Know Your Rights!

Here's a cool video of the complete Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I think it's important that everyone knows these rights so that they realize when these rights are being broken. It's important for people to know that these rights aren't being followed in some countries so that they can maybe do something about it.

New Tailing Ponds Regulations

Sorry, I'm a bit late on this topic, you've probably already heard of it, but I'd just like to add some things.
In case you didn't know, some new regulations have been put in place to make the tailing ponds used by the oil industries in northern Alberta to become greener. Even though this sounds kind of good, many environmentalists aren't happy. There has been a law in place for 40 years that says that any land that has been used by oil companies must be returned to their original state. But, in those 40 years, no land has been replaced. So, if no one followed that rule, how do we know they are going to follow this one?
Also, this regulation says that oil companies must reduce the fine particules in the tailings water by only 50% in 4 years. OK, yes, that would be a huge improvement, but who knows how many more incidents like this one will happen in 4 years?
So, yes, it could be great if the companies actually follow these legislations, but don't you think some steps should be in place to eliminate the waste being produced in the first place?
For more information about the new regulations, here's a news article about it: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Technology/Tailings+ponds+green/1251260/story.html

Did You Know?

This is a interesting/overwhelming video that asks many questions. Did you know that by 2049 $1000 computer will exceed the computational capabilities of the entire human species? But what does it all mean?

RMR: Canada Explained

Here's Rick Mercer's "Canada Explained" part on tonight's episode. This is a good lesson for those who don't know how Canada's Parliamentary System actually works!

Get Educated

My mom works for the Legal Resource Centre and they recently put out some new infromation on their websites about the Coalition Government idea and about the Prorogation of Parliament.
I thought that I'd post them on here because it seems like too many people (especially too many people in Alberta aka. the Alberta separatists) are saying things about this even though they don't know much about it.
Here's some FAQs about the 2 topics: http://www.law-faqs.org/wiki/index.php/Coal
Here is a special article explaining about what has been happening in Canadian politics lately: http://www.acjnet.org/nanews/default.aspx?id=22893

Also, there is the Amnesty International Write-a-thon tomorrow! This is where people from all over the world write letters to important people in different countries asking them to be fair to their people. I encourage everyone reading this to please write a few letters.

What Does All This Mean?

I’m back on the topic of the coalition government idea here in Canada. Before all this happened, I had no idea what a coalition government was. But now I’ve researched it, at least a little bit. So now I’ll just tell you what I think about this idea.

I think that a coalition government would be a good idea. It would allow all the parties to express their ideas and opinions and bring forward their ideas the loudest.

Also, if there was a coalition government with the Liberal, NDP and Bloc Quebecois parties, my MP, Linda Duncan would definitely play a big role in it because she is the only non-Conservative MP in Alberta.

Also, this coalition government idea has been proven to work! Germany has had many coalition governments over the years. The FDP (a German political party) had a coalition government with the Germany Green Party from 1998 to 2005. And at different times, the CDU/CSU (another German political party) had a coalition with the SPD (yet another German political party) and the CDU had a coalition with the FDP.

So, I don’t really have that much information about this topic, but I have enough to voice some starting opinions. I will write more about this as the coalition government idea progresses.

Some Cool Music

Along with writing more on this blog, I have also started to write more on my other blog: The Circle of Music. So if you like this blog, and you also like music, you might like The Circle of Music too. So please check that out every so often.
Go to: http://thecircleofmusic.blogspot.com/ to check it out.
Thanks.

Some Political Numbers

OK, I know, I haven't written on here in a while. I am very sorry, but I have been extremely busy, what with school, swimming, and other events.

There have been some interesting developments in Canadian politics lately. I'm sure most of you have heard about the possibility of a coalition government in Canada. And some of you may have heard about what Jim Flaherty said a couple days ago in response to this new idea. Pretty much what he said was: This is the government that Canada has voted for. Well, I'm sorry Mr. Flaherty, but you're wrong. Over half of Canada didn't vote for Stephen Harper and his government, and I've got the numbers to prove it. I will talk more about the coalition government idea and what it means later, but first, here is some proof that Canada doesn't want the Conservatives in government.

Well, because of Canada's lack of proportional representation in the way we choose our MPs, there are some unfair things going on. Here is a short table of the parties in the last election, the seats they got, the percent of the vote they got and the number of votes they got. Canada's population is 33,442,000, but only 13,832,972 votes were actually cast. This is because of the amount of eligible voters, and the amount of people who actually chose to vote.

Party	Seats	% of Vote	# of Votes
Conservative	143	37.63	5 205 347.3636
Liberal	77	26.24	3 629 771.8528
Bloc Quebecois	49	9.97	1 379 147.3084
NDP	37	18.2	2 517 600.904
Independent	2	0.65	89 914.318
Green	0	6.8	940 642.096
Other	0	0.51	70 548.1572

So that means that 8 627 624.6364 votes in the last election were against the Conservative's 5 205 347.3636 votes. So Mr. Flaherty, not all of Canada voted for the Conservatives in the last election.

Something interesting you may notice is that there were 2 Independent seats voted for in the last election, but there were only eighty-nine thousand, nine hundred fourteen votes. But there were no seats for the Green party, even though they had many more votes than the Independents, nine hundred forty thousand six hundred forty-two votes. Same thing with the Bloc Quebecois and the Green party. The Bloc Quebecois only had 3 percent more of the vote than the Green, but the Bloc had 49 seats and the Green none.

As I said, I will definitely write more about the possibility of the coalition government, but right now, there are some numbers to try and wrap your head around.

Tomorrow...

First of all, I am very, very sorry for not posting in more than 2 weeks. I was just very tired after all those posts about the election. And of course, I was very busy with school, swim meets and other stuff.
But what I'm going to talk about now, is tomorrow. Tomorrow is another very important election. For all of you people who don't know (how could you not), the US election is tomorrow. Of course, that is the political race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain. Last time when George W Bush won by 51% over Democrat John Kerry. When George Bush won that election, people just went crazy. How could George W Bush win again?!
I'm hoping after this election there wont be another website like this: http://www.sorryeverybody.com. Yes, after the last election, many Americans were so ashamed that George W Bush had won that they felt they needed to apologize to the rest of the world for what they had done, or rather what the people who voted Republican had done.
Now for this election, there is another big political race. For this one, many people are saying that it will be a landslide victory for Barack Obama, but could that really happen. Well, I can't vote, and I'm not an American anyways, but if there are any Americans who can vote who read this blog, please vote for Barack Obama and the Democrats tomorrow.
And if you need anymore reason to, watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY. (It is also posted on the right hand side).
So, just like the Canadian election, I will be blogging about the election tomorrow. Definitely not as much because A. it's hard for me to get the results over the computer and B. I don't know a lot about American politics.
But still vote and tune in.