ecstaticist

Check out my friend Jason Swain’s new online fine art photography gallery. He is an excellent shooter and post processor.

I will be converting this blog into a photoblog in the near future. My miscellaneous ramblings will still be here, but relegated to a secondary role. Probably better for everyone that way Anyhow, watch for the launch of the Ecstatic Imaging blog soon!

VoteForEnvironment.ca was designed by Canadians who believe what the vast majority of the world’s scientists have told us: we are out of time and we must start to reduce our fossil fuel pollution now to save the planet from dangerous climate change.

We believe that the Harper Government’s collusion with the Bush White House to obstruct progress on climate change at recent international summits does not reflect how Canadians want their leaders to behave on the world stage. The Harper and the Conservative Party are simply not in step with what scientists say is needed, with Canadians’ concerns, and with economic benefits of dealing with climate change.

All the other major Parties have programs that seriously address our critical climate concerns and are talking about them in this election.

If those of us who care about the environment don’t work together across party lines, the pro-environment vote will be split as it was in the last election and Harper will be re-elected.

We are the majority. But our electoral system hasn’t kept up with Canada’s changing political landscape.

Here is how our dynamic riding by riding prediction system works:

This site calculates what the likely vote totals would be for each party based on today’s polling.

The method is simple and straight forward. The provincial average for any party on election day 2006 resulted in a certain number of votes for that party in any given riding — and a defined ratio of provincial average support to votes in a riding. That ratio is applied to an average of polling results for this election to calculate the number of votes the current support level would result in for a given party. This allows you to see how the votes would split today and who would likely win each riding.

Of course this assumes the quality of candidates and the overall situation in each riding is the same — which is not always the case. In some ridings the situation changes dramatically, shifting that ridings relationship of votes compared to the provincial average. To account for this the site applies corrections where, for instance, one party is not running a candidate. These corrections are completely transparent and if you don’t agree with them they are easy for you to reset for yourself.

This simple but effective math tool make it easy for you to decode what all these polls we see on television likely mean for your riding. As the functionality is expanded over the coming days you will be able to see what the myriad of public polls mean for not only the results in your riding but also for who forms government on October 15th.

We have identified your riding as a swing riding if an NDP, Bloc or Liberal candidate could have won in 2006 if at least one-third of the opposition party supporters had voted for the leading opposition party in that riding. We also point to the ridings where the Green party is competing to win a seat this time. Where strategic voting will have no effect on reducing the chances of a Conservative win, we refrain from a recommendation.

Why have we done this? To make the best possible information available to Canadians so we can stop splitting the vote and achieve government change not climate change. Please check this website often for updates and tell your friends who share our values of putting the environment above partisanship.

Please check this website often for updates and tell your friends who share our concern about vote splitting electing an anti-environment Conservative government.

If you are mad about the listeriosis outbreak and want answers, go to my new website and sign the petition.

Every once and a while I go for a Saturday picnic with my daughter, and we stop and pick up our picnic lunch at the Safeway deli on the way. Not any more. I was there buying our picnic lunch on one of the days the tainted meat was on the shelf. I usually buy pre-made deli sandwiches, but this time I opted for some chicken instead (it was awful).

Too close for comfort. I would have been feeding that crap to my two-year old. She normally gets lots of good organics and fresh stuff, but sometimes you opt for convenience. I have learned my lesson on this close call. Something was nagging at me in the back of my mind every time I bought our lunch there. I knew it was a bad idea on some level.

I’m so mad about it, I started an online petition to demand answers from the Harper government. These guys are clearly lying about what’s gone on. All you have to do is read the news for the last few days. And they had the gall to fire a guy who called them out on it, even though the document he released was already available on a public website.

This stinks and we need to get to the bottom of it.