The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese

Early birds may get the worm, but people who sleep in have more mental stamina than early risers. According to Dr Peigneux's findings, people who get up later are able to keep their energy levels steady and are able to focus for longer periods of time. People who fell into the "early risers" category got up between 5am and 6am and people who were considered to be "late risers" got up around noon.


The really interesting issue that this article brought up for me is the social stigma that people who sleep in are lazy and don't want to work. Is this really the case or do these people just have different circadian rythms? I know I'm definitely not an early bird - I tend to wake up fully around 10am, so should I try to keep resetting my 'clock' to the average work day timing or should I just give up and go with what my body tells me to do?


Kinda makes stop and think about how more effective you could be at doing your job or just about anything if you were to follow your circadian rhythm instead of following the societal norm.


I wonder does this mean I can convince my boss to shift my work hours?

Future voters unite! ...with bracelets?

I was Christmas shopping today and trying to find something to get for stocking stuffers for my Mum. Naturally, I went into Claire's, which always has bracelet charms and other nifty things to stick in stockings. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything, but on the plus side, I found these.

The first thing that I thought was "Why would these be here? Voting in the States is done." Then I almost slapped myself upside the head after realizing what I had thought. I consider myself to be politically active and I like to keep up to date with politics, but what does it say when voting is mentioned that I automatically think about the US?

It's probably a good thing that Michaëlle Jean agreed to prorogue parliament on December 4th, because with the mess that we're currently facing, I don't even want to think about voting again.

Your soul for a plastic bag, Mr Miller

After a meeting with Galen G. Weston, Toronto mayor David Miller is proposing to move the plastic bag ban deadline back from December 2009 to February 2011. I find myself reminded of the spring bear hunt fiasco that went down with Mike Harris.

In 1999, Mike Harris was persuaded (read: given money) to discontinue the spring bear hunt. Bear populations have since risen to the point where it's common to see a black bear within city limits in Northern Ontario.

Miller is showing his true priorities beautifully by catering to large corporations within Toronto who really have no excuse when it comes to environmental issues.

Since taking over as executive chair in 2006, Weston has focused on promoting the environmentally-friendly line of products. In talking Mayor Miller into pushing back the dates for the plastic bag ban, Weston is showing his true colours. Weston is obviously more interested in making a profit than helping to reduce the environmental impact that his stores make.

If the biosphere is destroyed because of your lack of involvement, who will you sell your products to Mr. Weston?

Youth + politics = oil + water?

As you may be aware, yours truly participated in Me to We day this past week. I was thrilled to find out that despite being a volunteer at a booth outside of the Ricoh arena, I was still allowed to watch the majority of the speakers perform. I was even more thrilled to find out that Justin Trudeau would be speaking and that I would have time to stop and listen to him.

First of all, understand that he has a presence and it's an even bigger one in person than on television. He is absolutely mind-blowing to listen to in person! Justin managed to hook me into his speech (see clip 6) right from the beginning:

"As my good friend John Turner, former prime minister, just said: 'young people don't tend to get involved enough in politics.' And for me it's easy to say 'it's young people's fault not to get involved,' but more I think it's politics' fault not doing enough to bring in young people."

I did listen to his entire speech, but that first point of his got me thinking. It's true that youth aren't really involved in politics. I'm only getting into it now myself because I am of an age where I'll be taking all of the big life steps soon (e.g. buying a house, getting married) and the way that the country is run will affect me more profoundly than it previously did. When I first went to university, I saw politics as something that you were interested when you were older because there was no way that any politician would've cared about my opinion.

After listening to Justin's speech, I realize that I was probably right at that point, however students entering university now thinking what I did are probably wrong. As the baby boomers age, the political arena is going to undergo a drastic change and (hopefully) be more youth-friendly.

The beginnings of these changes can be seen today: Justin Trudeau was elected MP in the Montreal riding of Papineau on October 14th. Today's youth will be looking to Justin to increase awareness of the issues close to their hearts in the political arena and at the country-wide level. Justin Trudeau is a well known activist for many different issues, in particular the empowerment of youth. I believe that Justin is just the man to be getting youth more involved with politics and how the country is run.

Justin is a new breed of politician who listens to all generations and is more than willing to dive in and get his hands dirty. All too often, I've felt that my representative didn't represent my ideas and views and that I probably wouldn't be listened to because I am so young. Justin Trudeau's ideas of "building personal connections" is exactly what I think politics should be all about. Hopefully he can spread his ideals around in the political arena and they finally get picked up by the other powers that be.

Fish to fry in Ontario

I was flipping through the Toronto Star, when I came across a short blurb about the Ringwood Fish Culture Station. Briefly mentioned is how the government opened the station in 1982 but was forced to cut funding in 2006. Not mentioned, is why the government opened the station.

During the 1980s, there was growing concern of the rapidly declining stocks of Canadian fish. In response to this, the government started to fund hatcheries in hopes of bolstering the declining populations and even re-introducing species to areas where they had been extirpated. Fisheries opened all over the country and the government kept pouring money into them, until budget cuts forced an end to the spending spree. What the government failed to inform that public was that the money spent on hatcheries might as well have been thrown into the water in hopes of a dam springing up.

Fish instinctively return to their hatching site for spawning, thus hatchery-born fish never stray very far away from where they were born, so it would be impossible to repopulate areas with hatchery-born fish unless the hatchery was near to the desired site. Unfortunately, most sites are so polluted or being used for other commercial purposes that setting up a hatchery there isn't possible. Also, because the fish are raised in artificial conditions, they are unable to attract a mate from the wild population because they haven't learned the proper mate attraction rituals.

As if it wasn't enough having the government pouring money into hatcheries, the article goes on to proudly state that the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters and the Toronto Sportsmen's Show raise $50,000 annually in order to keep the Ringwood facility running. My quibbles with this do no stem from the organizations that support the facility. On the contrary, I'm pro-fishing and pro-hunting. What does irritate me about this article is that the OFAH is using the fundraising as a PR gesture and it's an incredibly useless one at that. These associations should be focusing more on the conservation of key breeding habitat instead of funding breeding programs that have been shown, through scientific research, to be ineffective at best or harmful to the natural populations at worst. At least if their money is being spent on endeavours that can bring scientifically-proved benefits to the species, it can bring positive attention for both parties, which is something they could use considering the controversial nature of OFAH.

Agricultural minister in hot water

Gerry Ritz, the federal minister of agriculture, has recently been under fire for tasteless comments made at a government conference call about listeriosis. He opened the call with "This is like a death by a thousand cuts. Or should I say cold cuts." Later, after being informed of another death in PEI, he quipped "Please tell me it's Wayne Easter." Wayne Easter is a liberal MP in PEI who has followed Ritz's ministry closely. Ritz later apologized to Easter and to the public at a press conference on September 18th.

It's interesting that these comments are coming to light now, considering they were originally made on August 30th in a private conference call. The implications of these comments coming to light are astounding. On the one hand, the media is able to bring to light the minister's inappropriate use of gallows humour and make the him pay for his callous comments. On the other hand, this represents a breach of informational security from within the government.

Although currently a minority government, the government still needs to present a united front so that the public can have faith in their ability to lead the country. The current focus on everyone's mind seems to be the upcoming election, which will likely have us see a change in the political powers that be. Rather, the current focus on all politicians' minds is the election. The rest of the world is being thrown off by all of these "scandals" that keep popping up from within the Harper government.
I am mildly amused by the dirty tactics that are being used for this election; the Liberals must be really worried about the sway of the Conservatives if they're hounding Ritz so hard about a comment made during a private conference call. I won't support Ritz - his comments were completely inappropriate - however, the Liberals and NDP are positively drooling over this mess up and calling for his resignation. (I'm sure that it's not only the Liberals and the NDP that are coming up with these ideas, but they seem to be the most vocal when it comes to the news.) These parties are playing up the comments and downplaying the timing. Ritz's comments were made on August 30th, which was at the beginning of the crisis; when his comments are taken out of context, such as during the present day, they seem more cruel than they were meant to be.

Call me crazy, but shouldn't politics be more about public relations and less about backstabbing? With all of these scandal stories that have been leaking about the current government, I'm not so sure that I'm comfortable enough with the current state of all of the parties to vote. Here's hoping that something changes between now and October 14th.