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)

I love the fact that I am Canadian. I have American friends, I love to visit the US, and have nothing against their country, but I would not give up living in Canada, or calling my self Canadian for anything.

I have had job offers in the states offering me more money than I make now, but not only do I like my job, I have no desire to move south of the border, not even for money. And, as of today, I have one more reason to be grateful that I live here. None other than Santa Claus himself has been officially declared a Canadian Citizen by the Canadian Federal Government.

In an official statement, Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration, and Multiculturalism said: ““The Government of Canada wishes Santa the very best in his Christmas Eve duties and wants to let him know that, as a Canadian citizen, he has the automatic right to re-enter Canada once his trip around the world is complete.”

Now I can say I come from the same country as Santa!

2008 was already a leap year, and now, you can tack on an extra second to your clocks, making it officially the longest year since 1992.

At 6:59:59 pm be sure to set your clocks ahead by 1 second to 7:00:00. Mind you unless you can adjust your clock at warp speed, you’ll miss the time change all together.

The extra second being added to our lives will go unnoticed by almost all of society, but for those scientists making precise calculations about stuff, I am sure it will be a very significant factor requiring days and weeks of additional math.

I had never heard of this before, but the addition of “leap seconds” is apparently old news. Since 1972 the world’s time keepers have been adding seconds to our years, sometimes as often as twice a year. This upcoming adjustment will be the first since Dec 31 2008.

The Earth is apparently slowing down ever so slowly and the addition of this second is required by time keepers to keep everything in sync.

I guess that makes me several seconds older than I thought I was. I feel like I have been robbed of a big part of my life. Who can I sue? Can I get paid for all those seconds worked in the past? Maybe I might get lucky and get an extra penny or two for all those unpaid seconds. If not I just may need to make an appearance on Judge Judy.

Not long ago gas was $1.50 a liter, and $150 a barrel. Pretty simple math, a liter of gas at a cost of 1% that of a barrel of oil.

Today, The cost of oil is about $50 a barrel, but the cost per liter is $0.88 – 1.76%. Why is there not a clean ratio here? Seems, that while the price per barrel has dropped substantially, our price per liter has not dropped at the same pace. How can they say they are not gouging – should gas not be around $0.50 a liter today? I would really like to see a very detailed report outlining how gas prices are set – this just aint right.

Also, they say that as the cost per barrel drops, our pump prices will drop, but it takes a few months to see the effect, HOWEVER, when the cost per barrel rises, the pump prises rise over night – why dont they also take a few months to impact us customers?

I just wish that I could park my car and simply not consume fuel – but, as the gas companies know, they simply have us over a barrel.