Time to share something fun. Chickens intervene in bunny brawl. A dumb chicken can do it. Why can’t kids in a schoolyard?
With Easter around the corner, don’t you want your picture taken with a nice cuddly bunny. Check here for some truly scary moments!!
So how do people go about deciding for whom they are going to vote?
I think that a lot of people have a die-hard dedication to a particular political party and vote accordingly. These people have minimal interest in political debate or rhetoric and don’t really consider issues beyond the platitudes and neat sound bytes that are provided by the people they support. I’m not even sure that a lot of people understand and consider the political ideology of the party they are supporting and the implications of left wing and right wing politics.
Choosing the recipient of your vote should be a very serious matter. The act of voting is an important part of democracy, but more importantly, not thinking when you vote renders the other parts of democracy impotent. What’s the point of media scrutiny, debates and research if it is ignored by everyone except the converted?
When casting a vote, I believe that the following things should be seriously considered:
1. What is your political ideology? On the right wing to left wing spectrum, where do you fit?
2. Does the particular candidate that you are voting for and the team behind him/her have the skill to conduct government?
3. Has the particular candidate that you are voting for the the team behind him/her demonstrated good leadership and integrity, to be worthy of representing you in a government?
These are the three inescapable questions. They interact, in that the team that represents your political ideology may not be the team that demonstrates integrity or leadership. In that case one has to consider priorities or consider what kinds of changes you might be able to make in order to bring the team in line with your beliefs. That is the nature of democracy, -active participation. So many people say that their vote doesn’t make a difference, or that they can’t really do anything. Is this just complacency? When one notices that the system is broken, one can sit back and hope someone else will fix it, or one can get involved and try to effect positive change.
News reports on Earth Hour show that it was met with a dim level of participation this year. I turned out my lights and lit my candles, but then again I like blackouts.
I also took a drive around the community to check out the scene in a small suburban town, away from the hype of the big city.
What I found didn’t surprise me. Far less than 50% or the houses were blacked out or dimmed, and a lot that were, probably were away on a Sat. evening. A few apartment buildings were the easiest to gauge and here again more than half of the unit windows were illuminated with many of the dark ones just not being home.
But my main interest was in the industrial and commercial areas. I was surprised at how many businesses are still open at 9 p.m. on a Saturday night. Fast food places, hotels, bank machines, convenience stores all really were not in a position to extinguish their lights, and these made up almost half of the total businesses visible. Of the other commercial stores, only a few had street signs turned off (which would be really easy to do). Box stores were fully lit up, including their empty parking lots. In the industrial park, businesses that didn’t operate on the weekend were lit up like daylight, especially their mammoth parking lots.
A few cars here now, but it looks the same at 2 a.m.
One unexpected and pleasant surprise was my bank. It’s advertising signs were turned off, except for the lights immediately around and above the bank machine. I don’t know whether this is a regular power saving policy, but it was the kind of thing I’d hoped to see.
Generally, when I drove downhill into the town of Newmarket, or looked at Toronto from a high vantage, there was no real difference from its normal bright illumination. I’m sure many people felt the same way, which is clearly going to dampen enthusiasm, not to mention inspiration.
Energy reform starts with big business. Getting the public excited is important because it makes it easier to put pressure on big business, but that’s really all. There are lots of questions out there about whether even our recycling program has a significant environmental impact. Until big business gets in line with environmental priorities, grass roots initiatives are going to be a drop in the bucket.
PW's Rants 