This one's for you, bro!

Dear Blood, Sweat and Tears,

My mind is better.
My determination is better.
My sight is better.
My better is better.

Boo ya.



In other news, I just remembered that I never wrote about those diamonds. Maybe they were a little too crazy.

A Case of the Tuesdays

Dear Little Men Who Say Great Things,

Upon reading an article about China, I wondered what else the man who said, "Let China sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world." Turns out he said some pretty interesting things...

"Impossible n'est pas francais."

"An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep."

and finally...

"Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent."

Do ya know who it is???

Starts with an 'N' and ends with -apoleon Bonaparte. Not bad eh?

In other news, I'm no longer sure what I should do with my life (read: Tuesday nights) because my all-time favorite reality TV show, Bondi Rescue, just came to its end. It was a raw show documenting the men whose jobs are to constantly save people from the deadly but enthralling swirling waters of the South Pacific Ocean. HOT BODIES HOT BODIES HOT BODIES. I can only hope that I am around next year to be: a) watch the 2008/9 seasons, b) be rescued by said lifeguards or c) be married off to said lifeguards. Not picky...preferably the latter two would be the best though.


Also, I just vacuumed my room so I am now taking suggestions for future blog topics.

Cop out.

Dear Lameness,

Sorry there won't be any posts this week cause I gots me a mucho (thats spanish for gigantor) important preeesentation at the end of the week. Being the twat that I am I volunteered to be a presenter which means I will be shitting my pants for the next few days and do everything in my power to prepare.

So yes, no bloggypoos. Sadly, I am pompous enough to post this apology. Meh...can't will 'em all now can you?

In other news, HAVE A SPECTACULAR WEEK!

A throwback to old times...thanks Lorne for reminding
me that so-and-so still exists!

Cause I got a domeache.

Dear Gel Caps,

Just in case you haven't seen it...


I'm sad. I didn't get to glow with Rihanna. But I'm more sad that her hair is so short. You know what else? Sometimes I'm amazed that one day I can write about international law and then next I will comment on Rihanna's dome-do. Multi-faceted? Yes. Brilliant? Yes. Shiniest superstar? But of course.

Tomorrow... diamonds.

Off to sleep now, perchance to dream

Dear Century + 1 Club,

A recent lecture has provided me with a humbling experience and kicked me off the supposed high horse (miniature pony might be more like it?) I had mounted. I cannot recall learning in great detail anything about international law. I know law as a concept exists to provide a framework in which society operates. I know there is domestic law and I know there is international...in between these two levels (which do not necessarily like vertically but more diagonally to each other) there is a whole slew of Latin phrases. I know that international law is seen as "weak" and "futile" due to its inability to efficiently enforce what it originally sought to achieve.

States are most often compelled to abide by international rules and regulations the following reasons (including but not limited to):

• diplomatic relations (think reciprocity)
• power of public opinion
• possibility of sanctions
• threat of the use of force

Sometimes however, states still choose not to. So what then? What I think THE most fundamental part of international law is its use as an advocacy tool. While critics of international law as it stands today will say that there is no "global police force," I strongly believe that people in both big and small numbers are one of the most powerful means of affecting change. Take the Declaration of Human Rights for example...though this document is purely aspirational and not legally binding to any of the signatories, it is a pivotal instrument when garnering attention to many issues (E.g. the death penalty in Singapore).

The end.

PS. Congrats to you and me for getting to one hundred and one!

\

No dunce pour moi!

Dear yellow kerchiefs,

Wassup.

Heres a quick synopsis of the things that went down in my mind:

1. Rats sweat through their tails.
2. Two Ups is a drinking and gambling played only on Australia Day and ANZAC Day -- it involves flipping a coin, making it spin, and getting stupid drunk.
3. Shia LaBeouf is my dream in man form.
4. Ziploc bags do wonders for sending cookies overseas.
5. I don't melt in the rain.

Have an most excellent weekend!

Boom dee ada boom dee ada!

Dear the things I love,

Thanks to Christian for this commercial from the Discovery Channel.


I love the rainstorms!
I love the moon and stars!
I love the fishies!
I love to read books!
I love the whole world and all its sights and sounds!
Boom dee ada boom dee ada boom dee ada

J'ai faim! So? (Part II)

Dear ........................................ not!

Anybody get it??? No? No takers? Well that's embarrassing. Moving it right along then...

Last week I briefly wrote about the not-so-nascent (love that word) biofuel controversy which may or may not be leading to the food crises that are occurring around the world. Numerous countries, Australia included, are going through what can be labeled as a 'food depression' (I made that up myself! One word: smrt) in which there is simply not enough food for the population consequently leading to an inflation of prices, which in turn can result in violence, poverty, and undernourishment. An article from The Independent suggested that the sharp rise in food prices could drag 100 million people below the sustenance line destroying all the development progress that has been made over the last two decades.

Now are biofuels actually causing these crises? Not exclusively. A changing world and the effects of global advancement are to blame...

• shortage of supply -- caused by natural disasters (Eg. flooding in Bangladesh, cold weather in Viet Nam, drought in Oz)
• land which was traditionally used for farming is now being used for cash crops or urban settlements (the growth of the biofuel industry is a factor in this causality)
  
• grain is increasingly being used as animal feed instead of human feed
• rapidly increasing demand from the rising middle-classes in China and India
• high oil/diesel prices play a part when you use petrol-based fertilizers

While the market is shifting to try and meet the new demand caused by population and climate change, it is unlikely that some sort of equilibrium will be met. Solutions range from food aid (VERY very inefficient), to protective barriers and subsidies, to banning said barriers and subsidies to finalizing a world free trade deal.

In the first article I quoted Thomas Malthus who is infamous for his theory that describes at Time X the human population will be checked by a max out of resources. The major criticism to this idea is that undernourishment is not due to lack of food in the world, but lack of distribution. I used to be an advocate of this notion however, after further reading and in light of certain situations I now sit on the fence to whether Mathlus is the champion or the critics are.

Thoughts?
Courtesy of these dudes

Some Buddha Goodness

Dear deeper meanings,

A young man caught a small bird, and held it behind his back. He then asked, "Master, is the bird I hold in my hands alive or dead?" The boy thought this was a grand opportunity to play a trick on the old man. If the master answered "dead," it would be let loose into the air. If the master answered "alive," he would simply wring its neck. The master spoke, "The answer is in your hands."

Have a phenomenal week!

I'm gonna say not...

Dear Option H,

Some anonymous stinky-butt posted a comment linking me to this article from The Telegraph. Entitled "Global warming rage lets global hunger grow" is perhaps a mistake. I feel "Global irresponsibility," "World blunders yet again," "Global hunger growing at exponential rates" could have all been slightly more appropriate.

Quick Disclaimer: I DO NOT AGREE WITH EVERYTHING WRITTEN IN THIS ARTICLE

Moving on...biofuels were thought to be the end all to the oil dependency of the United States. Consequently, the government encouraged farmers to transform their arable land which might have been used to grow a slew of other crops into land for corn production. Through massive subsidies the USA aims to divert 45% of its grain output to ethanol by 2015 -- it has already reached an alarming 18%. Canada, Argentina, and several Eastern European countries are aiming to follow suit.

Why is this bad? Well it can be summed up in this quote: "The mass diversion of the North American grain harvest into ethanol plants for fuel is reaching political and moral limits."

According to the UN, it takes around 232 Kg (~550 lbs) to fill one 50L tank with ethanol. A quick search on Google revealed that there are around 250 million cars in the US alone. Doing some quick math its going to take about 62 500 000 000 Kg of corn to fuel the entirety of the USA. Even 50% of that number is monumental. Not to point out the blatantly obvious, but that's a lot of corn. And a lot of corn translates into millions of hectares of land -- which leads to the first controversy surrounding ethanol. As mentioned above a huge amount of land worldwide is being transformed into corn fields. With wheat and/or rice as the central staple in the majority of the world's citizenry, a turn-over from wheat/rice to corn production is having a devastating effect on the mouths of many populations. Bangladesh, Haiti, India, Cameroon and the Philippines are only a few of the countries that are facing severe food crises in which 60-50% of a person's income goes towards putting food on the table.

Thomas Malthus once said, "The constant effort towards population, which is found even in the most vicious societies increases the number of people before the means of subsistence are increased." I believe is right in thinking that our reason has been distorted, and perhaps 6.5 billion people are being checked as the carrying-capacity of the world reaches its tipping point.

Not entirely relevant but interesting nonetheless.
(Know Your Rights)

PS. Tune in next week for Part II.

Creepy? Oui oui!

Dear Babies,

Its been a busy week and my brain has certainly been churning with ideas for blog posts however, that being said this is not one of those...more of an impulse thing I swear.

Anyways I was looking through my "My Pictures" file and re-discovered these photos. So cute! I think I saved them because that is what I want my spawn to look like. With all this modern day nascent technology there must be some means of choosing a sweet fro for my wee babaaay...those in the know feel free to point me in the right direction.

Which one would you choose to take? Thoughts?

The coolest thing since sliced bread...kablamo even?

Dear Confidence Intervals,

IN YOUR FACE!

Hans Rosling a genius extraordinnaire has created a program called Gapminder which compiles all the numbers from governmental and intergovernmental databases and then charts them in interactive charts! You can choose your x and y-axis (Eg. Per Capita Income (PPP) vs. Use of Contraceptives) thereby determining what you are indeed making statistically significant. Furthermore once your chart is produced the countries are plotted as colourful dots whose size is relative to the population...so China's dot is huge! So is India's! Lastly you can can see progress through time because this program gives you data all the way back from the 1950s...so you can choose a movie-like option which when viewed is comparable to watching an Aussie-rules footie game (read: tres exciting).

Cool, eh? Thought so.

If a picture could speak 1000 words...

Dear the Unspoken,

These nuns are rubbing oil over their bald heads
after shaving their hair off as means of protest.

Top Fives Bitch! (Part Deux)

Dear bullets (not the deadly kind),

Since my imagination is lacking and my muscles are sore I will keep this one concise.

Things That are Hard to do With Your Left Hand Because You are Right-Handed:

1. Paint the finger-nails on my right hand
2. Brush my teeth (this combined with the mirror means up is left, right is down, and rinsing goes into my eyeballs)
3. Performing open heart surgery...alone
4. Being a pirate
   
5. Petting a unicorn

Things That are Hard to do With no Toes:

1. Walk
2. Walk faster
3. Run
4. Sprint
5. Fly

Things That are Hard to do With Toes:

1. Succeed at life.
2. Bake some delicious cookies.
3. Crawl
4. Properly use a microwave.
5. Hug a unicorn.

Tall Animals to Ride Around the World:

1. Giraffes
2. Elephants
3. Emperor Penguinos
   
4. Pandas (when they're standing on their tippy toes)
5. Hippopotamoose

Things to Give me for a Present:

1. A unicorn
2. A cookie
3. Peanut Butter
4. Kitty
5. A panda bear with a year's supply of bamboo
   

HAPPY HUMP DAY!

Tip the Scale

Dear Cords Under the Sea,

I first heard of 'viral marketing' from by big bro who mentioned it in passing I think when talking about SNL's Lazy Sunday. For those not in the know, viral marketing a phenomenon that uses "pre-existing social networks to increase brand awareness."

Using YouTube, Google Video and other such portals everyday yous and mes are able to sing, dance, laugh, and animate their innermost desires. However the fundamental factor in this so-called technique is that the primary mode of transmission is through word-of-mouth. Since it is all voluntary you as a internet celebrity in the making must find something that catches people, something amazing, shocking, or wondrous that will make them forward your link onto their friends. So there is a difference between posting a video of you covering Kelly Clarkson's latest tune and getting signed by Justin Timberlake, and that difference is popularity.

In today's day and age the effects of the information superhighways can not only increase the celebrity status of your college friends (think the Chinese Backstreet Boys) but can increase awareness on something perhaps a little more pertinent to the workings of the world. But on that note I'll stop before I get too serious.

Fun-LA!

Dear Zones of Time,

Ah...the end of the week for both me and you. Fun, eh? I think so. The week always starts out so full of pazzazz (sp?) and then seems to dwindle off. It is quite a rarity that someone looks forward to Mondays as much as yours truly. Alas, Monday is still a ways off so in the meantime I'll entertain with the traditional edumacation sum-up for the past week.

1) Australia participates in daylight savings too! See we are not forgotten down here.

2) People doing karaoke should be shot. Disregard all of my prior opinions regarding universal human rights as NO ONE should be subjected to some chickypoo singing into one of those portable machines. Think 6 billion people...times that by the number of ears each one has...throw some animals in there and those not yet born. I've never been a wiz at math but yeah thats about 100 billion people who don't want you to sing.

3) How to spell K-A-R-A-O-K-E

4) People see what they want to see. I was going to write that people hear what they want to hear but I'm hearing numero dos and my whole being is against it.

5) I have a distinct and strange emptiness in my body. Something is missing, something vital to my well-being and happiness has simply vanished...I haven't had a cookie in two weeks! Something is definetely wrong with the world. Hopefully, this predicament will be remedied tomorrow.

Have a spectacular weekend!

All for one?

Dear Likeness,

This article recently caught my attention for obvious reasons. Long story short the 60th Anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights is coming up at the end of this year and in preparation a celebratory logo has been designed. The new symbol for universal human equality and dignity was drawn up by Yolande Mulke who commented on the symbolism, "I think what the UN likes about it is the continuity of using the wreath device from the UN logo and the feeling of peace and welcoming that the mad with his arms wide open projects."

But wait...does it look familiar? What about now?

The UN is suffering from a great buyers-guilt right now because the colours are strikingly similar to those used in the logo for Tibetan Resistance. Not realizing their mistake, the UN has said that it was, "an accident, and had no idea that the coulours were those of Tibet" and has planned to replace the older logo with Yolande's recently-controversial design.

Whoops-a-daisy!

a pinch and a punch!

Dear 1,

Here's a little something I stumbled upon:

It cannot be stolen by thieves, cannot be taken away by the king, cannot be divided among brothers and does not cause a load. If spent it always multiplies...The wealth of knowledge is the greatest among wealths.

I disagree. Knowledge is a load of crock. KIDDING! Gotcha, its April Fool's! Har dee har har.

On a serious note...

Dear Heart,

Today in one of my classes we discussed international aid within the context of the Millennium Development Goals. Briefly, the Millennium Declaration was signed in 2000 by 189 countries and stated eight highly ambitious objectives addressing major global issues including but not limited to poverty, health, education, and gender. This unprecedented effort has established a universal framework for development, and requires complex networks of coordination and cooperation from all hundreds of world players (states, NGOs, pharmaceutical corporations etc.).

A Map of Global Poverty

As part of this agreement developed countries have in one way or another reached a consensus and agreed upon how much aid (as a percentage of the Gross National Income) should be given to the various causes addressed in the MDGs. What percent do YOU think Canada gives to international aid? A similar question was asked to some people in the USA, and they responded something around 20% (although they thought it should be a lot less...along the lines of 8%). Though the international standard was set at a mere 0.7%, the reality is that the average financial effort is around 0.46% (the US coming in with 0.18% and Canada at 0.29%). Was that what you thought? Didn't think so.

So why is it that the percentage aid is so low? Why do we even commit to giving financial aid at all? Obviously there are many other factors at play. It is inherent that a country must be selfish -- it must first fix its own backyard before tending to other's gardens. So it is understandable that there are other priorities such as funding a war, improving education, building infrastructure etc. take priority in a government's eye. Yet, on the other hand do we not have a moral obligation to help those less fortunate than us? I think we do. The latter reason is not entirely altruistic though. With the present world order I strongly feel that the theory of the butterfly effect comes into play -- the gentle flap of one's wings in Sub-Saharan Africa could have devastating effects on a country in Central Europe. Therefore it is not only a moral obligation but also a global responsibility to fund and support efforts such as the MDGs, for something so great can only be achieved if everyone commits wholeheartedly.

Before the end of lecture the Professor asked a question, and now I turn that question to you: In the moment before you're born, before you know your race, your income, your future, how would you choose a global value system?

And a turtledome in a turtle tree!

Dear Eggs (and not the scrambled kind),

Alas the weekend is upon me and my family is gathering in the O-town/M-ville (see what I did there?? Yah that was me being bilingual with me nicknaming) and it will be a fun-filled few days filled with laughter, banter, and one too many dollops of maple syrup. Unfortunately for them I shall not be attending seeing as I've got me a flight to catch, a beach to lie on, some sights to see, aaaand my mom says I'm not allowed to fly 24 hours to go home for the weekend. Lame mom, lame.

But since I embody a spirit stick I shall wish you all a very happy easter (I wrote eater...that's the fat kid in me coming out), but before I depart for the next week I'd like to leave with a little something I like to lill-verbs...get it??? Like proverbs but from me?!?! No? Anything??

1) If one cannot properly maneuver around a spiral staircase, perhaps one should lose some weight.

2) Do not fart in front of people you don't know.

3) Do not fart in front of people you do know...unless they are your brothers then fart in their faces.

4) Mhmm.

5) I like cookies. Cookies are good. I want a cookie.

I miss you guys! CHEESE. You're still ugly though.