"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing."

I got all stressed out at werk the other day so I bought stemus. The boss got pretty upset which helped to magnify my stress levels and therefore desire to smoke. Though it did give me a chance to evaluate the notion of self administered toxins.

Smoking, as before going paleo, has had no noticeable ill effects. So I'm guessing my lungs are still OK when compared to my liver which really lets me know it now when I eat even mild toxins. I've never been a heavy smoker but I've enjoyed the flavour of a good smoke for some time and, for me at least, there is an undeniable calmness that comes from performing such a blatantly self destructive act. I think on some level its an assertion of control over the self.

We've been having some crazy nice weather already so the Boss and I have been putting her fire box thingy to good use. Not only is it an excuse to eat wieners but who doesn't like to sit by a nice wood fire? We got the wood from this tree that was cut down across the street and you know what? It smells kind of funny. I don't know what kind of wood it is but I'm wondering if the smell isn't a result of the tree growing up not far from North America's worst pollution producer (by political jurisdiction). They say urban trees are the best air filters there are.

Something's gotta give

I've been counting cars while I stand at the bus stopfor two weeks now and it's works out to a fairly steady average of about four percent of automobiles have more than one adult in them. The worst day I've counted is one percent but there have been a couple of days that have gotten as high as six percent. One day I even saw a vehicle with four adults in it! But it look slike 90% of "carpoolers" are husband and wife.

Given last ummer, presumably again this summer huge amounts of stimulus spending will be spent on road construction I think it might be time that we as Canada stop talking about climate change. It's time to put on the black hat and tell the hippies to find a new country if they want to preserve the environoment because 96 percent of Canadians are not willing to make even minor sacrifices. They want their luxury. And more. Right now. (And if Canada gets warmer in the bargain how can that be bad?)

Well I've been reading this brutally technical book of researcvh papers called "Farming in a Changeing Climate" that does a lot of climate modeling and looks at how agriculture has adapted to climate changes in the past. According to this book the climate models suggest Canada will get steadily warmer and dryer in the coming decades. First crop yeilds will go down and prices will go up. Then we'll switch crops until eventually areas like southern and eastern Ontario, the Maritimes, Quebec, and B.C. will have to move to marijuana feilds and Meth labs for the foundation of their economies. OK so it's not much of a change for B.C and it is 50 years away.

My problem is that like all climate change models for public consumption the book ignores one of the big observations of past climate changes and that has become the second elephant in the room (is it just me or is the room getting crowded). The first elephant is the well known idea that there are way too many humans on earth to be accomadated by our current economic system. The second elephant was once disscussed openly but is now considered too scary for public consumption - it is that observation of past climates indicates that climates do not change gradually over a period of 1000 or even 100 years. Climate factors reach a tipping point and the change happens in a couple of decades. Maybe less.

All this too say maybe I can get a job on a road crew this summer? Get me some of that stimulus money before we reach the tipping point and it all comes undone at the seams. I'll wait for it to become legal before I become a Pot farmer so I'll be so far behind the 8-ball and it'll probably be pointless. And I just don't feel good about getting in on the Meth market before I really have to.

Plateau

I’ve plateaued at approximately 190 pounds on the diet. Luckily the weather is improving so I can try to work on that last 15 pounds with exercise. To that end I’ve started running at lunchtime. I ran twice last week and will run twice this week and then I need to decide before April 1st if I want to try the Mississauga 10k and start training for real in April. That will only leave me 6 weeks to train so I probably won’t win but hey, I was just ranting about our new national obsession with being the master race so if I register I’ll approach it with a classic participaction pin attitude.

Do you remember the participaction pin? Back from the days when we were still a semi-autonomous nation-state trying to forge our own identity. The idea is still sort of around but now instead of being a free pin it’s a video game console that you have to buy from the Japanese.

An open letter to the NFL competition comitee

Gentlemen,

Football is about shut up and do your job. Team work. This ridiculous proposal for new overtime rules is pathetic. Sad. Disgusting. I realise that your lust for money means you want to emphasise offence and that there is a chorus of professional whiners who complain that both offenses should have an opportunity to score in overtime but I have to ask how can you pretend that this would be for the good of the game? Some silly warping of the the idea of fairness? What's next -does every player have to touch the ball before you can score? Maybe the original coin toss should be replaced with that comical XFL scramble?

I've read the cries, oh the Colts lost in overtime because the almighty Peyton Manning didn't get to touch the ball in Overtime. The greatest player yadda yadda yadda. All this says is that we need to stop judging quarterbacks on the number of Superbowl rings they have. I guess Peyton should have scored more in regulation.

The current overtime system can't be that bad or we wouldn't see so many gutless coaches playing for overtime at the end of close games. When coaches start playing to win rather than go to overtime then you can start talking about the system being broken.

And please don't follow the dark path of the NHL in making overtime a sad caricature of a once great game.

In the modern game of platoon football each platoon has to do it's job for the team to be great.

Why not spend your time fixing something that's a problem - like mandating the anti-concussion helmets for starters.

Tax time

For the last few years at this time I am reminded of the old adage that money does not buy happiness and recall a very good book on the subject. The book was written by the TMQ and is called "The Progress Paradox" if anyone is interested in looking it up.

What brings this issue to mind is of course tax season. But it's probably not in the way that you think. I now pay more in taxes each year than my total income my first year in Ontario. Not that I am now rich, or even middle class for that matter but that I was apparently really poor in 1998. I can honestly say that life is differnet now but not nessesarily happier. For example back when I was poor my job wasn't soul killing, it was just hard, dangerous and severely underpaid because it required no edumakation.

Now I have a different set of concerns and material lusts to make me fret. I have bought the unaffordable toys of my courrier days and replaced those desires with new unafordable toys. This is the crux of the progress paradox - in material terms what we want is more. What you have is irrelevant because what you really want is not something specific it's just more. Basically our brains don't understand the concept of enough. It was probably some sort of evolutionary benefit up until about 200 years ago.

The interesting part of the book is that it goes on to offer a solution - kindness of all things. The odd thing is that it's not only kindness received but kindness given and returned that matters the most to an individual's happiness. I can't attest to that you'll have to read the book but what I can attest to is quintupling your income doesn't make you happier.

The author also goes on to mention that believing in something greater than yourself makes people happier regardless of what that greater thing is. I'm still working out the details on that one but when I've got it sorted out you and all your savings will be welcome to join my cult.

Oh and one last thing - back when I hardly paid any taxes my blood didn't boil at how badly misused/wasted they are. Yes we do see benefits from our taxes but most of us are not getting good value for our money in my opinion.