Outside a nearby townhouse complex, I found a tomato plant growing in the crack between the asphalt of the parking lot and the concrete of the sidewalk.

It was exciting to find that a plant you normally associate with being cultivated in a well-tended garden plot, in a pot on a patio, or hanging upside down, is growing wild amid a artificial enrivronment.

• Hanging tomatoes

I found this mushroom in my compost bin. I don’t know how long it has been there because it is huddled inside the near wall. It quite big too. It probably stands more than 25 centimetres.

It has a white stalk and a grey cap with a black beard-like stuff hanging down in a fringe.

I voted in the advance polls in the general election on Saturday. I cast my vote in the Kitchener-Waterloo riding.

When I got to the polling place, there was a limousine out front. I wondered who would bring a limo to vote, but then I realized that the place was double-booked. There was also a wedding going on.

In the room there were two Elections Canada workers and about 12 people in line.

The choices were:

• Peter Braid (Conservative Party of Canada)
• Mark Corbiere (Independent)
• Jason Cousineau (Libertarian Party of Canada)
• Kyle James Huntingdon (Canadian Action Party)
• Cindy Jacobsen (New Democratic Party)
• Cathy MacLellan (Green Party of Canada)
• Ramon Portillo (Communist Party of Canada)
• Andrew Telegdi (Liberal Party of Canada)

Last week Homa asked me for whom I would be voting. I told her I was going to vote for Canada.

• There’s going to be a federal election 7 Sep 2008

Salon has a piece about how people — Americans — are innumerate and have trouble distinguishing between vastly different orders of magnitude.

Too many Americans struggle with basic math and, knowing this, politicians prey on widespread innumeracy to manipulate facts and distract people from more important debates.
[...]
Millions, billions and trillions all sound the same. But a million seconds takes about 11 days to expire; because a billion is a thousand million, a billion seconds takes about 30 years to expire; because a trillion is a thousand billion, a trillion seconds takes about 30,000 years to expire. These are not interchangeable orders of magnitude, folks.
– Millions, billions, trillions

Kiwi Russell Crowe demonstrated the far too common innumeracy with his alternative “plan” to the rescue bailout package that the U.S. Congress passed last Friday.
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