Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

and while you are here a Christmas fun fact:

The reindeer is named Donder not Donner

Pass it around

I'm still here

My apologies for the lack of blogging lately. I've been occupied trying to find employment recently. I thought that I should at least blog a couple times before we have another election.

I'm not surprised by the planes for a liberal alliance. I'm actually surprised it didn't happen earlier. The last election must have acted as a wake up call.

My guess is that the liberals see the down economy and Harper's resistance to a stimulus plan as their opportunity to get into power. It may bee good news in the short term for the Canadian left, but in the long run it is a bad sign. This move is most defiantly a huge sign of weakness.

Things that are amazing

From FiveThirtyEight.com

These ground campaigns do not bear any relationship to one another. One side has something in the neighborhood of five million volunteers all assigned to very clear and specific pieces of the operation, and the other seems to have something like a thousand volunteers scattered throughout the country. Jon Tester's 2006 Senate race in Montana had more volunteers -- by a mile -- than John McCain's 2006 presidential campaign.

--This left me wondering how on earth the election McCain could even be winning any states...at all. Five million VOTERS would be enough to get elected in most countries. Mark Twain once wrote that fiction is bound to the realm of possibility. Reality is not. This election defiantly applies.

Seinfeld election

There are two reasons why I haven't made a post about the election until now.

1. I've been away from home and haven't had too much time for blogging.

2. This has very much been a Seinfeld election, A.K.A. an election about nothing. I can't think of anything to write about. I really have a hard time thinking of a, non-obvious way that the country is different now.

I think the biggest political consequence of this election is the coming shack-up in the Liberal party. They are in need of a Maverick. So is the GOP, but that is for another post.

Reason why I love democracy #6,947

...A little optimism..

So far I've been silent on the current financial crises. Mainly because I don't have a stunning knowledge of financial markets (though I think I know more than most the talking heads you see on TV news).

Anyway, watching the market go down and down there is only one fact that I find comforting, Stein's Law. Stein's Law is that if something cannot go on forever it must stop. Just as the market in the late nineties couldn't keep going up and up, the current market cannot keep going down forever. Today the Price to Earnings ratio of the DOW reached it's lowest level in 23 years. Something will eventually give.

Hang in there.

NDP Directs Canadians to the Web

...Well indirectly. Jack Layton has endorsed a policy of mandating that all Canadians networks carry Canadian content only. If this were made in to law, I do not think that Canadians could honestly claim to have a right to free speech.

This also speaks to the creeping xenophobia in Canadian culture. Many Canadians like to criticize (rightly) the fact that the Bush administration has sacrificed civil liberties in order for some supposed greater good. I've got news for you, it's happening here too. Let's not fall for that trap.

I suggest we call this plan what is really is:



credit to Stackelberg Follower

Greenwashing and the Economics of Eco-Friendly Products

Today I'm proud to introduce this blogs first guest post from Kelly Kilpatrick:

Over the last few years, the public’s environmental consciousness has grown by leaps and bounds in response to several different factors. With the rising price of oil and an increasing amount of evidence in the case for global warming, people are seeking out alternatives to traditional products in order to minimize their personal impact on the environment, while improving their health and the health of others around them in the process.

For quite some time, organic and eco-friendly products have been on the market, but now, more than ever, companies are moving toward “greenifying” their business models. This can help or hurt the company, depending on their motive for making these changes.

Greenwashing is a term used by consumers who believe they are being misled by companies who advertise themselves as green for the wrong reasons. For example, some companies are simply making changes to their public image and using green rhetoric to win over consumers. With information available at the click of a mouse, consumers find out quickly whether or not said company is green for the revenue it generates, or for loftier, more socially-conscious reasons.

In an article entitled “The Six Sins of Greenwashing,” a study found that of over 1,500 products surveyed, 99% of them were guilty of greenwashing. This is a disturbing trend in marketing, where large companies are trying to capitalize of the green market, all the while doing nothing to really help with their part of the problem.

With the demand for organic, sustainable, and eco-friendly products constantly increasing, companies that truly do care are struggling to maintain their hold on the market. Consumers that want to support companies that are environmentally conscious are going to need to do their homework.

Unfortunately for consumers and the environment alike, big business is beginning to threaten a niche market whose intentions were good. For more information on greenwashing and the top offenders, click here.

This post was contributed by Kelly Kilpatrick, who writes on the subject of the best online degrees. She invites your feedback at kellykilpatrick24@gmail.com