d wear one of these (although its probably for the best I don’t know anyone who can sew at this level). The Boy’d wear it every day of the week.

England holds its first trial without a jury in over 350 years
For the first time since the 1600s, a criminal trial is being held in England without a jury. Arguing that a jury might be tampered in the airport cash heist trial, the case is being heard by only a judge using a measure passed in 2003. As you can imagine, folks are up in arms.

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