I think the worst part of it all, even after only seeing a small portion of it, is that you realize there is no reason etched in stone for you to succeed.

If others can succumb to the types of fate they've succumbed to, due of factors out of their control, there is no reason to think any God or any type of fate should be looking after you. You are an ant, upon an anthill, that is upon a mountain, that is upon this earth, which floats in a void of neverendingness called the universe.

And I must say, I find that disconcerting. Unlike Jack's little saying, it's not that everyone else has had it so good, it's that you're the one who's had it so good compared to everyone else and the only thing you can think of when that comes to mind is why?

I'm tired of feeling like this.

(1) Do you look more like your father or mother?
Father

(2) Are you too shy to ask someone out?
Most of the time no, but it really depends on the situation

(3) How old are you?
20

(4) Do you know anyone who has the same birthday as you?
Nope

(5) What annoys you more than anything?
Quagmires of information

(6) What is your favorite junk food?
Rolo Ice Cream hands down

(7) favorite show on nickelodeon:
Uh… not sure


(8) what's something about a guy/girl that'll turn you off?



(9) have you ever taught a little kid a curse word?
Hope not

(10) where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Working for a political party, but in what personal condition I have no idea

(11) do holidays make you festive?
Um, normally...this year not so much

(12) what is your favorite cereal?
hmmm… rice crispies mixed with cheerios

(13) what's your opinion of the u.s. retaliation in Afghanistan?
I don't feel like answering this question right now

(14) how do you react when someone is talking to you --up in your face?
Don’t know. Last time it happened I was a rather different person (in grade 10) confronted by someone about 3 to 4 years older than I was. I’m not sure how I’d react now a days. I guess it would depend on how large said person is and what kind of mood I was in.

(15) where do you like to go on a first date?
Restaurant usually (so original I know)

(16) what movie could you watch a million times never get tired of?
I’m not a huge fan of watching things over and over again but if I had to pick I'd say...The Butterfly Effect?


(17) What are you wearing right now?
Blue jeans, black long sleeve shirt and brown billabong jacket

(18) do you get feelings for people easily?
Yup

(19) movies at home or in a theater?
Depends on my mood

(20) if you won a ridiculous amount of money in the lottery what would you do with it?

Something productive for society one would hope.

(21) what was your first pets name?
Peaches

(22) do you sleep on the left, right, or the middle of the bed?
Right

(23) what time did you wake up this morning?
10:00 am

(24) what time did you go to bed last night?
2:00 am

(25) What are you thinking about RIGHT NOW?
Question 20

(26) how old are your grandparents??

My grandpa’s 85. My grandpa on my dads side passed away when I was 2 and my other grandma’s I can’t remember…they’re in their late 70s I should think

(27) who was the last person you spoke to through IM?
Predy

(28) do nice guys really finish last?
Define last…

(29) what are your plans for this upcoming week?
Homework, work on essay some more and think about what essay means to me


(30) what radio station do you listen to most?
Probably 98.9 just because it’s the only one most available to me at the time and because I destroyed my cd player in my car because it upset me while driving one day

Found this in the comments section of Matt's site.

I'm not sure why I'm posting this here since I doubt anyone will read it, but I feel I should anyways.

ENVIRONMENT:
China’s Upward Mobility Strains World Resources

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Mar 9 (IPS) - If per capita income in China grows at eight percent per year — a reduction from the red-hot pace of 9.5 percent it has grown since 1978 — it will overtake the current per capita U.S. income in just over 25 years, according to the latest analysis by the Earth Policy Institute (EPI).

And if those increased incomes translate into the kind of lifestyle currently enjoyed by most U.S. citizens, Chinese demands will overwhelm what the planet can provide it, according to the analysis, ”Learning from China: Why the Western Economic Model Will Not Work for the World”.

While geo-politicians worry whether China will integrate itself into the current western-dominated international system, Lester Brown, EPI’s founder, is far more worried about the impact of a wealthy China on the Earth’s diminishing resource base.

”If it does not work for China,” he notes, ”it will not work for India, which has an economy growing at 7 percent per year and a population projected to surpass China’s by 2030.”

China’s demands on the basic raw materials to feed its galloping economy have become increasingly clear here in just the past few months as successive trade delegations, including one headed by President Hu Jintao himself, have made their way to Latin America to sign long-term supply contracts for the production of commodities from agriculture to mining.

In a 12-day, four-country trip in November, Hu announced more than 30 billion dollars in new Chinese investments in Latin America in basic industries and infrastructure designed to facilitate the export of raw materials from the region across the Pacific over the next generation.

China’s economic boom is the biggest single factor in the steady rise of commodity prices worldwide over the past years, a factor that, coupled with its investments and shrewd diplomacy, is buying it considerable goodwill in much of the developing world, but especially in South and Southeast Asia, as well as Latin America.

Indeed, a survey of 22 countries commissioned by BBC and released earlier this week found that China is now viewed as playing a significantly more positive role in the world than either the United States or Russia and that majorities or significant pluralities in 17 of the countries were particularly positive about China’s growing economic clout.

The poll, of nearly 23,000 people, was conducted by GlobeScan and the University of Maryland’s Programme on International Policy Attitudes in late 2004.

But Brown, a founder and former director of the Worldwatch Institute who has long warned about limits to the Earth’s ability to sustain wealthy lifestyles, at least as they exist in the United States, now argues that, to the extent China’s growth is aimed at replicating such lifestyles, its efforts will ultimately prove futile.

Chinese consumption of each of the ”five basic commodities used in the food, energy, and industrial economies — namely, grain and meat, coal and oil, and steel — already has overtaken that of the United States in all but oil,” he writes. ”Now the question is, What if consumption per person of these resources in China one day reaches the current U.S. level?”

China’s current per capita income is estimated at about 5,300 dollars a year, only about 14 percent of U.S. per capita annual income of about 38,000 dollars. If its economy’s annual growth rate slowed to eight percent per year, China would reach the current U.S. income by 2031; if it grew at a mere six percent a year, it would reach current U.S. levels by 2040.

Assuming the eight percent growth rate and that Chinese consumption habits will be similar to those of the United States today, per capita grain consumption would climb from 291 kilogrammes today to 935 kilogrammes for a U.S.-style diet, according to Brown.

That would bring total Chinese grain consumption in 2031 to 1.352 billion tonnes from only 382 million tonnes used in 2004 — equal to two thirds of the entire 2004 world grain harvest.

”Given the limited potential for further raising the productivity of the world’s existing cropland, producing an additional one billion tonnes of grain for consumption in china would require converting a large part of Brazil’s remaining rainforests to grain production,” according to Brown, who noted that if Chinese per capita meat consumption alone were to rise to today’s U.S. levels, about 80 percent of the world’s current meat production would be consumed by Chinese.

Even more daunting are similar estimates for energy production. If by 2031 the Chinese use oil at the same rate as the U.S. does today, it would need 99 million barrels of oil a day, or 20 million barrels per day more than the entire world currently produces.

Similarly, if China’s coal burning were to reach current U.S. levels of two tonnes per person per year, the country would use nearly three billion tonnes annually by 2031.

Current annual global production stands at 2.5 billion tonnes. As fossil fuels, oil and gas will also mean unprecedented amounts of greenhouse gases — blamed by scientists on climate change and global warming — released into the atmosphere.

If steel production per person in China were to climb to U.S. levels, it would mean that China’s aggregate steel use would double by 2031 to a level equal to the current consumption of the entire western world.

If China were to reach current levels of automobile ownership in the U.S. (three cars for every four people), it alone would have a fleet of 1.1 billion cars by 2031, compared to the current global fleet of nearly 800 million.

”The paving of land for roads, highways, and parking lots for such a fleet would approach the area now planted to rice in China,” according to Brown.

Similarly, if China were to ape current U.S. consumption of paper products, which are reliant on forests and recycled paper today, it would need nearly twice the amount of paper produced worldwide last year to satisfy its needs just for 2031.

”The point of this exercise of projections,” writes Brown, ”is not to blame China for consuming so much, but rather to learn what happens when a large segment of humanity moves quickly up the global economic ladder.”

”Plan A, business as usual, is no longer a viable option. We need to turn quickly to Plan B before the geopolitics of oil, grain and raw material scarcity lead to economic instability, political conflict, and disruption of the social order on which economic progress depends”, according to Brown. (END/2005)

Earth Policy Institute

Bored

Moi il ya deux ans (did I say that right?)



Ponoka Ben got a digital camera on the weekend and, at the time, had not yet mastered the ability to control his urges to shoot everything in sight (which I doubt he will anytime soon). He took this on our way to The Jolly Farmer's pub last Saterday.

Color



Black and White

You would think in a time when you're not feeling so boyent by where you are, reading something like this (I dare you to go to page 8 of 54) would put things in perspective. Strangely enough, putting things into perspective doesn't always make you feel much better.

If we survive all the shit that coming our way in the 21st century I will be amazed.

Water depletion, oil depletion, global warming, avion flu, nuclear/bio terrorism...

So with that said, if you would all go out and vote this Monday and make sure our election turn out is higher than last year it would make me very happy.

You know, if there's one thing I miss most these days, it's soccer.

I think some of the best memorys, even comparing with the childhood years, were on tournaments in other towns. I'm not sure why, but there is a simplicity in the goal of the game and the communication that occurs between players on each team.

Maybe that's why it's loved so much around the world. You have one goal and no other variables come into play. (then again I suppose all sports are like that really, but whatever...)

One memory in particular I have was in Camrose about three years ago, I believe, where we ended up playing a night game. It was my first and only one and I don't think I'll ever forget it. Playing on a lit field underneath stars is something else, alright. I don't think the team and I had ever played a more agressive and corridinated game against a more corridinated team. The lack of breath mixed with success is what makes the game worth playing. I remember running straight into this tall mother f-er, getting knocked down on my ass, sliding backwards about five feet , getting right back up and catching back up to the ball... I hardy stopped him two feet but, yeah...fun times.

I need to join another adults league.

The conservatives have a 12 point lead over the Liberals.

Over the last month and a half I haven't really been all that concerned with who wins this election. The better parts of my brain (or the most mixed up for that matter) tell me that the world is full of different people with different ideas and different morals. Like all groups of people, some ideas are bad and some are good.

To be honest, it's a lot less stressful to not always be mad at another group of people for your perception of their shortcomings and simply except the way tihngs are going to be. That's not to say you don't fight for what you believe in, you just don't cry over spilt milk so to speak. Eventually, if the party is stupid, it will reveal itself for what it is...well, in most cases anyways.

Anyways, I'm not entirely sure why I'm posting this. Just felt like I should at this point in time.

Whatever...


---------------------------

I want a scarf...and one of these.

Hadn't heard about this before today; where the hell have I been?

Sharon has stroke

This is scary, real scary. I'm sure conspiracy theorists are running around screaming bloody sabotage (which I wouldn't be all that surprised if it was, even though complications like this happen all the time all over the world):

The surgery apparently had been complicated by an anticoagulant Sharon took following a mild stroke Dec. 18. The medication may also have contributed to Wednesday's stroke. Sharon originally had been scheduled to undergo a procedure Thursday to seal a hole in his heart that contributed to the initial stroke.

Independent experts said that while the medication, an anticoagulant called enoxaparin, did not cause the blood vessel in Sharon's head to burst, the bleeding would probably not have been so severe if he had not been taking it.

Since Sharon obviously left his Likud Party before his stroke, I'm left wondering who is in power in such a situation:

Sharon aide Raanan Gissin warned that if any of Israel's foes tried to "exploit this situation ... the security forces and IDF (Israeli military) are ready for any kind of challenge."

which makes you wonder if hardliners might take advantage of the situation and try to provoke the Palestinians into doing something stupid.

This sucks.