You are hereArchive - Oct 2009
Archive - Oct 2009
Asterix turns 50: France's popular cultural hero born under influence of friendship, desperation & a great deal of alcohol
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A little-reported ceremony took place a few days ago outside a nondescript apartment block in the Paris suburb of Bobigny. An old man unveiled a plaque to mark the birthplace of one of France's greatest cultural heroes: Asterix.
On 29 October 1959, the first adventure of the diminutive warrior Asterix appeared in the comic magazine Pilote. It was the work of the Italian-born artist Albert Uderzo and his script-writer friend René Goscinny.
According to one of their creators, the small, wily Gaul Asterix and his oversized, clumsy friend Obelix were born under the influence of friendship, desperation and a great deal of alcohol. They met at Uderzo's apartment in the Paris suburb of Pantin to dream up a story and some characters for a comic strip to be published in the first edition of the weekly magazine Pilote. At the time, aside from the Belgian strips Tintin and Spirou, French newspapers carried primarily American comics. The founder of Pilote wanted French children to be able to read stories in which their own culture dominated. 'The Gauls,' they thought, 'liked to have a good laugh, to talk big and were bon vivants. I think we've got something there.' read more »
World Solar Challenge 2009 underway: 1,864-mile solar car race across Australia, part of Global Green Challenge
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The leading cars in this year’s Global Green Challenge solar car race have passed the halfway point in their epic 1,864-mile (3,000-kilometre) race across some of Australia's harshest terrain from Darwin to Adelaide.
The Global Green Challenge - an evolution of the acclaimed World Solar Challenge - is the world's leading, cross-continental showcase of the latest advances in hybrid, electric, solar, low emission, and alternative energy vehicles. The race, which is now in its tenth year, was pioneered by the South Australian Tourism Commission and aims to highlight the latest advances in hybrid, electric, solar and alternative energy vehicles. read more »
"To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival."
To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival.
Vietnam: 1/3 of delta, where 17 mil ppl live, half country's rice is grown, may be submerged if sea rises by 3 ft
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In a worse-case projection, a Vietnamese government report released last month says that more than one-third of the delta, where 17 million people live and nearly half the country’s rice is grown, could be submerged if sea levels rise by 3 feet in the decades to come. In a more modest projection, it calculates that one-fifth of the delta would be flooded, said Tran Thuc, who leads Vietnam’s National Institute for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Sciences and is the chief author of the report. Storm surges could periodically raise that level, he said, and experts say an intrusion of salt water and industrial pollution could contaminate much of the remaining delta area.
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Photos courtesy of AFP / Getty and EPA
Original Source: NY Times
Boston Under Water action: International climate day, Oct. 24, 2009; Flooded Iowa: water up to roof
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For years, scientists have talked about rising sea levels due to global warming - both from warm water expanding and the melt of ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica. Predictions for the average worldwide sea rise keep changing along with the rate of ice melt. Recently, more scientists are saying the situation has worsened so that a 3-foot rise in sea level by 2100 is becoming a common theme.
Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly. - Francis Bacon
Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.
World's first underwater cabinet meeting - Maldives ministers' eye-catching plea for climate change action
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Asked what would happen if Copenhagen fails, the president said, "we are all going to die."
The Maldives government has made an eye-catching plea for climate change action by holding the world's first underwater cabinet meeting.
Politicians from the Indian Ocean island nation donned scuba gear this morning to send a message to world leaders ahead of December's UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. The meeting, chaired by President Mohamed Nasheed, took place around a table about 16 feet (5 meters) underwater. Bubbles ascended from the face masks the president and the Cabinet wore, and fish swam around them.
Humor & cartoons. Q to Planet: "What on Earth's the problem w/ you?" "hands up" "sweating turtles" "fish & fat cat"
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Keep on drawing to a better world - talented humor cartoonist, johnxag (http://www.johnxag.8m.com) , Greece born in Hermoupolis, Syros, Greece in 1962, published in Greece since 1992, in Italy, in Romania, Spain, Cyprus, France, Poland, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, Turkey, Serbia, Russia, Japan, Germany, China and in Azerbaijan.
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Original Source: ToonPool
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