This (Past Twenty-Two) Week's Favourite Things! Monday May 22nd - Sunday October 23rd, 2017

1.   Research topic: everything to do with the human gallbladder.   There are a lot of articles and videos online about gallstones how to naturally cleanse the gallbladder, which is important for the roles it plays in fat metabolism as well as thyroid function. Thanks to the western diet and stress, it is common for it to get jammed up with sludge and stones.  In one of the many articles I read someone compares gallbladder removal to removing a beeping smoke alarm from a burning house - while surgery may be necessary at times, best case scenario would likely be to cleanse the thing naturally before problems arise.  Here is an article:
Healing the Gallbladder with Chinese Medicine

2.  What the Dairy Industry Doesn't Want You To Know  Full Talk by Neal Barnard MD (youtube)

3.  Dr. McDougall - you're fired!  youtube video  to quote the description on youtube: "Dr. McDougall was kicked out of the Obesity Medicine Conference. But he's one of the leading weight loss experts in the world. What happened?"

4.  Bodhisattva Vow by the Beastie Boys.  According to Wikipedia, MCA practiced Buddhism and supported the Tibetan Independence Movement

5.  The Tibetan Freedom Concert album

6.  All Wars Are Bankers Wars - A Very Clear Pattern Throughout History.  Youtube video

7.  Gut Health - Effects of Glyphosate and Antibiotics.  informative blog post about how a pesticide used on GMO crops can impact human health, especially endocrine (gland) function.

8.  What I Wish Someone Had Told Me in Medical School About Nutrition.  Youtube video lecture by Michael Klaper MD.

9.   The Real Causes of Poverty youtube video

10.  Alan Watts youtube videos including:  Life is NOT a Journey,    and, Alan Watts: Full Unedited Version of 'Conversation with Myself'. and, Alan Watts: Most epic speech of all time.

11.  CBC article from June 15: Coffee outlet's Canada 150 message adds reminder about Indigenous history, Just Us! Coffee Roasters in Grand Pré, N.S., changed its billboard on Monday as a reminder of how long this land has been inhabited: "Canada 150. Mi'kma'ki 13,000."

12.  Videos from the 'Awaken with JP' youtube channel including: How To Get Offended, and Coconut Oil Kills (which makes fun of the grass seed, aka 'vegetable', oil industries)

13. Movies:   A Knight's Tale 
Ever After
Why Him? 

14.  Aesop's Tale: The Lion With Bad Breath.  This link goes to a cool website called 'Long Long Time Ago stories for you' which has all of Aesop's Tales and many other stories.

15.  Life is easy.  Why do we make it hard?  Ted Talk by Jon Jandai  (youtube)

16.   Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson:  "Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience."

I took a break from art the past few months but am back at underglazing, with a firing coming asap.

This (Past Three) Week's Favourite Things! Monday May 1st - Sunday May 21st, 2017

1. Vancouver Sun article about a non-profit that links developers with undeveloped property with urban gardeners: Vancouver community gardens a gift from developers who get a tax break.  

2. The Guardian article:  Swedish city builds 'passive houses' as part of ambitious CO2 reduction targets

3.   10 reasons you should be drinking pine needle tea

4.  Edible Wild Food blog posts: Winter Survival Food: Winter Teas
and
 Recycle your Christmas tree - drink it!

5.  "Silicon Hali" a Coast article from 2012, I hadn't heard this play on Silicon Valley before with respect to Halifax but here is an article comparing the two places: "Why a tech company chose Halifax  over Silicon Valley".   

As an aside here is a youtube doc about housing prices in Silicon Valley: Million Dollar Shack: Trapped in Silicon Valley's Housing Bubble  

6.  The Crushing Cancer Kitchen website, stumbled across this looking for a recipe that uses sprouted lentils

7.  Truth Never Told youtube videos: 55. Delete Facebook
and  the 5 stages of awakening

 8.   The entire NutritionFacts.org youtube channel by Dr. Michael Greger, including this video on resistant starch:  Getting Starch to take the Path of Most Resistance

9.   The "What I've learned" youtube channel including:

Everything Wrong With "The System" (Educate yourself)

Why Your Body Makes You Fat and Hungry 

Food Industry's Secret Weapon (WHY sugar is addictive and in 80% of food)

The Story of Fat: why we were wrong about health

10.  That Sugar Film, now on Canadian Netflix, this was a very educative, entertaining Australian film on the dangers of consuming too much sugar, prevalent in so-called "health foods".  I learned about it when mentioned in the video about sugar from the channel above.

11. post: 10 habits that are more harmful than you think

12. In Defense of Food: documentary based on Michael Pollan's book
currently on Canadian Netflix

13. 80/10/10 youtube video: Does Dairy Really Cause Cancer? Dr. Michael Klaper

14. Important Message - Infinite Waters youtube video

15. Bob Proctor: How to Find Your Passion and Use Law of Attraction. youtube interview with Jake Ducey from April 2017

16.  Dr. Michael Greger "How Not To Die" Talks at Google on Youtube

17. Dr. Mercola interviewing Dr. Greger on How Not To Die (youtube video)

18.  webpage:  Feng Shui: Five Celestial Animals

This Week's Favourite Things! Monday April 24th - Sunday April 30th, 2017

1.  This 2 minute Infinite Waters youtube video

2.  The entire Fitness Blender youtube channel, props to these people adapting to the internet age to make a home based business which must be profitable what with all their views and subscribers, while helping people for free.  Great stuff for people who want to work out at home without any gym membership or equipment.  

3.  Halifax has a summer opera festival, and there's a group called Opera Nova Scotia - cool

4.  Youtube videos about materialism/consumerism: 

The Trap of Materialism - UK documentary, the next two youtube videos use some clips from this as well as lots of other stuff

Escape! From the cult of materialism by Fair Wind Films 

Consumerism 

5.  A Simpler Way: Crisis as opportunity (2016) Free Full Documentary.  This is about a bunch of people who came together in a simple community in the woods in Australia, including folks quitting desk jobs.  It describes challenges of the plan as well.  The entire youtube channel Happen Films has other interesting docs about permaculture and forest gardening.

6.  Mud Jeans.  This European company is described in the Consumerism film above and presents a very creative, stylish, ethical, resource-efficient solution for clothing people in manner they call the "circular economy". 

7.  This coming week's Doreen Virtue angel card reading on youtube includes a coupon code early on for a very nice free 1 hour video on healing addictions, which draws on her experience as a psychologist

This Week's Favourite Things! Monday April 17th - Sunday April 23rd, 2017

1.  Youtube video: The war on consciousness - Graham Hancock, banned TED talk.  His comments on TED banning this talk can be seen here on the TED blog.

2.  Youtube video: Award winning short film on how to be self sufficient

3.  Youtube video: Living like it's 2050: a transition farm in North Carolina

4.  Sorghum.  I didn't know much about this gluten free high protein grain until stumbling across this youtube video:  A must grow plant for anyone with a goal of a self-sufficient food supply.  Here are   7 surprising benefits of sorghum (article), and Annapolis Seeds in Middleton has some early-variety of sorghum seeds for sale, good for Nova Scotia's climate.

5. The Song Electric Avenue by Eddy Grant, here are the lyrics

6.  CBC article: Halifax could start each day with recognition of Mi'kmaq lands, April 24, 2017

7.  Dr Bronner's magic, organic, liquid soaps, have tried almond and peppermint so far but they all look very good and are indeed multi purpose.  Toxins can be absorbed through skin hence the motivation to be in contact with fewer of them.

8.  Sesame seeds, they're very high in magnesium and full of other health benefits, and delicious as tahini or ground up with other raw nuts and seeds; add to melted coconut oil, honey, raw cacao powder, cinnamon, and set in containers in the freezer to make treats

9.  forgot to link this last week: this Joe Fafard national film board of Canada documentary from 1973 on youtube : I don't have to work that big

This Week's Favourite Things! Monday April 10th - Sunday April 16th, 2017

1.  This recent New Yorker article: Margaret Atwood, The Prophet of Dystopia.

2.  This short documentary on youtube about an Aboriginal art piece in Vancouver:  Through The Eye Of The Raven

3.  Skwachays Lodge, Vancouver's boutique Aboriginal art hotel.  This is a social enterprise by a non-profit that combines an Aboriginal art gallery, with a boutique hotel in order to offset costs for affordable housing units for resident Aboriginal artists.   The hotel rooms are decorated by different artists, and the location was an aging Victorian building which was renovated and added to.  Here are a couple of the many articles about it:

Room to Paint.  Vancouver Tackles Housing Challenges While Promoting Aboriginal Art, Financial Post 2016

Rub Shoulders With Aboriginal Artists At This Unique Hotel.  Globe and Mail article 2015

4.  Halifax to re-open debate over sites named for man who issued Mi'kmaq scalp bounty.  CTV News article.   And wiki links about Halifax's history Cornwallis violated a treaty to settle Halifax, which lead to more war between the British and Mi'kmaq until it ended by both sides literally burying a hatchet on Spring Garden Road.  One of the other links I read mentioned this song "Halifax" as mentioning Cornwallis, by the Hampton Grease Band.  

5. This page about the Wabanaki Confederancy 

6. This came up randomly on youtube and is perhaps more cheerful than the title suggests: How To Survive Depopulation 11 Simple Affordable Tricks  This vlogger also has some interesting posts: Straight Talk From Standing Rock,  which describes truth about peaceful protests by Aboriginal water protectors and their allies, Who Are The Sheepeaters, about the Tuka Dika tribe, On the Ground: Standing Rock Silence,  Standing Rock Eviction Spurs Humanity, Sacred Knowledge: the Standing Rock Story Corporate Media Didn't Tell You, and this one about loving life deep down in a dark rabbit hole. 

7.  This post from 2015, Argentina replaces Columbus statue with Indigenous Heroine

8.  This article from March 2017: New Zealand River First in the World to be Given Legal Human Status

9.  How to Meditate - Intro to Awaken Your Inner Energy With Meditation, ArtOfUnity youtube video

10.  Become a Dreamer, YouAreCreators youtube video.

11.   The part near the end of the movie Outbreak,where bomber pilots listen to Dustin Hoffman, even though everyone is saying he is crazy, and figure out how to do the humane thing while still following orders. As an aside the monkey star in this movie is is a Capuchin which is a "new world monkey" and not an "old world monkey"

This Week's Favourite Things! Monday April 3rd to Sunday April 9th, 2017

1. That's Amore - 1953 song that became a Dean Martin hit. 

2.  Hallelujah  - Leonard Cohen Song.  Here is a youtube video of Leondard Cohen performing it at the 2008 Montreal Jazz Festival,  and here is Jeff Buckley's version on youtube.   I didn't realize Leonard Cohen got swindled by his manager, as described in the "lawsuits and financial troubles" section in his wiki page.  Take heed, "when you gain in riches the thieves will come" to quote a person I met in Australia who had a buddhist teacher.

3.  Amazing Grace Cherokee Prayer - Youtube video with montage of older movies, I like the writing at the beginning, and here is the same song with a slideshow of various pictures and quotes.

4.  Bridget Nielsen's youtube channel, eg. "Conspiracy, High Frequency & Balancing Dark & Light"  and "Creating Self Worth & Abundance/ The New Economy/ Value of People"

5. Meanwhile back in BC, this March 2017 article:  Home buyers, tenants from Lower Mainland moving to outlying areas to live.   Also interesting is the Georgia Straight's collection of stories from renters of Vancouver coping with extremely high cost of living there, eg. "I've been physically attacked because I choose to live in my van".

6.  More about Nova Scotia's Maud Lewis and Maudie the film, starting with a question on twitter as to why this film was shot in Newfoundland instead of Nova Scotia.

According to this Digby Courier May 2014 article,  Maud Lewis movie to be shot in Newfoundland this summer, Newfoundland was chosen for its historic locations that look like 50's, 60's Nova Scotia.  It appears that this was decided before the NS government slashed the film tax credit in 2015. 

Here is also this October 2015 CBC article:  Maudie set to put Newfoundland on the map, says Producer Mary Sexton.  And a youtube clip: Film critic Anne Brodie chats with Maudie director Aisling Walsh.

7. What is Trash Polka? 2013 article about this style of Tattoo art.

8. Anatomy of a Fox, art print from Society 6,  I like this artist's "Sassquatch" print as well.

9.  This clip on youtube from the episode where Marge becomes a realtor on The Simpsons, "Lionel Hutz explains "The Truth"

The episode is called Realty Bites and includes a character based on the film Glengarry Glen Ross. 

10.  South Park episodes:  Pandemic and Pandemic 2: The Startling, as well as Cartman's Incredible Gift

11. The Spirit Science Central youtube channel has some new videos, eg. 33_1 Let Food be thy Medicine, the beginning of a series about food.  They took a year off between Christmas 2015 and came back Christmas 2016 with 32 - A Brief History of Psychedelics 

12. I was going to drop this topic, but one more point I noticed after posting last week's post.  This 2013 article by a writer in Beirut "Lebanon is too corrupt to care about its own corruption." 

Where so much of the current development boom in Halifax is by developers from Lebanon, this may or may not be relevant to local politics, but I like the vocabulary lesson.  As an aside here's a recent opinion piece about the Nova Centre.

This Week's Favourite Things! Monday March 27th - Sunday April 2nd, 2017

1.  Giant Valentine Tomatoes, it's tomato seed starting time and this new variety we tried last year lived up to its description. 

2. If reality is some sort of video game as previously suggested, and if you can indeed  create your reality by programming your own belief systems, I think the game I'd be playing would be called "Tower of Babel" vs "Garden of Eden". 

3. Youtube videos featuring Les Brown, motivational speaker, eg. Les Brown - How to get to know yourself  and Les Brown's top 10 rules for success, volume one and volume two

4. Responding vs. Reacting (avoid the narcissist's trap and learn a valuable life skill) Inner Integration youtube video

5. This Canadian Inflation calculator, for the years 1960 to 2017. 

6. Black Eyed Peas videos/songs:  Imma Be Rocking That Body,  Boom Boom Pow, Pump It, I Gotta Feeling,  especially as background music to Fitness Blender cardio kickboxing workouts.

7. Everything Maud Lewis, in anticipation of  the biographic film Maudie which will released soon.  

Here are some links with more information about Maud's life:

Maud Lewis: The Heart on the Door, new biography that is 'dark at every turn'.  book review, Local Xpress article April 2017.

One of Canada's Great Artists Maud Lewis, 1965: CBC Archives,  short (3 1/2 minute) youtube video from the CBC channel.   

Maud Lewis: A World Without Shadows.  10 minute Canadian National Film Board film on their youtube channel.

Ordinary Affects: Folk Art, Maud Lewis, and the Social Aesthetics of the Everyday.  Concordia University lecture by Dr. Erin Morton on youtube 

The "About Maud" page from the maudlewis.ca website.  Her fluffy black cats with yellow eyes are my favourite subject of hers.

8.  The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Artists, Blender Foundation youtube video

9. The Dash, a poem by Linda Ellis.

10.  This 2007 report by Canada's competition bureau, mentioned previously with respect to real estate agents, this time I find the bit about lawyers very interesting:

Self-Regulated Professions Balancing Competition and Regulation. 

The link above goes to a table of contents, so a person can skip ahead to the conclusion about lawyers, which warns that due to self regulation for lawyers and correspondingly high legal fees, Canada is at risk of having a justice system that only the rich can afford.

11. Articles about the Canadian real estate industry, and their comment sections:

Tricks Realtors Use To Sell Homes.  Feb 2015 MoneySense article.

Calgary Homeowner Who Says Realtor 'Misrepresented' Square Footage on MLS Cost Her Thousands.  March 2016 CBC Go Public Article

Homelife Superstars Realtor Accused of Duping Client out of $12k. January 2015 CBC Go Public article.  

One Man's $50,500 real estate commission lesson - you can still be obligated to pay commission even after your contract with an agent has expired.  June 2014 The Star article.

12.   Good news for Moose and other critters, announcements about protected habitat in Nova Scotia.   

13. Doreen Virtue who it seems has quietly started her own online church from her Hawaiian reserve for rescued animals.  This "sermon" from the week of March 27 - April 2nd on discernment and healing was nice.

14.  Alan Watts - Use Your Mind As A Mirror (youtube video)

15.  this quote that Les Brown mentioned, "The best revenge in life is massive success" - Frank Sinatra.  

Here comes a big tangent... 

This quote led me to wondering who Sinatra was looking for revenge on so I watched a documentary on youtube about his life:

Sinatra -- Dark Star -- Full Documentary.  

...and learned that Sinatra's career was largely built by the Italian mafia who used him to entertain at their casinos.  News to me but apparently this is common knowledge. 

This led me to randomly wondering if Lebanon has a mafia, based on a random comment an out of province friend made awhile back. 

So, curious, I googled "does Lebanon have a mafia?" and, this wiki page comes up: Lebanese Mafia.   

Here is a quote copied directly from the page:  

The Lebanese diaspora today is a staggering 20+ million, with only 4 million Lebanese residing in Lebanon. The advances of the Lebanese in their criminal activities throughout the world caused many governments and politicians to become corrupted and give in to their Lebanese guests due to their accumulated wealth and power. 

Now I have no idea if the information in this page is true or not, as the page doesn't references any sources to back up these allegations.  But as an aside, many big construction projects in Halifax are by this group of developers from Diman Lebanon as described in these two articles:

Call It The Diman Connection Chronicle Herald, October 2011 article. 
(Please note that Halifax Chronicle Herald reporters and other staff have been on strike since January 2016, but their writings can now be seen at Local Xpress)

and 

It Takes a Lebanese Village to Raise Halifax's Skyline ( Nov 2013 Globe and Mail article).

Moreover, a chunk of Halifax's planning department now occupies space in The Village at Bayer's Road mall, which is owned by the same Diman developer who is building the Nova Centre.  The Nova Centre is a large building built in part with public funds because it will be housing a new convention center.  This project has been met with both accolades and critique, eg:.

Halifax Convention Centre: Prosperity or Tax Burden?  April 2014 Chronicle Herald article

and:

The casualties of a downtown Halifax Megaproject, March 2017 Globe and Mail Article

To the developer's credit there is also this article indicating the large amounts of fees that have allegedly been paid back to the city: Nova Centre developer forks over $733,400 in fees to Halifax. June 2014 Chronicle Herald article.

But in any case, based on our own experience of believing we had some valuable development land in Halifax, I have been wondering for awhile now: 

Could these Diman developers described in the above articles be acting as a cartel in order to keep development land prices low, perhaps with the assistance of local real estate professionals?  

and

Do they ever bid against each other for bits of land for major projects in HRM?

From the Merriam Webster website:

"A cartel is an organization of a few independent producers for the purpose of improving the profitability of the firms involved. This usually involves some restriction of output, control of price, and allocation of market shares. Members of a cartel generally maintain their separate identities and financial independence while engaging in cooperative policies. Cartels can either be domestic or international. Because cartels restrict competition and result in higher prices for consumers, they are outlawed in some countries."    

As another aside it seems that there's a Halifax company called Banc which, while the creator is from Turkey, appears to back developments conceived by the Diman developers as well as partnering with them on other projects.  

Banc is behind the luxury building that went up quickly in people's yards with no recourse which seems to have added more density than city by laws permitted:  Neighbours Down on Highrise.  March 28, 2014 Chronicle Herald article. 

And Banc is likewise behind the recent destruction of a popular local mountain biking/hiking trail "The Whopper Dropper" despite the fact that this company, which owns the Bedford Commons among other places, presumably could have afforded to leave this popular recreation area as park land: 
Our jaws dropped: Halifax residents react as developer clears popular trail.  May 5, 2015 CTV Atlantic Article.

To this developer's credit though they did save the Exhibition Park:  Exhibition Park to get new life under private sector ownership, Global news November 2015 article.  Although after more thought, 2.5 million dollars + estimated 500k in repairs (according to the article linked above) seems like quite a low pricetag for an entire exhibition park in a major Canadian city along with 112 acres of adjacent land.  But perhaps this is something a qualified, independent, out of province appraiser would be able to comment on.

From reading all sorts of articles about real estate development and sales in Canada and elsewhere, I have this other question:  Could money laundering of proceeds of organized crime be behind real estate development and property value spikes in places like Canada and Australia?  

There are oodles of articles online regarding the money laundering via real estate topic so I won't list any.   But as an aside, The 'Call it the Diman Connection' article linked above mentions that Diman developers have also settled in Sydney Australia, which happens to have an overheated real estate market.  

As another aside I learned over the past year that some of the largest development companies in Vancouver are Italian.  While I love my old Commercial Drive neighbourhood with its Italian coffee shops, delis, and community centre now I wonder if, allegations are true about organized crime laundering money via real estate, whether mafia proceeds could be behind the transformation of Vancouver into a real estate Casino for foreign investors.  

Or, it could be there's plenty of other questionable foreign money for that, eg:
Meet the mysterious tycoon at the centre of half a billion in BC property deals.  July 2016 National Post Article. 
 
Whatever the case, all of the above is just presented as food for thought for any folks who have been interested in trying to figure out the politics of development in Halifax, and none of it is intended to defame any person or group.  In fact if that quote from the Wiki page is defamatory then maybe someone should look into that.  For my part I'll be dropping this topic and returning to my sculptures shortly.  To be honest I'm actually more interested in the following questions:  

Could the development patterns seen in certain Canadian and Australian cities, with their corresponding affordable housing crises and impacts on the environment, heritage properties, and small local businesses, be described accurately as some sort of modern day, economic colonialism? 

and if so...

Could this be evidence of the Hermetic Law of  Cause and Effect with respect to being some sort of karmic repercussion for the atrocities suffered by Aboriginal or Indigenous people of these countries?

16.  This piece of art, that randomly showed up in my browser as a Society 6 ad, thanks Google.  I love the name, as well as the piece:  Trash Polka - Female Samurai

This (Past Three) Week's Favourite Things! Monday March 6th - Sunday March 26th, 2017

1.  Apple Snails, a keystone species or "ecosystem engineer" as featured in this 3 minute youtube clip from BBC Earth "Why the Giant Otter Needs the Snail - Secrets of our Living Planet".    I love that the apple snail just quietly does its thing and its action of turning muck into food, and it results in a giant ecosystem, proving how all species are connected.  According to this article, when taken from its home environment, the apple snail can also be an ecosystem destroyer, having put local rice production and environments at risk when transplanted into new habitats.  

2.

3.  CBC Article: Their stories on opting out: Indigenous Artists on Canada 150

4. This CBC opinion article:  Canada's 150 Year Celebration doesn't fly here, subtitled why many First Nations people won't be celebrating Canada's sesquicentennial birthday

5. This youtube video of a talk from a 2017 Ancestors & the land conference:  Geography of Hope, Lyla June Johnston on Forgiveness

6.  This You Are Creators Youtube video:   The 30 Day Challenge That Will Change Your Life. 

7.  This version of Waterfalls, especially the lyrics, as sung by this year's judges for the Voice

8.  The song "Spitting Venom" by Modest Mouse, and the entire album it came from.

9.  The song "Baker Street" by Gerry Rafferty and this article from The Atlantic about it: "Baker Street: The Mystery of Rock's Greatest Sax Riff"  

10.  4 Wounds we all walk around with - article

11.    The South Park episode where Stan tries to stop whaling

12. CTV news article with video: Woman resigned to being plump learns she has 63 kg Ovarian Cyst.  Take heed ladies, apparently at least 10% of woman have Poly Cystic Ovarian  Syndrome, or PCOS, this article seems to describe a worst case scenario though it isn't mentioned.  There is lots online, articles and videos, on PCOS and how to control the symptoms with diet and lifestyle

13. Youtube video: How to Open Your 7 Chakras as Explained in a Children's Show

14. Youtube video from the Bright Insight channel:  6 Shocking Facts PROVE The Truth is Stranger Than Fiction - Our Age of Deception Exposed

15. movie: Legends of the Fall

16. movie: Legally Blonde

17. Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, Season 4 Episode 6.   Here is one youtube clip from the episode which ended with a bit about dancing traffic zebras in Bolivia, which can be seen here on youtube at least for now.   

Here is a youtube video of some Bolivian Traffic Zebras dancing to psy's 'gangnam style', "Cebra Style"

This Week's Favourite Things! Monday February 27th - Sunday March 5th, 2017

1.  Owning Mahowny.  This is a movie based on a true story, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman who plays Dan Mahowny - a Canadian banker who gets into some trouble due to his gambling addiction.

2.  Youtube Higher Self video: Your cells are listening, how talking to your body can help you heal.  Includes an interesting discussion of emotions in plants based on experiments.

3.  This gizmodo.com article with video:  Elon Musk: we're probably living in a video game.  

Also on this topic:  Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? (Scientific American article),  Did the Oscars just prove that we are living in a computer simulation? (The New Yorker cultural comment) and Our universe may be a Matrix-like computer game designed by aliens, says NASA scientist (express.co.uk article).

This Week's Favourite Things! Monday February 20th - Sunday February 26th, 2017

1.  Infinite Waters youtube video: How To Stop Other People's Energy From Destroying You

2.  CBC Marketplace November 2016 episode, on the CBC News youtube channel:  "Real Estate agents breaking the rules: Hidden camera investigation"

3.  This article from lonerwolf.com:  You're not going crazy: 15 signs you're a victim of gaslighting

4.  This Western Investor article from June 2016: "B.C real estate industry stripped of self-regulation in wake of damming report.  All Real Estate Council of BC regulatory powers will be transferred to a real estate superintendent." 

5.  This 2007 Government of Canada Competition Bureau Report:  Self-regulated Professions - Balancing competition and regulation.   Included in this report are 5 professions: lawyers, accountants, optometrists, pharmacists, and real estate agents.  According to the section on realtors:  "Provincial real estate councils regulate the real estate industry in six of the ten provinces (Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick are the exceptions). Provincial law and regulation establish these councils to license real estate professionals and to create and administer the rules agents must follow. In the territories and the four provinces without real estate councils, the governments directly license agents and regulate the profession."  This means that the real estate industry in Alberta, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec, and Saskatchewan are regulated by members of their own industry.  British Columbia was also on this list of self-regulated provinces up until British Columbians realized they weren't being protected adequately from unethical behaviour and started flipping out, as described in the article above. 

6.  Question that came up from review of items 2, 4, 5 on this list:  where Canadians have so much of their net worth tied up in property, and the Canadian real estate industry must worth a pile of dough by now should it be regulated by the federal government? Even the Canadian Real Estate Association has no regulatory authority over any board or commission in any of the provinces, despite having a national brand and national standards for real estate agents. 

7.  Good news for our local wild Atlantic salmon and salmon-lovers of all species, though I'm not sure what the date of posting is on the Municipality of the District of Lunenburg website:  "The Municipality of the District of Lunenburg Moves to Protect the La Have River".  Floodplains in the area will be mapped in order to improve environmental protection, including protection from infilling and development in flood-prone areas. 

This Week's Favourite Things! Monday February 13th - Sunday February 19th, 2017

1.  Youtube video: 66 (Old) Movie Dance Scenes Mashup (Mark Ronson - Uptown Funk ft.Bruno Mars).  wow.  The music video for the song this is based on is great too of course. 

2.  Gogol Bordello videos on youtube:   Tribal Connection (again), Not A Crime, and Immigraniada (We Comin' Rougher)  this last song seems to be a tribute to immigrants and ends with a slide which says "No Human Being is Illegal".   Timely message.

3.  Pineapple.  President's Choice has bags of frozen pineapple chunks now, very convenient for smoothies.  Pineapple has a lot of health benefits.

4. This Michelangelo quote: "The great danger for most of us is not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark".

5. This twitter feed: @LawAttractionLO 

6.   This Tyee Article about the first project funded by CMHC's Affordable Rental Housing Innovation Fund:  'Modular' One-Person Homes Fill A Need in Vancouver.  At 250 sqft these units are actually larger than student housing at UBC, which is currently constructing 140 sqft "Nano Suites" and 230 sqft studio apartments.

7.  This Tyee Article about another cool Vancouver affordable housing project:  'Inspiring' Shipping Container Housing Set to Multiply. 

8.  This youtube clip from the Big Bang Theory Episode where Elon Musk helps out at a soup kitchen.

This (Past Two) Week's Favourite Things! Monday January 30th - Sunday February 12th, 2017

1. This YouAreCreators youtube video: Nikola Tesla Code 3-6-9 "All is vibrating energy, especially thought"

2.  The Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan.  It is HUGE (over $170 billion) and prosperous, growing like a money snowball as described on this wiki page, in their annual reporting, and in this Walrus article: Pension Envy. subtitle "Ontario Teachers have the world's best-performing retirement fund.  Is it a model for the rest of us?"  

Meanwhile in Nova Scotia there has been a lot of media about teachers requests for better classroom conditions and pay etc, which makes me wonder if the NS Teachers Pension Plan could be managed as successfully as the OTPP, whether that could solve some of their problems.

3.  New lifestyle decision to stop complaining about anything, or at least try hard to do so, inspired by item #1 on this list, and also in order to test the theory that complaining causes tension in the body and therefore detracts from health and productivity. Hence the hypothesis that in the absence of complaining, health and productivity should improve.  I found a few posts on the topic, especially from people trying a 21 day complaining detox.  This article explains why Complaining is Bad for Your Brain. 

4. Becoming Warren Buffet - a 2017 HBO documentary about billionaire Warren Buffet. 

5. Our sweet, sweet Canadian air, especially after reading this article: New Zealand air farmers are cashing in on China's air pollution.  Sorry about your air, China, but thanks for all the cheap stuff. 

6.  Youtube video Sophia Loren Mambo Italiano  and  Fred Astaire & Rita Hayworth in The Shorty George

This Week's Favourite Things! Monday January 23rd - Sunday January 29th, 2017

1.  Salivary Amylase.  This enzyme kept popping into my  head lately and was a reminder that digestion starts in your mouth, as some digestive enzymes such as salivary amylase and lipase (which break down fats) are secreted there.  Therefore while smoothies are delicious drinking them quickly may mean they aren't getting digested as well as they could be, as enzymes are needed to break down plant cell walls, so it's a good idea to chew your smoothies, listed first in this article as one of the 3 Smoothie Rules to Live by.

2.  Psychic Jeopardy.  This is a fun new way to watch Jeopardy and test psychic ability, by trying to guess the right questions based only on the category title.  I thought I maybe invented this but a google search revealed other people had this same idea.

3.  Youtube Channel Fitness Blender's cardio kickboxing home workouts.  Eg this one but there are other good ones on this channel too.

4.  Gogol Bordello videos on youtube.  American Wedding, which has an awesome song lyric "have you ever been to American wedding?  Where is vodka, where is marinated herring?", Tribal Connection, and Start Wearing Purple

5.  More Higher Self videos: 40 Things you soul wants you to know, The 5 Stages of Awakening, Angelic guides - you didn't come here to struggle how to allow with ease, and Awakening - 7 steps to ease the labor pain of spiritual rebirth

This Week's Favourite Things! Monday January 16th - Sunday January 22nd, 2017

1.  The bit on Dragon's Den last week about how one of the Dragons is saving an iconic Toronto music venue, as described in this article:  El Mocambo saved by Dragon's Den star Michaele Wekerle

2.  The Minions (animated movie)

3.  This youtube YouAreCreators video about the universal (Hermetic or spiritual) law of reaping and sowing

4.  This youtube cartoon, "The Headless Horseman by Bing Crosby (1949) Vintage Halloween"  early for Halloween stuff but I'd never seen this before I don't think and stumbled across it listening to Bing's Song of Freedom some more.  

5.  Natural Society article:  Here is How Candida May Actually Cause Cancer. 

This Week's Favourite Things! Monday January 9th - Sunday January 15th, 2017

1.  Every live music venue managing to stay open these days, and their owners, staff, musicians and landlords.  Here's a cbc article about some iconic venues that have shut recently including The Railway Club in Vancouver and The Carleton in Halifax.  RIP and thanks for the good times.  The comments on the article are interesting too, as it seems there are a lot of other economic factors keeping people home.

2.  Louis CK "Oh My God" (2013) at the Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix

3.  Cilantro stalks.  Up until last week I'd always spend a lot of time picking leaves off the stalks, but realized the stalks are good blended into smoothies and salad dressing.  Not sure if the stalks have as many health benefits as the leaves but is way less work.

4. A couple of visual artists, and their websites: Eli Halpin and Jennifer Lommers stumbled across while finally looking into what wayfair.ca is - it's some big online decor retailer.  But what is interesting is the artists who have apparently decided to embrace the internet and all these different platforms of getting their art out there, such as Society 6 and other companies that do prints on canvas.  Not that many people can afford a $4,000 painting so I find the whole concept of replicating 2D art this way interesting as a way to make art more affordable and accessible while supporting the artists.

5. Pottery.  I was thinking this week about how long pottery can last, and the answer is 10s of thousands of years potentially.  Eg, here's the wiki page for Venus of Dolni Vestonice, one of the oldest pottery figures dated to 29,000 - 25,000 BCE.   That's a long time! and more reason to try to make better stuff.   

6.  Bing Crosby's Song of Freedom (link to a youtube recording) from the movie Holiday Inn.  

7. Stephen Fearing's 'Between the Hurricanes' album especially "As the Crow Flies" and "These Golden Days"

8.  This article about January's Wolf Moon and Awolnation's album Run

9.  Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers youtube clips, Swing Time and Bouncing the Blues

10.  A couple of trippy Higher Self youtube videos:  12 Methods to Unplug from the Matrix, and Your Soul's Journey, A Message From Your Spirit Guides.