It's time for an Oko-tober Fest!

Only the top left motto is real!

Okotoks is a town in Alberta, Canada. It recently unveiled a humble new tourism motto:

“There are a number of things to do in Okotoks.” 

The folks at the Calgary Herald thought that was pretty funny, and they came up with their own riffs on it!

I wonder what garbage collecting is like in the Great White North.

Oh man, this is too good to be true!

From Awful Library Books.

This Posting Is Daring! Respectful! Keen!

I like the motto of D. Roy Kennedy Public School: “Daring! Respectful! Keen!”

But how does that motto match up with the Ontario school’s new policy of not allowing balls on the schoolyard? (Because, you know, balls are dangerous and stuff.)

I’m afraid that means the new school motto will have to be “Not as daring as previously advertised! Still respectful! Keen to put balls into permanent storage!”

The Many Uses of a Bicycle

Cadbury is raising funds to send 5000 bicycles to Africa. More pedal power to them. (You may want the short video to finish buffering before playing it.)

Yet Another Belgian Pre-Adolescent Alert!

Next time you have to pass a group of edgy-looking pre-adolescents on the street corner of a U.S. city, relax. American kids are peace-loving compromisers who are vastly less likely to initiate trouble than, say, Turkish or Icelandic youths.
I base this on the World Health Organization’s study of the “fighting habits” of 11-year olds from 41 countries. (There’s a summary here in the Economist. That’s its chart, BTW.)

As you can see, an 11-year old American boy is half as likely to get in a brawl as a French-speaking Belgian girl. (One off-site wag suggests that “American kids are too obese to form a fist, let alone throw a punch.”) Another big North American surprise is Canada’s relatively high rating. One reader from the Great White North posits that Canadian kids are more prone to fisticuffs because they play hockey. Could be! (That might also explain Russia’s high achievement in belligerence.)