There are a lot of funny emails that circulate, and they often find their way back time and time again.

Today I received one such email from my friend, I’ll call him … Bill, cause thats his name. This email is about questions people have asked about Canada and were originally posted on some official international tourism website,  (according to the email). Supposedly the questions are real, but the answers were intended to be a joke. I am not sure how true any of this is, but regardless, the Q and A below is still an entertaining read.

Q: I have never seen it warm on Canadian TV, so how do the plants grow? ( England )
A. We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around and watch them die.

Q: Will I be able to see Polar Bears in the street? ( USA )
A: Depends on how much you’ve been drinking.

Q: I want to walk from Vancouver to Toronto – can I follow the Railroad tracks? ( Sweden )
A: Sure, it’s only Four thousand miles, take lots of water.

Q: Is it safe to run around in the bushes in Canada ? ( Sweden )
A: So it’s true what they say about Swedes.

Q: Are there any ATM’s (cash machines) in Canada ? Can you send me a list of them in Toronto , Vancouver , Edmonton and Halifax ? ( England )
A: No, but you’d better bring a few extra furs for trading purposes.

Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racing in Canada ? ( USA )
A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe Ca-na-da is that big country to your North….oh forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is every Tuesday night in Calgary Come naked.

Q: Which direction is North in Canada ? ( USA )
A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees Contact us when you get here and we’ll send the rest of the directions.

Q: Can I bring cutlery into Canada ? ( England )
A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do.

Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys’ Choir schedule? ( USA )
A: Aus-t ri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is…oh forget it. Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir plays every Tuesday night in Vancouver and in Calgary , straight after the hippo races. Come naked.

Q: Do you have perfume in Canada ? ( Germany )
A: No, WE don’t stink.

Q: I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Where can I sell it in Canada ? ( USA )
A: Anywhere significant numbers of Americans gather.

Q: Can you tell me the regions in British Columbia where the female population is smaller than the male population? ( Italy )
A: Yes, gay nightclubs.

Q: Do you celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada ? ( USA )
A: Only at Thanksgiving.

Q: Are there supermarkets in Toronto and is milk available all year round? ( Germany )
A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of Vegan hunter/gathers. Milk is illegal.

Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Canada , but I forget its name. It’s a kind of big horse with horns. ( USA )
A: It’s called a Moose. They are tall and very violent, eating the brains of anyone walking close to them. You can scare them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking.

Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go? ( USA )
A: Yes, but you will have to learn it first.

If you have never checked out TED.com, you should do so. There are presentations from professionals on nearly all topics, and most are extremely interesting.

The latest one I saw that I found very interesting was Dan Buettner, How to live to be 100+.

Here’s the video:

We are a world of fat people. It’s true. (at least around here). It seems that the overweight far outnumber those who are not. I think much of this has to do with being lazy. We eat fast food cause we are too lazy to cook. We drive our cars cause we are too lazy to walk or bike. We take the elevator or escalator cause we are too lazy to take the stairs.  If we weren’t a lazy society, we would not be overweight!

This video is great, and shows that if you put a bit of fun into it, the laziness disappears and people actually get exercise!

On one hand I think people need to lighten up to a degree – society today is so touchy. A person can’t say anything without offending someone else. Political correctness has really gone way to far. Terms and phrases that were once used in a proper way are being banned because they offend people. We can’t even talk about the past without someone getting all up in arms. Its ridiculous.

On the other hand, some times people and groups take it just a little too far. The following ad was apparently created by a Brazilian advertising agency for the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) to try and drum up some business.  Supposedly it was never meant to go public – well it did.

The ad is very powerful if you think about it. I can certainly see what the creators were thinking, and while I agree with the message, I am not convinced that the world, or at least the US is ready to make light of the 9/11 attacks…

What are your comments on this banned ad?

Okay, first let me start off by saying I am not a pervert. BUT As any warm blooded male, I of course enjoy the opposite sex, and looking at the opposite sex.

But above all that, I believe that we should live in a society where not just different races are treated equally, but also genders.

That is why, if a woman wants to walk around topless, I say let her. I am sure my man-boobs are far more offensive than the chests of most women, and if I can legally walk around without a shirt on they should be able to as well!

A friend on my FaceBook posted a link to this site, and it was the inspiration of this post. Gotopless.org is a US organization, claiming that women have the same constitutional right to be bare chested in public places as men, and while I honestly do not think they will ever succeed, I wish them luck.

On second thought, I should think about this for a moment – No offence Grandma, I love you, but seeing a bunch of 90 something women walking around topless is not exactly something I really want to see. (To be perfectly fair however, I don’t exactly want to see a bunch of 90 something men topless either…)

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It seems odd to me. The Canadian government spends countless funds on so called “free” health care. The truth is, no, it is not free. Cheap yes, but free – no. I pay $108 a month for my wife, daughter and I, in MSP (Medical Service Plan) premiums. This is mandatory. In exchange I can walk into any hospital in Canada and be treated without having to ever EVER pull out my credit card.

I admit, that $108/month is a good deal when it all boils down to it.. I am not trying to knock the system, but it certainly is not free.

But I think that that MSP premiums could be eliminated if the medical system could cut costs. Probably the biggest way to cut costs would be to reduce the number of patients. You can reduce the number of patients by having a healthier society. If you want a healthier society, why not offer tax breaks for things that can improve overall health: recreational programs, gym memberships, etc, and tax the crap out of things that are bad for you; Candy, fast food, alcohol, smokes (I know booze and cig’s are taxed like crazy as it is, but tax them more, and make it harder and harder to smoke – I hate that stuff soooo much)

If the government allowed you to write off anything that would improve your health, the money they lose in taxes would be far outweighed by the money they save in health care costs.

Whoops! In a post the other day I screwed up saying that next week it will be time to set your clocks BACK an hour – my bad, I must have been low on sleep, cause you are supposed to set your clocks AHEAD 1 hour. Not sure what I was thinking.

A reminder to everyone living in places where daylight savings is in effect. It is now March, and in one week it will be time to turn your clocks back 1 hour!

On the wee hours of Sunday March 8, 2009, its time to gain that extra hour, so don’t forget, or you will end up going to work Monday morning an hour early!

If you are interested in a bit of history behind Daylight Savings, check out my post from back in October: “Daylight Savings Explained“.

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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A few weeks back I wrote a little post about Chimeras. A Chimera is a person who is born with two different sets of DNA. The DNA may be split up throughout different parts of the body and can result in patches of different colored skin, internal organs with entirely different DNA, or even in some cases can result in hermaphrodites (people born with both male and female sex organs). In a conversation I had with my wife last week I got to thinking about this.

If a person has split DNA, one of a male, and one of a female, I had to wonder if this is what could lead to homosexuality. If the part of the brain that determines sexual orientation had the DNA of a Woman, but the rest of the person had the DNA of a man, would this make the man gay?

People who have two sets of DNA (Chimeras) are a relatively recent discovery, and because the different set of DNA can be hidden pretty much anywhere, it would be very difficult to prove. They suspect this phenomenon to be rare, but seeing as how so few people go through DNA testing, and that it would be virtually impossible to test every part of ones body and internal organs this is something that could be far more common than we could ever know.

Political Correctness
For the record, I am not sure if the word “homosexuality” is politically correct, and for that matter I am not even sure if we are supposed to say “gay” any more. All I know is that what I have written here is not meant to be offensive in any way. Let’s face it, homosexuality is not “normal”, at least at the most basic levels of nature. The meaning of life as I see it is about reproduction and a same sex relationship does not result in the spawn of offspring. As a result, in order for someone to be gay would there not have to be something different about the inner workings of their brain? The whole “Chimera” thing, at least to me, seems like a plausible answer as to what makes a person gay.

I am not saying that there is anything wrong with women dating women, and men dating men – if that’s your preference, all the power to you, I support same-sex marriage etc – everyone is equal and should have the same equal rights. I am just saying that when it comes to the fundamentals of life, being attracted to the same sex is not “normal” and as such there must be some answer as to why this happens.

(If you are offended by anything I have said here, drop me a comment on this post and let me know your view – I am curious to see how other people feel about this)