Owning Thy Self

There is a big deal to be made whether a country owns itself. if a country relies to heavily on foreign investment, and said country begins to look unstable, then foreign countries begin to pull their money out of that country. Some would argue that this is a big reason why Canada has never became a superpower in the world. Canada relies very heavily on foreign investment, and foreign investors are not willing to keep their money invested in foreign investments that show any signs of weakness. Whereas the patriotic spirit of staying in for the long run, is common when someone invests in their own national economy. This is a big reason why Cooperatives start up. Within a cooperative, the only people investing in the company are those that have genuine reasons (not purely monetary reasons) for investing in the company. These people are typically employees or frequent users of the company, who view it as more than just a capitalistic enterprise.

However, in the global world we rely heavily on foreign investment because its so much easier to get, and it allows a company to have more money than in would if it only asked for domestic investors.

This graph illustrates the percentage of foreign investment as a percentage of GDP for 15 countries. I chose the 13 richest countries in the world, and also included venezuela and Cuba because they would seemingly defy the need for foreign investment. if a countries number is 0.4, that means that 40 percent of that countries wealth comes from abroad.

The numbers for Canada are quite alarming! Canada comes in 4th place for most reliance from abroad, with a number of 41%. Whereas countries like Japan and India only rely on 3 percent of their GDP from FDI. Venezual is surpisingly only tied with Russia and Japan at 13 % (You'd think Chavez wouldn't even accept foreign dollars).

We should not feel comfartable that Canada is not as bad as the UK. The European Union can be treated as one country, and therefore when france invests in the UK, it could still be considered domestic investment on some level. The UK has an allabye for being so high, and that is that investment from other European countries is not entirely considered foreign. If you look closer at the graph and omit the european nations, Canada now comes dead last.

I Mavis Beaconed your Ass

Many are probably wondering what it means to mavis beacon someone's ass. It means to humiliate them by typing faster than them on a computer. At one time mavis beacon was the fastests typer in the world, and a female nonetheless. But then it was found out that she didn't exist. When tests were conducted to find out the worlds fastest typer, a computer entry specialist from russia, that types numbers into databases all day long, was found to be the fastest.

I found a website that tests typing speed.

My record was 76 wpm with 4 errors on my first try. Does anyone dare challenge me?

Who Will Run out of Oil First?

Using the Cia world factbook numbers on known oil reserves and oil production per day per country, i will find out which major oil producing country will run out of oil first. i will not focus on imports, exports or consumption, instead i will only focus on oil production. Oil is taken from the ground by a giant pump like object, then it goes to a factory to be produced into something else (diesel, gasoline, jet fuel) and then it is either consumed or exported. This is my logic, and this is my graph.

World Production will run out in 15,670 days or 43 years at current day paces assuming no more giant oil reserves are found.



It is good to know that canadian oil is in good hands with Stevie-H. He's being smart about our reserves and not selling future genereations out to this generation. At this pace, canada will be the second last country to run out of oil and that will be in 142 years. imagine how much we can charge for oil when nobody else has any except canada and America's 51st state Iraq.

It is amazing that America and China will be running out of oil so soon. America, at its current pace will run out in 6 years, while china only has 12 years left. i would say that america is in better position than china though, just because the invasion of Iraq makes them the preferred trading partner of many iraqi businesses.

I'll buy my toyota hybrid in 143 years i guess. but wait. maybe we shouldn't wait for oil to run out and we should start buying our toyota hybrids today? theres something to think about unless your still thinking about my awesome graph.

Newton Minnow, failed prophet of respectable communications

I've recently been listening to a lot of speeches from mostly obvious sources. I've heard Nelson Mandella's surprisingly frog-like voice after his release from prison, and JFK's almost indecipherable ranting at his party nomination speech.

But only one speech I've heard lately both inspires and criticizes. Here's an excerpt that I will be citing repeatedly:

"When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it."

Right, so he's saying what we all know now. Wait, why IS he saying what we all know now? He was the head of the FCC, and he failed to prevent the problems he's talking about from taking over in his time? Why do we have the problems he's speaking about in 1961, today? The networks must have won! We all know this is in fact the case, but I think the more interesting thing is the FCC in the public eye. We live side by side with proof that Minnow's lofty ideals have little bearing on our day to day life now. We live in a world where our communications are owned by umbrella corporations that little reflect on the lives of their local viewers. Instead of mass dissemination of identical ideas viewed as a bad thing, we are given one viewpoint, from a central location.

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/07/07/who-owns-what-on-television/

Arguably, the problem is communication itself. One of the smarter men to die in our generation, Douglas Adams, brings up a good point in his third party memoirs "The Salmon of Doubt". He believes (or at least he did at that moment) that mass communication is an opposing force to both physiological and psychological evolution. He thinks that small groups working in isolation are the cause for most discoveries, and I tend to agree. But I agree with one caveat.

I think both ways can function for a society.

The question you must answer sooner or later is a toughie, however: Are we as a society at the right stage in our evolution to allow mass communication to connect us all?

I think no. I think we as a society we have proven again and again that the small-group model yields the most discoveries. When we start leaving our solar system and establishing colonies, then yes, proportionally, an entire planet working together will be a small group. Until that time, though, I believe that we may actually be slowing discovery by constant dissemination. Yes more mistakes are prevented, but I'm not convinced that's a good thing.

I cite:

Manhattan project, the first particle accelerator, the first lasers, the first radios, the first airplanes, and lately, string theory. Yes, we communicate about it, and yes that's vital, but no one in their right mind would claim that educating the masses about it in its current state will advance the collective knowledge of mankind. I think science should continue functioning like series of pressure cookers until we as a society have figured out earth. I think we need to start putting moratoriums on idea sharing at a high level now, before we stagnate due to overexposure to others ideas and thoughts.

So did Newton Minnow succeed in creating a device and system that educated at a high standard? Surprisingly, yes. Discovery channel, national geographic, BBC, etc. We have what he wanted. Percentage wise education is losing, but that's not due to a failing, that's due to the changing nature of television.

Say what? It still comes out of a box, y'all!

Well lets look at television in 1961. You had local stations with local programming and local TV shows. Can anyone in Calgary name one original show produced and broadcast exclusively in Calgary? You can't because they don't exist. The model for Television has changed. Instead of a menu it is a buffet, almost as navigable and changeable as the internet. Newton Minnows speech may seem relevant to our disturbing lack of content today, but in reality, he's preaching about a system that no longer exists, and this great man's strong moral guidance and fearsome rules are left by the wayside. We can no longer apply "morals" or "quality" to television. Pandora has escaped the box.

Luckily the internet's still sane.

Haiti or Canada: which is a better place to live?

The title may seem a little outrageous to the right wing readers of this blog (unfortunately im not sure if we have any right wing readers). But lately i have been doing a lot of thinking about what is wrong with Canada. I will continue my analysis through a comparative political lens drawing comparisons to Haiti. My goal is not to say that "hey guys, you should be happy that you live in Canada and not Haiti", but rather to show how Canadians and Haitains face many of the same problems but on different scales. I will use the CIA world fact book as my resource.

In haiti there is on average 34 homicides per 100,000 people while in Canada there is 2 homicides per 100,000 per year. To me, this does not seem like a significant difference. I don't know anyone in Canada that has been murdered and i think it would be very easy to be a Haitain citizen that does not know someone that has been murdered as well.

According to the Enviromental Sustainability Index, Canada was the 6th best country while Haiti was 141st out of 146. link That being said, Canada has had the benefit of money to invest in the enviroment while Haiti does not even have the luxury of investing money in food for its own people.

Official unemployment in Haitis ranges from 50-70 percent while in Canada it is about 6 percent. Most haitians live off under 2 dollars a day, i already spent two dollars on nanaimo bars today.

28 percent of Haitains have health care which is supplied by NGO's instead of the government while 100 percent of canadians have health care (i could be wrong on this latter number).

In a poll of Haitains 70 percent said they were thinking of leaving the country. of a current population of 8 million in the country, 2 million haitians live in the US. BEtween 1991 and 1995 the US coast guard intercepted 65,000 boat people fleeing the country. i wonder how many actually made it?

The UN ranked countries based on the best place to live:

1. Iceland
2. Norway
3. Australia
4. Canada
5. Ireland

I did not have enough finger power to revolve the wheel on my mouse downwards 47 times in order to get to the bottom of the list and find Haiti. But im sure its there.

Never mind. This post does not work. Haiti fucking sucks to live in. Canada is a way better place to live.

But should it give canadians pleasure to know that we are so much better off and that it could be worse if we lived in haiti? i think this would be the most sickening pleasure in the world. but equally as flawed is the approach that Canada is significantly flawed and needs drastic overhaul because this appraoch values the problems at home over the problems abroad.

I think that Canadians have cushy lives. We are at the winning end of the capitalistic game. we are not subjugating others into poverty in order to maintain our stance as winners of the capitalistic game, rather we just don't care about whats going on in the developing world very much because we are too busy eating nanaimo bars. ignorance is bliss my friends, and it comes in two forms:

1) only thinking about the problems at home rather than the problems in the developing world

2) thinking the world is an aristocracy with natural winners and losers and there is nothing that we can do about it.

New Banner - Permanenté

After several weeks of multiple drafts and several mediocre banners, I'm gonna leave this one up permanently unless one of my illustrious and handsome blogging partners has an issue, in which case I will make a better one. I hope it more effectively captures the spirit of this blog, with clear references to revolution and, for Barry's amusement, the Seattle Police Department.

I would once again like to thank my fellow bloggers and Barry for inviting me to write on this website.

Dead Kennedys

Jello Biafra is the lead singer of the Dead Kennedys. You may or may not have heard of him. He's incredibly anti establishment, he's incredibly liberal (actually calling him liberal is insane, he's anti everything, he's like an anarchist who doesn't have any solutions but does a great job of being a loudspeaker for a lot of the anti-government feelings prevalent since 2004. So anyways.

I think the dead kennedy's horse has been beaten to death, but in lieu of M.I.A. I recommend Mr. Jello Biafra instead, because he really does practice what he preaches.

I should also mention that the video contains Nardwuar interviewing the lead singer of the Dead Kennedys.

Paper PLanes

MIA is a British songwriter with a very large hip hop influence. Her father is part of the Tamil Tigers which is a political activist group that has the goal of making sure that the TAmil ethnic Minority in Sri Lanka is not overpowered by the Sinhalese which are the majority in the country. In 1983 the Tamil Tigers killed 13 Sri Lankan soldiers in an ambush. The Sri Lankan government tried to hide the deaths because they did not want an uprising against the Tamils. But the Sinhalese found out and in return somewhere between 1000-3000 Tamils were killed. The Sri Lankan government has considered the Tamils to be a terrorist organization at certain times. If we can assume that the rumours about MIA's dad are true, and that he was part of the militant Tamil throughout the 1980's with very little contact with his daughter, then we should also assume that MIA is a very political musician. Her most famous song, which was recently popularized in the movie pineapple express will be taken for example.

The opening lyrics of the song are about making Visa's. Mia claims she can make people visa's so they can travel to other borders. she is speaking to the fact that many TAmil's (including herself)had to flee Sri Lanka during violent uprisings against their ethnic group.



The most alarming lyrics are in the chrous whre she uses sounds in order to create a beat. the lyrics go: All i wanna do is (the sound of 5 gunshots) (the sound of a gun reloading) (the sound of a cash register) And take your money.

Why does the sound of the cash register come after the gunshots? Does this mean she is saying that all she wants to do is kill people for money? Or is she ironically taking the stance of the Sinhalese? I think regardless, this is an excellent song for the revolution because it encourages violence. I would put it right up there with Bob Marley's song 'burnin and lootin' which i believe is the song that participated in the battle of seattle listened to on that morning when they woke up.

Paper planes ends with:

Some some some I some I murder
Some I some I let go
Some some some I some I murder
Some I some I let go

What is most interesting for me is that she is making large amounts of money in London and America but it seems that she is making the music for the people of her native Sri Lanka. Her stance reminds me a lot of K'naan, who was Somali born but moved to Canada and writes hip-hop that often speaks to the tragedies and lifestyle of somali citizens. Yet Canadians, who are completely unaware of the political ongoings in these other countries, enjoy the music. And slowly, if they are concerned enough, they will become aware of the activism of people in other countries.

any thoughts detroit on what MIA is actually trying to convey in paper planes?