Author: Steve Murray

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IndyCar – IndyCar World Championship 500: Always a Bridesmaid, Finally the Bride

indycar-2014-fontana-power-championWe’re used to a certain level of nearly unopposable domination from Will Power since he’s started in the IndyCar series. With only eight full-time seasons in American open-wheel, he’s already made it into the top twenty of all-time winners. Despite all the wins, he couldn’t quite put it all together for a championship.

The 2014 season wasn’t a typical Will Power season. While he started out the season strong, he had a massive slump through June and July that put teammate Helio Castroneves lead the title chase for the second half of the season. However, it wasn’t the typical late Will Power slump but an atypical resurgence that saw Will Power claim his first IndyCar championship.

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F1 Power Rankings: Italian Grand Prix

After the last race, all the Formula One fraternity and fans want to know about is whether Mercedes is about to implode. With Nico Rosberg haphazardly colliding with Lewis Hamilton with the early stages of the Belgian Grand Prix, the two seem ready to come to blows on track. I’d imagine that the pair are at great risk of doing something stupid. Daniel Ricciardo for 2014 World Drivers’ Champion perhaps? Well, not according to this week’s power rankings.

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Wednesday Link-Off: A Happening

erin-heatherton-oceandrive14-01It’s a slightly abbreviated edition of the Wednesday links today. Today’s linkdump is basically about one thing. Whether you call it CelebGate or The Fappening or the biggest leak of celebrity nude pictures in the history of the internet, it’s been dominating the news and we have a fairly in-depth set of links about the story. No, there aren’t any links to the pictures but I’m sure that you don’t need help finding them.

Anyway, let’s get to the links with someone not in the scandal. Here’s Erin Heatherton.

While the original story is that The Fappening was a massive iCloud hack, that may not be true. The latest story is that this was a leak from an underground celebrity nude pic trading ring. The funny thing is that’s somehow more plausible than a massive hack of iCloud. (Gawker)

Even though The Fappening caught everyone off guard, warning signs were out there for weeks. Deadspin was approached by someone who had been offered Jennifer Lawrence nude pictures in an exchange. (Deadspin)

Members of Reddit’s CelebGate subreddit, /r/TheFappening, raised money for cancer research because it was supposedly a supported charity of Jennifer Lawrence. Instead, the Prostate Cancer Foundation gave back over $6,000 of donations because of who it came from. According to the Prostate Cancer Foundation, these guys are actually worse than cancer. (Mashable)

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Ice Bucket Challenge Fails of the Week

Every so often, an ice bucket challenge goes horribly wrong. Of course, as I’ve mentioned, the fact that people are dumping cold water on themselves in the middle of summer rather than making the $100 donation kind of defeats the purpose of a viral fundraiser for ALS.

While most Ice Bucket Challenges are, to a greater or lesser extent, fails, some are just plan old regular fails. So here are five videos of the most epic Ice Bucket Challenge fails.

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Sunday Link-Off: Working for the (Long) Weekend

danielle-knudson-bodycentral14-06It’s time for the final long weekend of the summer. Get your white wearing done this weekend because it’s Labour Day weekend. I’d say that you should also get some barbecuing in this weekend but the weather is shit now but it’s really been kinda poor all summer.

Anyway, it’s Sunday so that means that we’re here to do the links. Let’s kick things off with Canadian model Danielle Knudson.

Writing a gaming blog, I’ve been reading all about misogyny in gaming for the last couple of weeks and it got to the point that there was no other news people were reporting so I’ve taken a short break to let the news refresh itself. However, gaming is far from the only remaining home of misogyny. One US Senator has revealed that she’s being sexually harassed by fellow lawmakers. (Think Progress)

Rob Ford is back in the Toronto mayoral race. Could he make the comeback of the century. (ThreeHundredEight)

The sad state of Frosh Week at my old haunt of UWO… Move-in volunteers aren’t allowed to touch a box with alcohol branding on it for fear of the photo being spun against UWO by saying university students drink. (National Post) Oh, and The Gazette was drivel when I went to Western and it should surprise anyone that it’s still pissing people off now.

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Where We Donate vs. What Kills Us: An Infographic

Yesterday’s column about viral fundraisers omitted one important argument about why these massive viral fundraisers are a problem. While it’s great that some $80 million has been raised over the last month thanks to the Ice Bucket Challenge, ALS affects only a very small portion of the population but is now eating up a massive part of the charitable donations people might have made during the year. After all, money doesn’t grow on trees.

The other problem with viral fundraisers is that it disproportionately overfundraises for diseases compared to how they affect society. Sure, there are people who would be quite justified to advocate for their causes. For example, the ALSA has, in the last one month, pulled in about half of what the American Heart Association has raised over the last 12 months. The number of ALS diagnoses over the next year will be less than 10% of the deaths from heart disease over the next year. It’s just not proportionate to what affects the health of the population.

To give you a little food for thought, here’s a handy little infographic for your perusal.

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The Problem with Viral Fundraisers

ice-bucket-challenge-headerYou have to have been under a rock to have not seen the latest fundraising campaign to take the world by storm. Everyone from the pop culture icons to athletes to random guys down the road from you have been posting videos of them doing the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

The problem with the Ice Bucket Challenge is that many people seem to be missing the point of the Ice Bucket Challenge. It’s supposed to be a fundraiser for your national ALS society or fundraising group. However, many people are guilty of just dumping a bucket of water on their heads, posting the videos online and having a laugh for their 15 seconds of fame with complete disregard for the cause.

It’s not just the ice bucket challenge but the whole idea of needing a fundraising or awareness campaign to actually make headway for your charity is really sort of sad. And the biggest problem with viral campaigns is the sort of “slacktivism” that hides the real goal of the campaign.

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Wednesday Link-Off: Two Sides to Every Border

emily-ratajkowski-oceandrive14-02There are lots of big news stories on both sides of the border. In Canada, Tim Horton’s is going to become quasi-American which is worse than us burning down the White House. Meanwhile America is still going through problems with police and media dealing with black men, especially when it comes to Ferguson, Missouri.

Anyway, it’s time for us to do the links. Let’s start with the return of Emily Ratajkowski.

The New York Times’ article about Michael Brown and their portrayal of him in said article shows the problem with how black men are portrayed by the American media. (Mic)

While Deadspin looks into police killing data, D. Brian Burghart has already attempted to do so himself. He’s found it quite hard to gather objective data but has come up with a few conclusions that should surprise no one. (Gawker)

We all have this romanticized vision of the undercover cop and spy. However, the sentiment isn’t so romantic when you’re the one being had by an undercover cop. Here’s the tale of an undercover cop who walked out on his fake family. (The New Yorker)

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IndyCar – GP of Sonoma: One Little Mistake…

indycar-2014-sonoma-dixon-victory-laneIs unpredictability a bad thing? I’d imagine that this is a question that the higher-ups at IndyCar have to ask themselves every so often. After all, given his dominance at Sonoma heading into the weekend, a pole position on Saturday and a massive points lead heading into the race, Will Power winning the Grand Prix of Sonoma was a foregone conclusion.

However, all it took was one little mistake by Will Power to deny his chances at victory and almost turn the championship on its head. Then again, one little mistake ruined any chance Helio Castroneves had of capitalizing on Power’s issues.

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F1 Belgian Grand Prix: The First Rule of Motorsport

Does anybody know what the first rule of motorsport is? DON’T TAKE OUT YOUR TEAMMATE! When you’re driving for a team, the worst thing that you can do is to take out your teammate. It doesn’t matter if it’s accidental or intentional, you won’t win any new friends in your garage.

But that’s exactly what happened in the Belgian Grand Prix. Nico Rosberg clipped Lewis Hamilton on an aborted overtaking move into Les Combes which punctured the Brit’s back tyre and ripped off the German’s front-wing endplate. The fracas resulted in both Mercedes being taken out of contention for the win and the season’s only other race winner, Daniel Ricciardo, picking up his third win of the season.

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