Pillow Fight World Cup

ENTERTAINMENT - A few years ago we published an article in the Entertainment eZine about the Pillow Fight League.

At the time we just thought it was an amusing oddity.

But by now the Pillow Fight League has become rather professional... to the point that they are now hosting the first ever Pillow Fight World Cup.

Sounds like fun to us!

A week ago we were contacted by Christian, who is working on a film about the first Pillow Fight World Cup event. Christian is also a member of a team trained by Carola, an Austrian kickboxing champ who lives in Vienna. Their team of pillow fighters are going to New York for the first Pillow Fight World cup ever on May 17th 2011. Learn more about their team at www.apfl.at/vienna

Against the Austrian team will be 'Punk Rock Pillowfighters' from the USA, a team of Swedish pillow fighters and a lone pillow fighting girl from Japan.

There is also hopes to get two more contestants from India and Syria. Ideally they want there to be 8-10 teams competing for the gold in 3 weeks.

What we don't understand is how come they haven't managed to spin this into a reality TV show. Or maybe that seems too corporate and they want to keep Pillow Fighting on the grassroots level.

Liberal and NDP merger predicted

CANADA - The Lilith News is going on the record to predict a merger between the Liberals and NDP following the Canadian election on May 2nd.

We are making this prediction based on surging support for the NDP, which has gone ahead of the Liberals in the polls and is now poised to possibly forge a coalition NDP/Liberal government and would signal the eventual merger of the two parties.

The Greens are so far behind they're practically non-existent.

With 4 days left until the election the current polls are as follows:

Conservatives 35%
NDP 30% and growing
Liberals 25% and dropping
Bloc 8%
Greens 2%

We predict the Conservatives will win a majority or minority government, thanks to vote splitting. We estimate over 150 seats.
The NDP approximately 85 seats.
The Liberals approximately 50 seats.
The Bloc approximately 25 seats.
The Greens 0 seats.

So initially the Conservatives will win a minority or majority government. If the Liberals and NDP join forces to form a new party they might have enough to form a majority government. HOWEVER, if the Conservatives win a majority the NDP and Liberals will have no choice but to merge sometime between now and 2015.

The NDP has made huge headway in Quebec, where they are now expected to sweep most of the province (which might place the Bloc lower than our current estimate of 25 seats).

Please Note! The above prediction is based on the sudden upsurge in NDP voters, particularly amongst women and young adults who are suddenly more interested in voting. Pollsters are referring to this as a Quebec/Facebook phenomenon as young people and women are realizing they could make a big difference in this election. Also many would-be NDP supporters often voted Liberal at the last minute, but this year it might be the other way around since Liberal support is dropping.

Young adults (18 to 24) typically don't vote, but they number 6 million and could make a big difference if the majority of them vote.

UPDATE: The Canadian Political Spectrum.

Huge Quarry to be dug in Ontario

CANADA/ENVIRONMENT - Wow. Watch and be horrified.

Hopefully enough people will protest against this to prevent it from happening. It seems too big to actually go forward.

Kids average over 2,000 hours in front of TV/computer per year

By Ai Lung Nguyen - April 2011.

HEALTH/TECHNOLOGY - According to new statistics released the average kid in Canada now spends over 40 hours / week (2,080 hours per year) in front of the TV and/or computer.

The 2011 annual report card from Active Healthy Kids Canada points the finger at a combination of TV, video games, Facebook, other internet websites and computer games. For the 5th year Canadian children have earned a failing grade for physical activity.

The report also points out that the ideal time for children to exercise is after school, the 3 hours between school ending at 3 PM and meal time at 6 PM, wherein they could be exercising. Instead the average Canadian kid spends only 14 minutes of that time doing moderate or vigorous exercise.

Only 9% of boys and 4% of girls meet Health Canada’s recommended minimum of one hour a day of moderate-to-vigorous exercise per day. Of both sexes only 7% are getting the recommended amount of daily exercise.

44% of kids meet the one-hour guideline three times a week and 80% get half an hour of exercise.

Ottawa spends less than $10 million a year on exercise programs, with real dollars per capita half of what they were in 1986. 72% of parents say their kids don’t have access to after-school programs that encourage physical activity. Its no wonder our children are as fat as Stephen Harper.

When polled 75% of kids said they would like to be doing some kind of physical sport after school, but are not able to because there is either no program or the programs available are too expensive.