First off, I can’t imagine a world where I would vote for Harper. There are a number of reasons why he will not get my vote, but to be honest, one of the biggest ones is the use of Attack Ads. I hate them. Its ridiculous. He spends all his effort saying how “bad” everyone else is, and little to no effort saying why he is the “good” one. Come on grow up. This is ridiculous.

So I guess, this post is actually directed at all the other leaders. I know that most of what I am about to post is really just a pipe-dream. I am a realist, and know that you need money for this stuff, but if even a small portion of the following could be put into place, it would certainly be a good thing.

Free Recreation

Forget the current tax write-off limit of $500 for recreational programs for kids. Instead fund these recreational programs and make them free! In reality, this could potentially save money in prevention of health issues. There are obesity problems across North America and Canada is no stranger. If Kids could enjoy sports programs, gym memberships, pool passes, etc for free, they would be more active and healthier Canadians. This would ultimately promote a life-long healthy lifestyle which in turn would help eliminate some (not all) future health issues, saving the healthcare system money in the long run.

Environmental Subsidies

The Environment is a hot topic these days. There needs to be better funding for people to do environmentally friendly things. Big government rebates or tax write-0ffs for things like the purchase of hybrid and electric cars, solar panels, solar hot water systems, and other products that can lessen the strain on the environment. There are some programs for some of these things, but they aren’t good enough – they are no where near good enough to convince someone to go this route on these merits alone.

While you’re at it, why not also extend this to things like bicycles and bus passes. These would help keep people out of there cars for there commute. Free mass transit would certainly convince some people to leave there cars at home.

Right now there is absolutely NO financial incentive to be environmentally conscience, and without that financial push, many people just won’t do it.

Legal Marajuana

First I want to say I am NOT a pot smoker, never have been and never will be. BUT, those who smoke pot are going to do it anyways. Period. And this fuels crime related to smuggling, grow ops, etc. It also costs taxpayers millions upon millions in law enforcement.

Just legalize it already. Then tax the shit out of it. Not only will this SAVE money from the removed policing costs, it will be a huge revenue stream in tax dollars. Then use those dollars to further fund health care or education, or some other worthwhile cause.

0% Interest on Student Loans

Why is it that we have interest on Student Loans? There are several countries out there that grant student loans at 0% interest. One complaint people have is that Canadian talent moves south of the boarder for employment. Not all, but at least some of this, would be due to the insane student loan debt that they need to pay off. A 0% interest rate on these loans would help lessen the burden slightly, keeping some of these people here.

This would also help improve the pruchasing power of recent graduates, which helps to stimulate the economy, so indirectly, the government would still get much of this money via other taxes (HST for example).  We would also have a system with slightly fewer bankruptcies, fewer people needing government assistance etc.

Well, thats it for my rants for now. I will put a Part 2 out there soon!

If it started in Canada why do they call it the 100 mile challenge? Should it not be the 100km challenge? Or if you want to keep the distance the same, why not call it the 160.93 km challenge?

My wife was flipping the channels the other day and came across the 100 mile challenge on the food network. For those of you who don’t know what this is, participants are challenged to go 100 days eating ONLY food originating from within 100 miles of where they live. This includes everything right down to raw goods such as flour, sugar, and salt. If the food you eat has preservatives, all those preservatives must have come from within that 100 mile radius.

My wife has decided that she wants to try this for the month of July. I am not sure what I will do without bread – no wheat is grown around there parts – or sugar, or salt! Yikes! They say you can extract salt from sea water, but I dunno…

I get the concept from an environmental standpoint – the less distance food has to travel, the less the carbon foot print, it all makes good ecological sense – I just don’t know if I can go without all those great foods I have learned to love. At least it’s only for a month.

I started to also think about this challenge from a different perspective, the financial one. With all this economic turmoil and crashing economy, it kind of makes sense to keep as much as, if not all, food purchases local. Not only does it help the environment, but it helps the local economy, which is always a good thing.

Up here in Canada we are certainly feeling the economic crunch – perhaps not as badly as our neighbors to the south, but its still impacting things around here. I don’t want to further damage the US economy, but it seems to me that if more Canadians started buying 100% local, or at least 100% Canadian, it would help all of us Canadians out in the end.

So start small, try eating locally. I think after July is over, I will go back to my ways and start consuming imported products again, but I do plan on purchasing more stuff locally where I can.

Have you ever given much thought about the safety of sharks? I know the first thing that comes to my mind when someone says “shark” is Jaws and the idea that these creatures are nothing but dangerous predators who wouldnt give a second thought about gobbling me up for dinner (I suspect I would be quite tasty). In reality though, sharks, just like all other creatures, are a vital part of the food chain, and they in great danger due to over-fishing (if you can call it that) by some of our human counter-parts.

The practice of “shark-finning” is one that I was totally unaware of until a good friend introduced me to his personal activism website, AntiSharkFinning.com. Fisherman are catching sharks in great numbers, cutting off their fins for delicacies such as shark fin soup, and throwing the sharks back in the oceans, fin-less, to drown.

Not only is this incredibly in-humane, it has driven the shark population down by an estimated 90%, and this trickles through the food-chain to cause other issues in our oceans.

Please take a moment and visit AntiSharkFinning.com to learn more and find out what you can do to help.

So my wife and I have recycled and composted for some time now, but more recently have stepped it up a notch.

Before we would throw some paper and tin cans in the trash due to pure laziness. The same went for potato peels, apple cores, and all that good stuff. Just a few weeks ago we decided to go full out. All recyclables are recycled, and all compostables are composted.

What a difference!

Before we were putting out two garbage cans a week for pickup and now we are down to one, and it’s not even full!

Its really amazing what a difference recycling can make. We have found that composting alone is making a big difference. We’re now dumping about 3-4 gallons of food waste into our compost bin a week. If I look at recyclables, we’re filling two large bins a week (about 6-8 cubic feet in total). Again, if everyone recycled, what a huge impact it would really have.

I have always been a fan of doing whatever I can to be environmentally friendly. I am far from perfect, but doing the little things like recycling, and even switching to compact fluorescents, helps me feel less guilty for driving a fossil fuel burning vehicle.

Once hybrids are perfected and less expensive, we’ll move in that direction, but for now they are just not suitable enough for our lifestyle.

I washed my hands today in the kitchen sink and proceeded to dry them on a tea-towel hanging on the stove. I, like most people, do this often. Today I stopped to think – that tea towel is probably not very clean – I probably just made my hands “dirty” again.

I am not a germ-o-phobe so this didn’t bother me. I’ll probably do the same thing again later today – probably more than once, but it did get me thinking.

Which is better, paper or air? Let’s look at the two options, and the three main categories

Environment
I think this is probably the easiest one to answer, obviously the air dryers are best for the environment. I have done no formal studies, but I think the electricity generation required to power the hand dryers probably has less of an impact than the electricity and raw materials used to create the paper towel. Even if the paper towel is made with 100% recycled materials you still have to use electricity to turn those materials into paper, and then fossil fuels to ship that paper, and then you ultimately wind up with all this recyclable paper towel in the land fill.

Germs
I suspect paper towels are the more sanitary product here. Hand dryers; for the most part just blow the bathroom air full speed back at your hands, likely contaminating them all over again. If you’re using a hand dryer that filters and purifies the air, then I suspect that the hand dryer is the least germy choice, but only if your hands get 100% dry.

Functionality
The vast majority of air hand dryers I have used absolutely suck – that is till I tried the Dyson Airblade. I had seen many commercials and thought, hey, its just another hand dryer, then when waiting at a recently revamped BC Ferries terminal, I saw in their washrooms, they had the Airblade installed. I was pleasantly surprised to see my hands 100% dry in a matter of seconds. According to their website, they use a HEPA filtration system, so that makes it clean too.

As far as I am concerned, paper towel is my method of choice, unless the hand dryer is one that actually works.

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I have to say, I am not entirely sure if this is a joke, or if it is a legit interview.

In the wake of a shipping mishap off the cost of Australia, “Senator Collins” was interviewed. I am not sure how to describe the interview, so it is best if you just watch it.

Its interesting though – I am about 95% convinced it is a parody similar to something you would see on AirFarce, or even Saturday Night Live, or something, but 5% of me thinks, it just may be real… You be the judge, watch the video then vote!

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So, every now and then I have the world’s next big invention floating around in my head. Sometimes the idea ends up being 100% totally unique and, then after more thought, turns out to be awful. Sometimes I come up with the best ideas EVER, and then after a little digging discover they have been done before.

One idea I had was to create roofing shingles out of solar panels. You could roof your house using them; they would interlock, and turn your entire roof into one giant solar panel. I thought this idea is perfect, especially with everyone trying to go green – I then found out that solar panel shingles had been done already. (See Here and Here).

Another idea I had was to have a compostable bag liner for your lawnmower. You mow as you normally would, and the liner in your mower bag is filled. Pull out the liner, and stick it on the curb for the city yard waste pick up. Perfect… but then I found a bunch of flaws in this idea that would prevent it from working.

Now I have the new, next big idea. Weight loss is huge, and one of the biggest contributors to obesity is overeating. Why not have a pill that simply flavors your saliva, making it taste like chocolate, beer, cheeseburgers, or whatever else you like, that way you would *think* you’re eating all that yummy stuff, but in reality, you’re not consuming anything!  There are millions of weight loss products out there. One common procedure is liposuction. The cost of liposuction is often not the first choice, but can be just what is needed to finish up a long hard weight loss campaign. Liposuction in the future might use light, or perhaps an ultrasound of some sort to vaporize the fat.

Okay, I know these are dumb ideas – (or are they?) but one of these days the million dollar invention will cross my mind – and, well, I’ll probably do nothing with it.

Well, I am not going to go deep into this one, but the NRDC recently released a study noting that they estimated that gamers use up approximately $1 billion worth of energy per year on gaming alone – yes you heard right, $1 billion!

But hold on there just a minute. A report over at cnet says this figure is rather bloated, noting that NRDC estimated that 50% of gamers leave their consoles on 24 hours a day. What? 24 hours a day? Really? Who on earth does that?

I am not much of a gamer, but I do enjoy playing with my Wii now and then, usually for an hour at a time, (that’s my Nintendo Wii for you perverts out there), I can’t imagine it being on 31. (31, you know, 24 + 7 = 31… you don’t watch ‘Two and a Half Men’ do you?).

Regardless, I don’t argue that a ton of power is gobbled up by gamers, but what about all those other power hungry people, like those using electric lawnmowers, they have to account for something – unplug that drain on the grid and burn some fossil fuels already!