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October 31, 2008

C'mon, Move to Canada!

As I was looking at election coverage I came across this video. It's a pretty entertaining parody of left wing Americans threatening to move to Canada if the Republicans win again. For those who don't know, after the 2004 election, the number of Americans visiting the Canadian Immigration website skyrocketed, and there were even arguments made against moving to Canada.

October 30, 2008

Global Warming

In one of Mount Allison's newest classes, Science 1001, we are being taught about global warming. But, as a class created specifically for non-science students, it emphasizes more of the big picture, what the conclusion of all the scientific work has been, rather than the calculations themselves. One of the major topics in that class has been on the topic of global warming. We looked at the scientific evidence for human-caused global warming, but we also discussed public policy. In order to look the bigger picture he had us watch the following video:



We went from the framework that even if we had no idea whether global warming was happening we should still act, to reviewing the validity of arguments for and against it. We discussed how in science there are not absolute certainties, but given the evidence that global warming is not caused by humans, or that it will not have a large impact is overshadowed tremendous amount of evidence that it is caused by humans and it will have a giant impact on our daily lives.

October 29, 2008

Barack Obama



I'm just sitting down to watch Barack Obama's 30-minute advertisement. During the last few weeks people have asked me if I'm excited about and if I've voted in the American election. I'm very excited about Barack Obama (I called registered democrats in Nevada and South Carolina to urge them to vote for him during the primaries, voted for him when I lived in Illinois, donated to his campaign twice, stayed up all night just to see him speak in Beliot, WI, and voted for him on my absentee ballot two weeks ago). I'm optimistic about what will happen on Tuesday because I think Obama is the best chance the US has to help the middle class during this economic crisis, end the war in Iraq, and restore America's image around the world.