Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Calculating the Odds of Death

An actuarial company in Atlanta, attempted to calculate the life expectancies of Obama and McCain. One of the great features of McCain as a president, is that he is so old and unhealthy that he will probably only be president for one term. Obama is not likely to be ravaged by the beast of old age, but some speculate he might have to worry about assasination. In the history of US presidents there have been very few that have deviated from these typical characteristics: white, rich, militarily colored and protestant. The only two catholics to ever be in office, were both assasinated (McKinley and Kennedy).

Here are the odds of dying for McCain and Obama by the end of serving 8 years:

McCain: 25%
Obama: 6%


(visual simulation of John McCain having a stroke)

However, the firm recognizes some errors in their reporting. They said that they could not factor into the analysis, the fact that once becoming president one recieves the best healthcare in the world.

Monday, September 29, 2008

SpaceX rocket reaches orbital atmosphere from earth, cures cancer, revives jesus

Recently the company SpaceX (today, actually) launched a rocket. They've had three failed attempts before this, but now, they have set the record for the first privately owned company achieving earth orbital altitude and attitude. The only reason they didn't go for orbit was most likely NASA certification or something. So what does this mean?

To me, I'm excited at the possibility of exploring the final frontier masterfully and intelligently and wish we'd have a space tax added to our payouts. I can imagine the riots if the proposed "space tax" were actually added, and yet at the same time... dollar a day from 523 million people in North American is still a shitload of money we could be using to make rocket ships and ninja space machines and stuff and it really pisses me off at night when I need to be furious at something and this sentence is out of hand.

But seriously, that's beautiful. With a company evolving so fast, and planning on launching a 6 man capsule soon, I have no doubt that we'll be kicking ass Mass Effect style in no time and I can finally score with a blue chick. Commander Anderson.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

What party works for Graham?

Well let me tell you: I don't know. I honestly don't. I have a hunch the liberals will pump the most money into the arts and sciences, but I also think Dion is the worst possible choice for prime-minister with the exception of Layton. But Layton is irrelevant now anyway, and Harper is viciously slashing arts funding, so I'm stuck wanting the policies of a party without wanting their leader. Even the green party will be cutting arts funding a wee bit, and that blows more chunks than Lindsay Lohan drunk in a blow job factory full of guys named chunks.


So, Hark, what are your thoughts? Who should an artist vote for?

The colour yellow in relation to hunger caused in humans in mostly temperate climates, as explained by Graham

I have no idea if this is an original idea, and even if it's not I came up with it independently because I never read studies unless they're about penguins, or my professor made me.

So I was driving through Fish Creek (I was actually walking) and I noticed that, shockingly, the trees were red and yellow. This is caused by the dip in temperatures we have in autumn as the tree's chloroplasts stop producing chlorophyll and instead make something that ends in "ase". Or some jazz. The important fact is this:

It gets colder

Trees create warm colors.

Trees are generally green when not yellow, red, or aflame.

Now with those three key facts, I think we're about to explain something. But we're missing one more fact about the human brain: the colors red, yellow and orange have the psychological effect of appetite stimulation, uneasiness, restlessness and increased blood-flow. The color green, however, IS the most calming color the human psyche, and also the color we can distinguish the most shades of. Is anyone else thinking what I'm thinking?

The reason those colors make us feel that way is because it's getting colder. We need to stock up on fat and all that stuff, we need to migrate to warmer areas. Without even realizing it, I think people living near deciduous trees are subconsciously conditioned to stock up on fat and get the fuck out of there the moment the fireworks start. We can see the most shades of green because as soon as shit gets green, we sit down, build a hut, and relax. It's that simple. We're in tune with natures thermometer. Wow! What a hypothesis!

BUT WAIT!

What about Africans? What about people in insanely warm climates? I wonder if this interaction could even take place with people not originally from a northern forested area. Theoretically, this cannot be a base instinct from our monkey ancestry, because we originated in east Africa, an area not really known for it's brisk autumns and chilly winters. So I postulate that people from climates that do not experience seasons the way we do are not affected by color/food response, and just wing it.

WHICH MEANS THIS:

McDonalds scheme of painting the insides of its buildings red and yellow to make people uneasy and hungry so they'll eat and leaf, haha, will probably only work on white folks from deciduous-ly forested areas. Discuss.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Human Highway-The sound

Human Highway is a Canadian Band that has named themselves after a movie that Neil Young made back in the 80's. In my opinion, they have this years best song released by a Canadian Independant artist in "the sound". The song is a roller coaster ride. It takes you through quirky, mellow moments that sound distinctly like the fiery furnaces. It then rushes into extremely catchy 21st century poppy harmony. When this song peaks in its catchy chorus, i wish i had johnny depp to throw my radio into the bathtub. check it out and tell me what you think.

-hark

Thursday, September 25, 2008

I forgot what happened this Morning?

Does anyone remember what i ate for breakfast? It was either ego waffles or an english muffin. Or maybe it was chocolate milk. Did i remember to put on pants this morning? I don't even remember if my alarm clock went off. Usually i wake up to CBC news in the morning. Surely i would have heard something about the economic crisis in the states. Did i even leave my house? I must have because i write you this article from my school library.

-hark

Personal review of an object found in nature: Small brown sparrow sitting near the bench I was myself sitting on.

First of all, I'd like to get something out of the way: this sparrow simply cannot be compared to the sparrow from 10 minutes ago. I found the first sparrow captivating, intelligent, cheeky, and in no way lacking character. Unfortunately, budget problem and a stint in development hell seem to have sidelined and diluted what was once an excellent example of small arboreal forest omnivorous birds found in Alberta. I simply cannot relate to this new work by an otherwise excellent director, and will not be viewing said sparrow a second time. **/*****

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Video Game Review: Hordes of Orks


It's a pretty simple concept for a video game. They've taken one of the most beloved creatures from the LOTR movies and created a video game about them.

Orks start running towards you in enormous quantities, some are small and some are big. Your job is to build towers towers and walls that injure the orks, and prevent them from getting to the other side of the screen.

There is no progression through the game; just an easy, medium and difficult setting. There are no levels. This best option is to just turn it on difficult with an infinite amount of time and see how many orks you can kill.

Computers were invented for one reason: porn. but if there was a second reason, it would definitely be killing hordes of orks. You can probably get a free trial download of the game on the net.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Every Party is Promising something new Today

The liberals are promising to spend 1.25 billion a year on child-care. They are also promising 200,000 scholarships for students and longer time to pay back student loans.

The NDP is promising to spend 1.4 billion dollars on child-care.

And the Conservatives are promising to stop the sales of 4 packs of cigarillos. Harper says that this makes it too easy and accessible for kids to get tobacco. instead, manufacturers will have to sell the cigarillos in packs with a minimum of 20.

The Liberal and NDP promises are huge, while the conservative promise is miniscule in comparison. The Libs and NDP are dealing with widespread social programs involving billions of dollars while Harper is dealing with childish habits. However, Harper's tobacco speech included many attacks on how the new NDP and liberal parties promises would put us into debt. The attack portions of Harper's speeches are one-hundred times more important for conservative victory than any of the miniscule promises the conservatives have made thusly. it is truly amazing how far ahead the conservatives are in the polls, considering that they have not promised anything of significance yet. Last election they promised visible ideas like GST reduction, allowances for daycare, and money for parents with kids in sports. Harper has no promises but only attacks on the other parties. But its working. Here's the most recent polls.

Today Nanos is reporting Conservatives at 38 liberals at 31.
Also today Ekos is reporting Conservatives at 38 liberals at 23.

Monday, September 15, 2008

New CP Poll

A New Canadian Press/Harris DEcima poll is being reported on the net that shows the conservatives have slipped from majority territory. but my trusty-old site www.nodice.ca is not reporting this poll. They have published another canadian press/harris decima poll that shows the conservatives at 40 percent; which is borderline majority territory.

"According to the latest Canadian Press Harris-Decima rolling survey, conducted Sept. 11-14, Tory support slipped to 38 per cent from 41 per cent over the past four days... Liberal support rebounded slightly to 27 per cent, up three percentage points. "

Every time conservatives hit the wall and majority talk begins, they soon start to slip. This back and forth on the conservatives will be common up until october 14th.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Issues with Polling Media

Last Canadian election i used a website called nodice.ca for all the pre-election polls. I find it helpful in determining how Canadians are reflecting to the media surrounding the parties. However, over the past 5 days i have noticed there has been no updating of the polls on their site. During election times there are polls being released everyday; typically nodice would be reporting these.

if you go to their website on this years election: http://www.nodice.ca/elections/canada/
one can see their last day of updating the polls was september 9th. That day, the conservatives had 37% of the popular vote, the Liberals 26%, the NDP 19%, and the green party 10%.

However this was said on a friday article on cbc.ca:

"in the Harris/Decima survey, the Conservatives showed a lead nationally of 41 per cent of public support, followed by the Liberals at 26 per cent, while the NDP were at 14 per cent."

these polls were conducted three days after the last updated poll on nodice. Harris/Decima is a poll that nodice always has reported in the past.

The new Harris/Decima poll suggests that the Conservatives have broken into majority territory. However it is not being reported by nodice.ca. To whom's advantage is it when a poll showing a conservative majority is not being published? Any talk of majority could scare voters away from the conservatives. But it also could potentially show the lack of leadership and ability of Dion to attract voters.

Either way, polls this early on in the election mean very little. Last election at around this time, the Liberals had a strong 10 point lead over the conservatives, and the conservatives ended up fighting back to win the election.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Election Smellection

Over the next 34 days we will be pestered by news about the canadian election. and unfortunately, hockey season will only be able to drown out 4 of those days. i am looking forward to the canucks flames season opener on thanksgiving weekend, much more than the election. That's not to say i dont care about the election. but the home opener is going to be fucking amazing. Bertuzzi against his old team=epic. But because i am a poli sci student, and because i have no political affilitations this website is the perfect site to get all of your updates on the election. Just so you understand where i am coming from, last election i voted conservative. And in my heart i still have a tenderness for crazy parties like the rhinoceros and the marijuana party; but only because they stand absolutely no chance but they still keep on trying. Kind of like the Toronto Maple Leafs. But i promise i currently have no party affiliation, because that would be bad journalism/bloggeerism. Here's my rundown of all the parties that matter:

Conservatives: so far they have done nothing to remedy the boringness that has plagued stephen harper in the past. they have run a few ads where stephen harper wears a sweater to remind canadians that he's an everydayman. and they cut the cost of deisel. but nobody uses desiel and its a really dirty gas that is bad for the enviroment. They probably have a few surprises left in the cupboard though.

Liberals: stephen dion is slowly but surely finding his grasp of the english language. the liberals are really hoping that they can turn this election into a green election. if this can be done, they will surely win. they pretty much have an alliance with the green party, and for some reason they want elizabeth mae to be able to be in the debate. on the surface it seems like a rise in mae's popularity would take votes away from the liberals. but when you look at it deeper, adding the green party to the debate would be turning this into more of an enviromental election. an election that the conservatives can't win. but are canadians ready to make the enviroment the most important issue in politics? probably not, but maybe the hypnotic david suzuki can change their mind. if david suzuki throws his support to the liberals, then dion will be prime minister.

Bloc: Gilles Duceppe who? in semi-recent provincial elections, the separatist party was wiped off the map. maybe this will happen on a federal level. and maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.

ndp: haven't heard too much from these guys yet. not many ads or big posters in victoria. if the green party gets more votes, they should steal most their votes from the ndp. if the liberals get more votes because of their green platform, they will also steal a lot from the ndp. the ndp might have a better enviroment policy than the liberals, but the big red liberal machine will throw those facts in the garbage and leave them for future generations to clean up. canada is definitely becoming more left, but im not sure that the ndp have the right leader to capitalize on this. they need an obama type... everybody needs an obama type.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Less intelligent people have more and less intelligent children and it's fucking things up


Sarah Palin's daughter is pregnant. This is not what I want to talk about. I don't care about how this affects her mom's politics, because it shouldn't. Her dumbass daughter is not her terrifying evangelical mother, she's just some kid. Jamie Lynn Spears, as well, is pregnant. This matters even less.

What matters is what those two have in common: They're both stupid.

Now hear me out. Statistically (I don't do citations, google it yourself and go away) less intelligent people have more children than people who's IQ rating is classified as "above average" or higher. Unfortunately these same people are often in the lowest income brackets, and thus have more children with less money. These same children, statistically, become fairly obese. This is not to say that smart people are never poor, because history has taught us that the opposite. It's a one way street, dumb often equals poor, but poor does not equal dumb.

So, statistically (I cannot stress the statisticallity of this enough) dumber people are poorer, fatter, and treat their uteruses as clown cars. Now, this normally would not bother me, because these people are often self isolating. One prime example is the entire cast of roseanne. They've done a very good job of failing almost completely at being attractive, intelligent, or financially responsible (with the exception of John Goodman, who was excellent in Oh Brother Where Art Thou and of course, The Big Lebowski. In practice however, these statistically overweight, dumb and (sadly) under-funded people are killing the planet. Because the best and brightest are having babies once in a blue moon, and only when their RESP is full, we're increasingly stuck with a shitload of big dumb babies that are reproducing exponentially faster than the clever people are. Now logically, since neither me or my partner on this blog have children or excess weight, we must therefore be very intelligent, and thus part of this group that is rapidly going extinct. We're both pretty poor, but it appears to be by choice for us both, or else we'd be engineers, so we still get smart poitns.

Now in a few generations, you're going to see a north american continent filled with pissed off poor dumb overweight people with 25 kids, and pretty soon that fellow Thomas Malthus is looking pretty damn smart.