Where am I going with this? Breasts, obviously. Turns out that breasts soak up toxic chemicals and fake hormones like Bounty absorbs that inconvenient Lysol spill.

What is an endocrine system? Who cares, right? You might, if you know someone affected by breast cancer.

The canary in the human body

“We live in constant conversation with our air, our water and our food, and it turns out our bodies are more like trees than they are like temples,” says Ms. Williams, who describes modern breasts as marinating in hormones and toxins. “We know that breasts get more tumours than any other organ in the body after skin, and I was interested, as so many people are, in the relationship between carcinogens and breast tissue.” She also was fascinated by the breast’s vulnerability to the latest man-made environmental villain, endocrine disrupters. Breasts, she writes, contain “a dense supply of receptors that sit on cell walls like hungry Venus fly traps, waiting around to catch passing molecules of estrogen, nature’s first hormone.”

[emphasis added]

Hmm, look what the Canadian government admitted just a couple months ago. Antibacterial soap additive triclosan is a cancer risk.

At the time, the government said it would be looking at phthalates, flame retardants, boron, selenium, cobalt and other chemicals in the second phase, as well as finalizing its risk assessment of triclosan.

Smith and co-author Bruce Lourie took aim at triclosan for their book, published in 2009.

Smith, who banished triclosan from his home years ago after reading studies identifying the antibacterial agent as a possible endocrine disrupter, saw the levels rise in his body by 2,900 times after using, over a two-day period, brand-name deodorant, toothpaste, anti-bacterial soap and shaving cream containing triclosan.

What’s in all of the soaps from Bath and Body Works that my wife bought? A toxic chemical that hates breasts. Oh oh.

Why is the government allowing soap and couches to be sold with toxins that kill people? Is this a new problem? No, just look at asbestos. I guess we’ll soon be banning toxic antibacterial soap from Canada, and shipping the toxic waste to India instead.

To practice my name remembering skill (which is stretched past the human limit of fewer than 200), I met Aaron who operates a pawn shop on 11th Ave. He missed seeing the eclipse the other day, as the part of the province he was in clouded over specifically during the critical hours. Doh! I also chatted with some old friends as we devoured some tasty appetizers. There were little, tiny, blue cheese flavoured hamburgers even, yummy.

I got to meet and talk with Meka Okochi. who is running for mayor this year, and we had a good discussion about our thoughts on the stadium. Also there, and running for city council like I am, were Tina Beaudry-Mellor and Shawn Fraser. Tina was quite dismayed by my musical tastes (I don’t mind listening to country). I wonder about Ryan’s musical tastes, and you should too.

I shouldn’t complain; I find Bad Lip Reading to be amazing:

Gotye doesn’t think he’s too bad either.

I'd like to glue a tiny moustache on your cat. On Wednesdays
bit.ly/J0bUAQ—
  (@gotye) May 04, 2012

==

Saturday I worked at the Regina Car Share booth at the Cathedral Village Arts Festival, and enjoyed the cloudy day. I don’t think a single person ended up with a sunburn today, and it didn’t even rain. Other car share board members had the display set up when I got there, and our new display equipment looked great. We’ve got to have a new sponsor sheet printed, because Sask Central has added quite a bit of support since we had the display made.

I bumped into quite a few local politicians including John Findura, Shawn Fraser again, Marc Spooner, and Jaime Garcia. I saw party leaders Victor Lau and interim leader John Nilson too, but they were busy talking with others as I milled around. I went to the WestJet booth, and someone in front of me won a free flight (I got 5% off my next booking, but the email hasn’t arrived yet).

I had lunch at Eat Healthy Foods, after picking up a replacement seat for my bike from Dutch Cycle (the seat and post had been stolen a few weeks ago). The turd who stole my seat probably learned that the posts are pretty specific to the bike they are in, and found it was nearly useless to him.

How can I write this without sounding, well, paranoid? I believe the RCMP is watching too many people, and abusing its resources. There are plenty of signs this is taking place, and it worries me. The police should not be monitoring Canadians without having a reasonable suspicion that criminal acts are imminent or are taking place. It is not a valid reason to pay police to watch all activists, especially ones who peacefully oppose prevailing political governance. Are we not a society free to disagree with our government?

Here’s an incomplete, but startling, list of reports that suggest the Mounties are getting their man by putting everyone, innocent people too, under a microscope.

• Yinka Dene Alliance is not a terrorist organization. If the report had said RCMP were monitoring “Polish Canadians” (as a random example), do you think there would be more outrage?
• RCMP interrogate former Conservative candidate for passing documents from anonymous source to Ethics Commissioner in Parliament (after Parliament mail room lost first submission).
• A BC man got a visit from the RCMP after contacting the Prime Minister.
• Until the 1980s, the RCMP kept a secret list of people they considered to be Communists, and were prepared to round these people up in the unlikely event of the Cold War heating up. PROFUNC was ended by accident.

• The G8/G20 brought Canada’s so-called “largest ever” police spy operation down on activists whose worst members did damage comparable to unruly drunk hockey fans in Vancouver. Meanwhile, the police assigned to watch the protests ended up being charged with crimes. RCMP “abandoned policy”, and kettled protesters, which resulted in the arrests of hundreds, to possibly over a thousand, innocent people.

Since there are no laws clearly governing the use of your personal information collected by the ruling political party into their CIMS database, they could be sharing this intelligence with the Mounties. Would it change your answer to any survey or political phone call if you knew your response could end up on an RCMP surveillance watchlist?

As a political blogger, I’m pretty much screwed if the government takes an active interest in me. Even though I’ve previously worked in a job for the government where people, with less oversight and more authority than the RCMP, confirmed I’m loyal to Canada (and the Queen even) and am the opposite of a threat to national security, I have little doubt that now I’m an unhappy smiley face in CIMS, and who knows what other police-state Stasi-style databases. With social networking, it’s easy to track most of my contacts. When Toews’ Bill C-30 passes, the police will be able to do legally what they’ve probably been doing since September 11th, 2001. I also carry a cell phone, so my movements could be mapped, or conversations bugged using the phone mic. Ubiquitous technology is stacked against a free, democratic Canada.

Will the RCMP maintain the peace in Canada, or bring an end to it? Will they resist the pull of pervasive electronic monitoring of every person? I know what I hope for, but the signs are pointing in the wrong direction.

Robocalls critics: At least Tories aren't calling us Nazis or chld pornographrs huff.to/KeEbpt via @HuffPostCanada #cdnpoli #elxnfraud—
Reclaim Democracy (@Colettestweeter) May 25, 2012

The Conservative Party’s latest salvo in response accuses the council of having “an improper motive” to “damage the Conservative brand through unfounded assertions.”

“The applications have been brought solely to provide the Council with a platform to criticize Conservatives, who the Council views as its enemy,” the motion says.

Gee, why would the Council of Canadians get the impression that the Conservative Party is its enemy?

Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has labelled aboriginal groups and environmentalists as “adversaries,”

Also, the PMO calls environmentalists “enemies of the state”.

Oh, that? That’s probably just taken out of context. Unsubstantiated smears… of environmentalists.

“I only wish the Conservatives had put as much time and effort into their investigation of the robocalls scandal as they’ve put into chastising the Council of Canadians,” said Neil.

The Conservatives are sometimes baffling, eh?

==
(http://canadaconservative.blogspot.ca/2012/05/my-official-statement.html)
The man at the center of the investigation into the Guelph robocalls, has broken his blog silence. He started tweeting again several weeks ago. I’m baffled. I can’t imagine why his lawyer would advise him to return to his blog now, so he may be acting out on his own accord. A train wreck to watch, anyway.

==

Lost bike? Oh, Daily Mail, at least you’re good for laugh.

==

As you may have noticed, I’m now an aspiring politician as well as a political blogger. We’ll see how my political blogging insight/baggage/humour serves me in my upcoming race to become a Regina City Councillor. You’re invited to enjoy the show too. If you’re in Regina, I hope you’ll offer to support my campaign too, and help show it’s possible for young people who grew up blogging/facebooking to win political office (despite all of their hilarious hijinks indexed in Google). For instance, did you know I twice sold half eaten sandwiches (the first buyer has already endorsed my campaign, via Twitter)? True story. It’s also true that I can be serious when the time calls for it, so I hope my online personality is taken with a grain of salt if you’ve not met me in person.

If you want the same old Saskboy bloggin’, you’re in the right place. If you want primarily press releases and campaign updates, try my campaign website. A right wing, former SK radio producer sparked an interesting discussion on Twitter the other day about my two accounts. I described them as “channels” so viewers of Saskboy’s Abandoned Stuff don’t get too much Regina civic politics.

@tammyrobert It's not like @saskboy could tweet something and not have it known that it was John who said it.—
Ryan Holota (@ryanholota) May 23, 2012

Here’s a handy list of declared candidates for the Regina civic election.

==

In important news I’ve not had time yet to blog about, the RoboCon investigation proceeds out of view of the media. As the Etobicoke Centre election nullification demonstrates, EC has been incompetent [paperwork, and enforcing, and not losing it] on at least one front, and appears to take too much time to convict guilty Elections Act violators in other serious circumstances. Four lead investigators will never sift through the 800 serious reports of illegal phone calls made, in time to punish the benefactors and perpetrators of the crimes.

The other Elections Canada investigator whose name has surfaced in connection with the robocalls investigation is Mr. Charbonneau, though he appears to be focused on investigating possible instances of fraudulent phone calls being reported to Elections Canada outside the riding of Guelph, Ont. Based on media reports, Mr. Charbonneau has interviewed people in Thunder Bay, Toronto, and the riding of Nipissing-Timiskaming, Ont.

Once the Elections Canada investigation is complete, the findings would be turned over to Commissioner of Canada Elections William Corbett, who would then decide whether charges should be laid.

Meanwhile, Conservative MP Ted Optiz’s 2011 federal election win last year was declared null and void by an Ontario Superior Court judge on Friday, May 18. Mr. Opitz won the election by 26 votes, but former Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj challenged the election result in court over voting irregularities, according to the CBC.

Justice Thomas Lederer set aside 79 ballots in his ruling in Toronto. Mr. Optiz has eight days to appeal, according to the CBC, and if he does, the case could be heard by the Supreme Court by June.

Meanwhile, the federal Conservatives reportedly want the Federal Court to throw out the Council of Canadians’ legal challenge that claims misleading telephone calls were made in the last election in seven ridings, including: Elmwood-Transcona, Man.; Winnipeg Centre, Man.; Don Valley East, Ont.; Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, Sask.; Nipissing-Timiskaming, Ont.; Vancouver Island, B.C.; and Yukon.

Will we see the Ontario Tories implicated in a new Robocalls scandal? LaRue says yes. If that happens, it’s interesting to note who the PCs’ current president is, and who he worked for prior to his latest gig organizing for Hudak’s Tories. A bit of homework for you, if you don’t know.

• A) soldiers
• B) police
• C) citizens
• D) lawyers
• E) press
• F) politicians

If you came to your own conclusion, and answered “G) All of the above”, then you understand a functioning democracy.

Daniel explains:

The government is clearly aware that this “law [78]” would not withstand a millisecond of Charter scrutiny. It actually expires in July 2013, well before challenges could actually wind their way through the Courts. The intention is thus clearly just to bring down the hammer on this particular movement by using methods that the government knows to be contrary to basic liberal-democratic rule-of-law principles.

Whether or not you disagree with the tuition debate, if you support a free and democratic Canada you have to appreciate what hundreds of thousands of Quebeckers are doing out in the streets for our rights. When part of the system oversteps its bounds, it’s up to the other parts to put it back into line. The citizen peaceful protesters are serving that role now, while the politicians, and police get out of control. If all goes well, the politicians will back down from their illegal law, and lawyers will step in. If things go the wrong way, we’ll be hearing from the soldiers.

Largest manifestation of civil disobedience in Canadian history. 200,000 ppl is a credible estimate. May be more. #22mai #ggi #manifencours—
Ethan Cox (@EthanCoxMtl) May 22, 2012

Scratch that earlier estimate. 400K.
#mai22

Turn on @CUTVMontreal right now if you want to see what hundreds of thousands marching looks like. CTV says 400k #ggi http://t.co/2fWWWOiV—
Ethan Cox (@EthanCoxMtl) May 22, 2012

More than 400,000 people marching against #Loi78 in Montreal right now – largest protest in Canadian history. #ggi #cdnpoli—
  (@rabbleca) May 22, 2012

UPDATE May 28: And the lawyers are now joining in, except they are in the streets!

WHOA RT @greenpost unbelievable shot of a plane flying by the #eclipse in Japan twitpic.com/9nfwq6 via @jason_a_jenkins””—
Cath (@Baroque97) May 21, 2012

CBC featured my photo of my photo from my Canon digital.

A few minutes ago from my Canon in #YQR #eclipse http://t.co/8epfMsf1—
Saskboy K. (@saskboy) May 21, 2012

==

In other space news, SpaceX is working.

==

You can also read text messages from a dog. There’s everything on the Internet.

-A couple sunspots visible in this one.

-I think a bird flew into this frame. The lens flare under the sun shows the eclipse more clearly than the direct view.

-Until a neighbour came with a makeshift filter, this was how I was watching the progression, using a pinhole projector onto a white screen (folded envelope). Total cost $0.

-I may have been using 3 layers of sunglasses to take this shot. Not the best sort of filter for a digital camera, and I was a little worried about damage to the sensor, but it seems to have worked. The lens flare “bokeh” (as Photojojo calls them) at the bottom gives an excellent view.

Will ballgames where a couple fans out of tens of thousands throw something at authorities, be declared illegal assemblies? The other night a fan threw something at an ump. Was tear gas fired back, and the SkyDome crowd told to disperse by police? Yes, that’s an extreme comparison, but you should ask yourself why sports fans have more civil rights than people walking on the street for a better education system.

In my day, we read books, they couldn’t be bought on the Internet for a tablet, and young people knew that things only got better and more possibilities were going to present themselves. Cars would fly, computers would make holodecks, cameras would take holographic pictures, and holograms would carry messages to Jedi. Now we’re lucky if cars will move after peak oil (or ever drive themselves), if computers will have electricity with doubling power bills, if cameras aren’t telling the government exactly what we are doing at all times (assuming we switch off our tracking device by Apple or Samsung or RIM), and if 3D TVs don’t give us a headache and brain damage, let alone save our planet from the Death Star.

MOS’s blog post made me think of The Chrysalids. It’s a good book, and completely relevant to today, even with the threat of MAD war somewhat off the table. I happened to see this graphic on FAILblog too, which fits with this post. It’s the age old question, “Is the current batch of kids stupider than average, or is this the old crumudgeon effect taking shape?” The paradox in perception is dangerous, as it can lead to acceptance of sub-par child rearing and behaviour, or on the other end of the spectrum, an over-controlling adult class that is unwilling to listen to the untainted perceptions of the less-indoctrinated.