The Bowe Bergdahl Controversy Real or Fake?

American soldier, Sgt Bowe Bergdahl is returning home after 5 years in captivity by the Taliban.  And when he gets home, it seems he will be the centre of a controversy pitting Republicans vs Democrats.  If the story so far is any indication, controversy will be based not on fair minded analysis, but on the ongoing US political propaganda war.

Up to now, I have found that there is a damaging propaganda war, creating storms of controversy about everything from the death of the US ambassador in Benghazi, to the use of spicy mustard on the President's hamburger, to the high waisted jeans he wore to throw the first pitch at a baseball game.  Texas has threatened to secede from the union, Generals in the field have been fired for showing lack of respect to the Commander in Chief. Congress is at a virtual stalemate.

Is this new controversy real or is it all made up nonsense?  I confess that I have a certain bias toward Obama, as I think he has actually done very well, although even the killing of Osama Bin Laden was turned into propaganda against Obama, and a vindication of everything the previous Republican administration had achieved.  If that can be made into a propaganda point, what can be made of Bowe Bergdahl?

The Democrat's side of Bowe Bergdahl's case,  is this.  He was the only US prisoner of war still held by the Taliban, and so they did a prisoner exchange to bring him home.  If not, he would have been left behind after the US withdrawal, and probably died due to declining health or some other unspecified immediate threat.

The Republican side is this.  Bowe snuck away from the base in Afghanistan, leaving behind a letter he wrote criticizing the US conduct of the war.  Then six soldiers died in trying to find him and bring him home safely.  Now the president of the USA is encouraging more deserters, and has broken tradition by negotiating with terrorists, and releasing five highly dangerous terrorists from Guantanamo, so that they can go and fight again and kill more Americans.

It is shocking to me that six soldier could have died on a mission to rescue a deserter.  If I was in charge of the military in Afghanistan, I would have said "It's not worth it, let him go!".  But it seems more realistic when I see that the military orders were this: If you hear that Bergdahl might be in a certain village, on your next patrol, take a closer look at that village for any signs of his presence.  This makes more sense to me, because most of the time, soldiers are not really sure of which village to patrol, but they need to patrol something, and the rumour of an American presence is enough reason to take a peek and ask a few questions.  Two soldiers were ambushed while patrolling a village where they also thought Bergdahl may be hiding, but I don't think that was much different than the usual casualties while on patrol.  Apparently four other soldier died when their base was attacked, and the argument from Republicans is that this would not have happened if soldiers were not out on patrol looking for Bergdahl.

So in the end, is it a rational argument based on what is good for the country, or is it irrational political propaganda designed to hamstring the current President and administration?

About the 6 soldiers dying, I don't really see how Obama could be blamed.  In fact, if it was true, and he could have been blamed, this controversy would have hit the fan five years ago, when it actually happened.  So the 6 dead soldiers were not directly caused by Obama's actions nor are they any reason why a soldier might be denied the right to return home in a prisoner exchange.

About the desertion, I think the controversy is premature.  I don't think there has actually been a statement by the military that Bowe Bergdahl is not going to be declared a deserter after a court-martial.  But again, I don't see how it's Obama's fault that Bergdahl has not already been shot for desertion. Time will tell for this one, and it would be nice to have a court martial first.

About releasing Taliban prisoners, well it seems about time, as the war is almost over. At a certain point, you need to either free them or execute them.  What else are you going to do?

It seems reasonable to ask questions and point out lack of judgment by the President.  But in a partisan frenzy, you can stray too far from reason, and then dissent becomes bad for the country and for the democratic process.

Picture: Jani and Bob Bergdahl, family members awaiting the return.

Russian Propaganda is Just a Distraction

Now that Russia has successfully invaded the Crimea and is annexing it, what propaganda do we hear from "The Voice off Russia" here in Canada?

According to them, Canadian authorities have committed an innocent man to a mental institution for being generous, and giving money to strangers.

You can read the story hear on the Voice of Russia

http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_03_26/Canada-man-giving-cash-away-to-strangers-gets-locked-in-mental-hospital-7468/

Of course I wanted to check this out.  Is it true or is it propaganda? Or is it both?  So I found out that this same story, with the same slant, is indeed being run on a lot of Canadian news outlets, such as Sun News and the National Post, and others.

Here is what seems to have happened.  A man was handing out 100 and 50 dollar bills to strangers in Halifax. Now that would not be crazy if Bill Gates was doing it,  but I'm pretty sure if Mary Ann found out I was doing it, there would be some explaining to do. So, the police had reason to suspect this man was losing his marbles, which by the way, for all you police haters out there, it is not that uncommon for people to lose their marbles, either due to natural causes affecting the brain or due to drugs.  At any rate, it is not "evil" for the police to question somebody who is causing a scene on a street corner, especially if he is attracting a crowd of greedy people who want in on the action.

It seems after questioning Richard Wright, and finding out that his home was "in the woods" and that he was on a mission from God, and that one day the 1% richest people were going to have problems, they decided to take him to a nice warm place to get checked out by a trained professional psychiatrist.  He was not locked in a dark cell with bars on the doors, as was implied in the picture (above) on the Russian website.  That is a picture of a Russian mental health prison gulag, not a Canadian hospital.

So you Canadians who are commenting that you hate the police and the psychiatrists, how would you feel if your spouse, or sibling, or parent suddenly decided to walk up and down the street handing out hundred dollar bills?  I thought so.  Get them checked out.  This is Canada, not Russia.

Following the Oscar Pistorius Murder Trial

Last year, Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius was accused of  murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.  The trial is going on right now in South Africa.

What do you need to know about South Africa, to be able to follow this trial?  Well, other than the fact that South Africa is mostly a black country with a white minority, it is recovering from a long period of time where the whites took charge and violently suppressed the black people.  This was called "Apartheid".

Today in South Africa, blacks are allowed to vote, and hold jobs that were previously reserved for whites (like President of the country, policeman, judge etc.)  But the black people are still mostly poor, and now South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world, an overwhelmed police force and justice system, and also one of the highest crime rates of men against their women.  Yet still, it functions as a country and tourists still visit there.

Interesting, also that the judge in Oscar's case is black and a woman.  Also, that Oscar has both legs amputated at the knee and runs competitively on springs known as blades.  He fought a long battle to be allowed to run in the real Olympics, and won his case.  But did not win a gold medal.

Now back to the trial. Oscars's version of events:  at 3:00AM one morning in Oscar's house, Oscar heard a sound in the bathroom.  Thinking it was a burglar, Oscar grabbed his gun from under the pillow and fired four shots through the bathroom door.  He was then very distressed to find out that his girlfriend, Reeva, was not in bed.  He then broke down the locked bathroom door with a cricket bat, and saw her dead inside the  toilet.

Police Version: Oscar was trying to murder his girlfriend, and Oscar was trying to make it look like he  didn't know she was in there so that he would not have to go to jail for murder.  Also, Reeva was screaming in pain and fear as two of the first three bullets hit her, and the final bullet through the brain finished her off.  Neighbours heard the screaming and gunshots, which Oscar's lawyer insists was Oscar screaming like a woman, and the sound of the cricket bat smashing the door open.  The neighbours don't agree.

My version: Both sides seem a bit extreme.  For one thing, even if Oscar had killed an actual intruder (most likely a black man) instead of his white TV star girlfriend, he would still go to jail for 10 years according to South African law, for killing someone without a self-defence argument.  On the other hand, Oscar's case is also very weak in that he seems to be a quick-tempered hothead who loves guns and the shooting thereof without any concern for other people's safety.  He is also very wealthy, and I think (or am guessing) he felt like the law was mostly for other people.  He also throws up a lot when he hears about the damage his "special" bullets did to his girlfriend.

Most recently, in this trial, Oscar and Reeva's private phone texts have been introduced as evidence.  Reeva once sent a message to Oscar saying he "scared" her sometimes.  Oscar's tenacious lawyer argues that out of the thousand or so text messages,  99% were loving and kind.

My question: Is it also a good defence to argue that 99% of the time that Reeva went to the bathroom, that Oscar did not kill her?

Picture: From Oscar's twitter account, apparently of Oscar and Reeva at a party.

I found it on this page.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2278514/Reeva-Steenkamp-Oscar-Pistorius-law-graduate-girlfriend-explode-media-says-agent.html

French Laws and Delilah

This morning I came across an interesting (to me) story of the French language laws in Quebec.  As most people in Canada probably know, businesses in Quebec, by law, must cater to French speaking customers.  In other words, signage must be in French, promotional materials etc. must be in French.  Other languages are optional.

I do not consider myself an expert on this law, as I live in Ontario, but I know many English speaking Canadians view it as an infringement on their rights, and they do love to come up with stories of the evil Language Police hunting down innocent store owners and driving them out of business with onerous requirements to change their signage.

This is the story I saw this morning.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/quebec-store-owner-ordered-to-translate-facebook-page-to-french-1.2553262

A sweet charming woman, being harassed over her Facebook page that advertised the store in English, but not French.

Whether or not this case has merits remains to be settled, but let's just use some critical thinking for a moment.  Eva Cooper, the store owners says

“It’s not like I’ve ever not followed the law with my businesses on the Quebec side.”

I assume it is a very easy thing to change the Facebook page (well, anyway my Facebook page is easy to change, but then I don't know if she needs to hire a consultant to make the change for her).  So there should be no problem.  But I noticed the name of the store is "Delilah", and Delilah is famous in the bible as being one of the most deceptive women in a book with many stories of deceptive women.  So I did a little fact checking myself.  On Google, I could not find any record of Eva Cooper having a previous run-in with the Language Police.  Then I had the idea of checking Google Maps street view, to see if the signage on the store was bilingual before the CBC story was filmed.  On street view, I saw a photo of the store just before it opened, with two large signs on each side of the door announcing that Delilah was coming soon.  Both signs were in English.  Is Eva Cooper being deceptive, or did she simply forget, or maybe nobody complained, so it does not count. Or maybe the law only comes into effect the moment the store opens, I just don't know. But I didn't see any French language signs, and two English-only signs.

Anyway, I am not arguing or explaining the language laws in this particular blog, but it's more about honesty in reporting and story telling.  CBC made this woman look like she was not only in complete compliance with the letter of the law, but also the spirit of the law.  Yet she was being asked to change her Facebook page.  Google street view says different. What is the real truth?

Lower picture off Google Maps (9 chemin scott, chelsea qc)

Is Megyn Kelly a Racist? (And a lot of other people)

There has been a controversy about Megyn Kelly saying Jesus is white, and a big part of that controversy centres on whether or not the comment was racist.

The second part of this controversy, one that has not been clearly stated, is whether or not racism is still alive and well in America, or if racism is all in the past, as many people want to believe. If you can prove Megyn's statement is not racist, you could probably also say racism is over.  But if you can prove the statement is racist, then you have proved racism is still rampant.

Here is my proof.  The fundamental belief that is necessary to support any racist system, is that people can be classified neatly into races.  Let me give you an example.  In Nazi Germany, in order to support their racist policies, not only it was necessary to believe that "Germans" and "Jews" were two different races, but it was necessary to believe that you could easily classify any person as either a Jew or not a Jew, and based on that certainty, you (as a for-sure-German) were now morally permitted to ban the for-sure-Jews from your society.  And then to kill them when it suited you.

To be non-racist, you would have to believe that being a Jew or Non-Jew did not matter.  Another small but important part of that non-racist point of view is that you cannot always tell whether someone is a Jew or a non Jew.

This argument about being able to tell which race is which is fundamental to racism, and cannot be ignored.  A racist always tends to think that races are immutable, that mixing races is an abomination akin to homosexuality.  If you believe that mixing races is not a problem, and recognize uncertainty, then you are probably not a racist.  In fact, logically, I do not think it possible to be a racist if you do not think in absolute terms.  Separating the races is absolutely fundamental to racism, without it, racism cannot work.

Now for Megyn Kelly's remark that Jesus is white, because it's a historical fact.  To me, just the very fact that Megyn apparently believes that it is a "fact" that Jesus is white, and makes me wonder if she is racist, whether the historical "fact" is true or not.  And I'm pretty sure Megyn Kelly does not think of herself as a racist, but then that's true for most racists these days.

But is it really true that Jesus is absolutely white?  Well, no.  For one thing, if he was a historical person, then when he was alive he was probably something in between white and black.  But for true Christians, Jesus is much more than a historical figure, he is "Son of God", right?  So if Jesus has a race then God obviously has a race, as I think we all agree that race is handed down from one generation to the next.  So by saying Jesus is white you are saying God is white.  Carrying this racist idea a little further, you are also saying that races exist in Heaven.  (Heaven being where God and Jesus "live" right now.)  And you are making an assumption that if any orientals, black people, or Arabs make it to Heaven, they are going to be stuck with their race for all eternity.  And I'm sure Megyn thinks that when she goes to Heaven, she is still going to be a cute white girl, and her opinions will still count for something.

Another thing that is believed by many (if not all) Christians, is that Jesus is coming back to Earth.  Not as a spirit, but as a real man, like he did back in year nought.  After all, Jesus himself said so, he just didn't give us the precise date.  I'm sure you see by now where I'm going with this, but anyway... Jesus will have do decide what race He is going to come back as.  Does he come back as the same race as last time, or does he pick some other race?  Does he come back as a man or a woman? I'm sure the white supremacist Christians would have a conniption fit if he (or she) came back as a black ghetto kid.  In fact, I'm pretty sure they would absolutely deny that this was Jesus, no matter how much water he turned into wine or people he raised from the dead, how much water he walked on, or how many people he could feed with a basket of loaves and fishes.

In my opinion, if people in America do not believe that race exists in Heaven, then they can say they are not racists.  But if they believe that Jesus was white, and stays white in Heaven, and will be white when he returns to Earth, you can tell they are still racist.

Picture: From Daily KOS website.

Fox News Tries to Steal Christmas

At Christmas time, there are many ideas floating about on how to make the holiday more "Christian". For the last few years, Fox News has been saying the greeting  "Happy Holidays" is offensive to real Christians.

How do we really put the Christ back in Xmas?   I have come up with a list that I would like to share.  It is partly ideas I got from other people, some ideas are rooted in tradition, some ideas come from the 4th annual Fox News "war on Christmas" campaign.


1. We need to make some strong statements that Santa is of the white race.  Apparently a lot of non-white people feel like they can make Santa any colour they wish, and this has to stop if we are to retain the true Christmas spirit.

2. We should not entertain thoughts of a "Christmas Penguin" similar to the Easter Bunny.   In case you couldn't guess, this idea came to me from the Fox News campaign, although the original idea came from Aisha Harris, of Slate.  Another reason we can't have a Christmas Penguin is that the Penguin is the symbol of Linux.  But when I Googled "Christmas Penguin" (with quotes) I got 457,000 hits.  And Google Images has no shortage of examples.  So apparently, this anti-Christmassy move is underway already.  And while we are on the subject, how many times must I remind you people there are no penguins at the North Pole? So it makes no scientific sense at all.

3. A third idea inspired by Fox News, ban all Festivus Poles, especially those located in public places where they may interfere with Christian Baby Jesus Manger scenes.

4. Christmas time might be a very appropriate time to read the bible, especially the Christmas Story in Luke 2:1-20.  If you know anything about shepherding, just ignore Luke 2:8, because you will know that shepherds in the holy land to not actually "watch their flocks by night" in December, which might make you think that the birth date has been changed to match a Pagan tradition of worshipping the winter solstice.

5. While reading the bible, you may also want to skip all the chapters advising people to stone each other for minor transgressions such as working on the Sabbath.  By the way, "working" is interpreted to include air travel.  And for sure the pilots, baggage handlers, and mechanics are working, so they must all certainly be killed in this particularly gruesome way.  But hey, how else are we supposed to show our true Christianity if not by obeying the Bible blindly.

6. If you want to upstage the neighbours piety, may I suggest this instead of setting up even more inflatable front lawn displays.  I suggest you sacrifice some of your livestock to God.  If you are not a farmer, I think it would be acceptable to instead sacrifice the family dog.  Please do not sacrifice any of your children before consulting with your pastor, no matter what you may have read in the Bible.


Now seriously, I hope everyone who reads this can tell it is humour.  I do not really recommend any of these measures, I am just trying to point out, with examples, what is wrong with some people's narrow view of Christmas, as promoted by Fox News, which I am thankful we don't get in Canada.

I prefer a liberal kind of Christianity that is based on freedom of religion, on tolerance, on helping the less fortunate, on making everyone feel welcome regardless of race or creed. I suppose this might offend some stricter Christians who think they are doing good by saying prayers in school, wishing people "Merry Christmas" and not "Happy Holidays",  singing carols and putting money in Santa's pot.  But come on, everyone should know that the real spirit of Christmas is feeling love and not hate.

Happy Holidays to all.  (and I mean that in a good way).

Picture: from this website http://www.very.co.uk/e/promo/christmas-novelty-knits.end

Green Party of Canada: Good or Bad Science?

Here is something I came across in the National Post.  The headline reads

"Elizabeth May’s Party of Science seems to support a lot of unscientific public policies".

I don't always vote for the Green Party, but that is mainly because we don't have runoff voting.  Your first vote better count when you vote in Canada.  I support science, and any party that also genuinely supports science.  So if it's true that the Green Party is supporting a lot of unscientific public policies, I will not vote for them.

Knowing already that the National Post runs a lot of prejudiced material supporting the Conservative Party, and knowing that many NP titles do not match the article they were pasted to, I decided to read it and see for myself whether the Green Party was science based or B.S. based.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/11/15/elizabeth-mays-so-called-party-of-science-seems-to-support-a-lot-of-unscientific-public-policies/

I would have to say first, that for once the title matched the content of the article.  And that seems to support my rule that if the title matches the URL link name, then it didn't get a make-over by the Propaganda-wise Title Editor.  So now on to the content and see if the conclusions are fair.

The first jab comes from Michael Kruse (I don't recognize the name)

“I really think the Green Party is just doing the same things everybody else does, which is to make up an idea that matches with your ideology, and then go looking for evidence to support it,” said Michael Kruse, chair of Bad Science Watch, a non-profit devoted to rooting out false science in public policy.

I had to investigate who Michael Kruse is.  Although he does not seem to be a scientist, he has set up a non-profit group called "Bad Science Watch".  I didn't see anything on the web site about global warming, but I did see something about Wifi radiation.  "Investigating ant-wifi activism in Canada."  Then I did a cross check and found that the Green Party (or Elizabeth May) has said that we rolled out wifi too quickly in schools without proving that it is harmless. So if understand correctly, that makes Elizabeth May an anti- wifi activist, and so Michael Kruse is not a really impartial scientist making his anti-Green party claim.

Furthermore, if Bad Science Watch is committed to rooting out *all* bad science in public policy, maybe they should be investigating how the Conservative government is ignoring global warming.

At this point, I have not really settled yet whether Michael Kruse is an impartial  commentator.  And so far I have only gone through about 10% of this National Post article.  I'm not sure I have the time to slog out all the remaining details, so after the first dodgy reference, I will just start to skim for glaring errors.

If it is Green Party policy to oppose new scientific technology, such as Wifi, nuclear power, genetically modified foods, coal powerplants, and tar sands development, that does not necessarily make them unscientific.  They would only be unscientific if they opposed these technologies regardless of scientific evidence.  But the Green party clearly states that they believe that much of the true unbiased scientific research has been undermined by corporate interests, with big think tanks funding pseudo scientific research to support their profitable activities.

Continuing in the rest of the NP article, I notice this:

GreenParty.ca, for instance, is host to a two-part blog post earnestly trumpeting the evidence for “abiotic oil,” a theory from Stalinist Russia that petroleum is not derived from biological matter, but is rather a geological substance dating to the origins of the earth.

I happen to think it is particularly nasty (though not unusual for the NP) that the article finds this way to link the Green Party to Stalin.  But Abiotic Oil is not a policy of the Green Party at all.

The blog they refer to is here, is written by David Bergey.  This blog is, as they said, hosted by the Green Party website.
http://www.greenparty.ca/blogs/12489/2012-08-28/more-evidence-abiotic-oil

But of the three comments following this blog post, all are dismissive of abiotic oil, mainly because it is unscientific.  And abiotic oil theory has not been the basis of any policies of the Green Party.

Picture: I found the picture  of the kitties on the internet.  I added the word "Science" to illustrate the dilemma facing scientist who are offered funding by large corporations.

Are Cost of Living Subsidies for Northern Canada Too Expensive?

Do Canadian First Nations people in the north of Canada really have too high a cost of living?  Do we need to keep subsidizing them? I want to help answer this question.  Here is a comment to start us off.

Mike Zwarich Yesterday 11:00

You have to wonder whether it would help, just a bit, if they moved to a part of Canada where it didn't cost ridiculous amounts of money to ship things to them.
When it costs $20 for a jug of milk, you know you're not going to have the standard of living that we enjoy in most of Canada.

https://plus.google.com/+NationalPost/posts

(I cannot continue without addressing the Freudian slip calling the southern part of Canada "most of Canada".  It's not most of Canada.  Now I can go on.)

In answer not only to Mike Zwarich, but to everyone I know who is at a loss about why Indians and Eskimos (or First Nations people) continue to live in that part of Canada where milk is expensive, it is not because Canadians are a stupid people.  The answer is partly in the subject of  sovereignty. I may have to explain "sovereignty" later, in the meantime you could Google it if you didn't learn it in high school history.
Now, here is a quote from a government of Canada website about our sovereignty.

http://www.northernstrategy.gc.ca/sov/index-eng.asp

With 40% of our landmass in the territories, 162,000 kilometres of Arctic coastline and 25% of the global Arctic – Canada is undeniably an Arctic nation. The Government is firmly exercising our sovereignty over our Arctic lands and waters – sovereignty that is long-standing, well-established and based on historic title, international law and the presence of Inuit and other Aboriginal peoples for thousands of years.
At the same time, international interest in the Arctic region is growing, in part as a result of possibilities for resource development, climate change and new or longer access to transportation routes. Canada is demonstrating effective stewardship and leadership internationally, to promote a stable, rules-based Arctic region where the rights of sovereign states are respected in accordance with international law and diplomacy.

I think there are two problems some Canadians have in understanding the north of Canada.  First is, most Canadians do not live there, have never even visited there, never would want to visit there even if it was an all expenses paid trip.  Most Canadians are huddled close to the US border, and spend more time wishing they could get into the US than wondering about what goes on in 90% of Canada's land territory.  Second, never take "sovereignty" for granted, no matter how uninhabitable the land is, somebody always wants it.  See how Canada is already fighting Denmark over possession of some island nobody even knew existed?  We have fought most wars over sovereignty, believe it or not.

Yes, Canada is the second largest country in the world.  Most Canadians are aware of that fact, although they do not really understand it.  We often call the 49th parallel the border between Canada and the USA, and yet most Canadian cities are on the American (or southern) side of that imaginary line called the 49th parallel.  Feel free to look that one up on a map.  I will concede Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver are north.  Victoria BC is south of the line, so is Toronto, Montreal, Fredericton NB, Halifax NS,  St. John's NL, and Punkeydoodles Crns., ON.  And (I'm guessing) 80% of the population of the country, along with 3 entire provinces.

Canadians think they understand that Canada is really big, yet they do not understand how much of it they have not seen, how much is almost a wilderness.  That is a problem, when you remember that most Canadians do not really understand why Canada, with a population of only 35 million (now, it used to be less) has sovereignty over this huge land mass, larger than the entire United States of America.

One way to exercise sovereignty is to buy military equipment and train a large army, navy and air force. Canada with only 35 million people, does not actually have the economic ability to do that, and still maintain a high standard of living for it's masses huddled along the border. Russia can hold its territory with a population of 144 million and 17 million square km. (8.4 people/sq km) Canada's 35 million people claim 10 million sq. km. (3.5 people/sq km).  For the Russians, claiming all that territory involved shipping millions of prisoners in chains to Siberia, raising a huge army and keeping everyone's standard of living quite low.  Canada has had a relatively easy time of it, for various reasons that I don't really know right now, but I'm sure it'll come to me.  But part of our equation would have to be our hospitals, schools, airports, harbours, the extensive maps, and the Canadians who live in the far north, and most of them are still First Nations people.

In the end, it is much cheaper and more effective to claim land by treating the First Nations people as part of Canada than to bring them south to live in squalor in Saskatoon and spending a hundred times as much money on new jet fighters.  A ten dollar litre of milk doesn't seem so expensive now, does it?

Picture: From http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/battle-for-the-arctic-heats-up-1.796010

The National Post's Take on Nelson Mandela's Memorial

A headline in the right wing conservative National Post reads:

"After sneaking past security to get into Mandela event, Mulcair bops along with Kim Campbell’s dance moves"

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/12/10/all-members-of-canadian-delegation-make-it-inside-stadium-for-mandela-ceremony-mulcair-initially-denied/

Someone at the National Post is fond of writing sensational right wing headlines that have a significant disconnect with reality and not even connected with the words of the attached article.  This title needs a walk-through, as it is more highly salted with mockery and propaganda than most.  And I find it particularly in  bad taste that the National Post's title mangling editor is using Nelson Mandela's memorial like this.

Let's start with Mulcair sneaking past security at Nelson Mandela's event. By way of explanation, Thomas Mulcair is the leader of the opposition in Canada's federal government, and apparently annoys Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, by asking too many questions in parliament.  By stating that he is a sneak, The National Post (which supports Harper) degrades Mulcair's public image.  And if this occurs at Nelson Mandela's funeral, you also imply Mulcair would not have been welcome at the world hero's funeral.  Nelson Mandela is most famous for opposing racism and Apartheid in South Africa.  The truth is, that Mulcair's NDP party actually is far more in line with the anti-racist, pro-peace views of Mandela than the Conservative Party of Canada, which struggles to keep its racist element in check.  (for proof of that, you only need to read the comments following almost any article in the National Post)

After reading this article, (and I can only hope that the National Post readers actually read the articles) it is quite obvious that Mulcair did not sneak past security.  It was a mixup at the security outside the stadium, probably very run-of-the-mill happening.

Next, the dance moves.  I actually have more to say about that, as I lived in West Africa for three years during which time it gradually became obvious that Africans dance to everything.  Actually, I could go even further and make a strong case for all our modern popular dance in North America (at least since the end of the big band era) having African roots, including the Twist.  Back in the fifties, when it first started becoming popular among White Americans, there was a massive backlash against it, claiming that this type of dance was only appropriate for Negros.  And even today there is a slight residual negative feeling about dancing (or "bopping" as the Post calls it) among our more stuffy white right wing citizens.

I myself am not a great dancer, OK not even a good dance, OK pretty bad dancer.  I would probably lose a dance contest to Sheldon Cooper of the Big Bang Theory.  But never mind that, I did dance while I was in Africa.  You have to be very stuffy indeed to not feel the infectious rhythms, and nobody makes you feel foolish for dancing.  I say that despite the fact that my high school age students used to invent dances based on their white teacher's dance moves.  There was no offence intended, and none taken.  It was actually all in good fun.

Just to give one more example, although this one is not in Africa, the funeral marches of New Orleans. Watch this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InqnQ8vU3DU

Dancing in Africa does not have the scandalous, and sexual overtones that it has in Canada, especially among older white conservatives.  It goes on at any time, and funeral celebrations are no exception.  I applaud Kim Campbell, a past Prime Minister of Canada (Progressive Conservative party, long story) and Thomas Mulcair for being open to the spirit.

Here is another dance video to illustrate: George Bush dancing on the White House lawn in 2007 during Malaria Awareness Day, in company with a dance troupe from West Africa.  (This is the video, ignore the caption about Ossetia, it's just wrong, at best maybe it's humour)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FS8IOAwLnQ

Picture: http://www.news.com.au/world/nelson-mandelas-body-moves-for-public-view-after-funeral-in-johannesburg/story-fndir2ev-1226779893687

This So-called "Optical Illusion" Should Make You Question Everything

The exaggerated headline in Yahoo news read "Optical Illusion Will Make You Question Your Eyesight".  The truth is, you actually should question your eyesight, and there are hundreds of optical illusions available to help you do that.  But this is not one of them.  Why?  It is based on the Cornsweet illusion, and unfortunately, by attempting to jazz it up a notch, the presenters have kind of lost the original illusion's point.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/geekquinox/optical-illusion-shows-t-always-believe-eyes-perceive-234825977.html

The question is, which object is lighter, the top of the bottom.  The bottom one looks lighter, but the presenter says actually they are both the same, and you can prove it by blocking the center part of the image out.  OK no, that's not an illusion.  Because in this version of the illusion, it is quite obvious that there is a light source, and that given the light source and shading in the picture, the bottom object is actually lighter.

If you were to check the original Cornsweet illusion, you would notice there are no shadows, it is not an attempt to paint a 3 dimensional object.  It is a pure scientific illusion, showing how our perceptions are influenced by a boundary with brightness contrasts.

To explain it another way, your eyes are not really fooled.  Any painting, where shadows are used to simulate a 3 dimensional effect will use a similar illusion.  For example, to darken one side of a ball to make it look spherical with a light source.  It should come as no surprise that, in real life the ball was supposed to be a uniform colour, but the painter used a darker colour on one side and a lighter colour on the other.  That is not an "optical illusion" in the true sense. (all 3D paintings are in some respect an illusion, but let's not get too philosophical)

You are not really being fooled by this picture.  Your eyes are simply telling you that if you saw that scene in real life, the bottom shape would necessarily be lighter.  In fact there is no "normal" way to set up that scene in real life without having the bottom shape lighter.  And by normal I mean without using specially focused multiple spotlights or other trickery to lighten or darken the shapes.

But, I accept that in the picture, the paint colour of the two flat areas would be the same, and you would probably not notice that without blocking out part of the image. However, that is not a real optical illusion if you are stating the "top object is the same colour as the bottom object", as it is quite clear that the rounded edges are part of the objects, and they are not the same.

What I wonder about is how easily someone in the hustle of ad-driven media can screw up a perfectly fine optical illusion and pass it off as real. And I also see once again, how Wikipedia, dull as it may be, almost always gets it right.

Cornsweet illusion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornsweet_illusion

Jews Fleeing Persecution in Quebec (and Israel, BTW)

A group of Jewish fundamentalists has left the province of Quebec, and is heading to southern Ontario.  The reason they gave is that they are not allowed to home school their children properly in Quebec, as they are required to teach their children "Evolution".

I find it strange that Ontario has more relaxed laws about the teaching of evolution than Quebec.  When I was growing up in the province of Quebec, it was widely believed that Quebec was a backward province, mired in religion, while Ontario was a modern, progressive province, based on science and reason.  Well, if nobody else believed it, I did.

Then, over the years, Quebec has gradually thrown off the religious image, and has become far more secular, while Ontario seems to be going the opposite direction toward religion. But I still wonder about the given reasons for this religious cult leaving Quebec for Ontario.  My sister, who does not believe in evolution, home schooled her 3 children in Quebec city, apparently without any harassment by the authorities.  OK that was a few years ago, I guess back in the nineties, so maybe things have changed.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/Radical+Jewish+sect+leaves+Agathe/9208288/story.html

There are a few more details in this story from the Montreal Gazette.  It seems that this group has been investigated heavily by the child's welfare services in Quebec, and you could argue that this amounts to harassment.  Seems to me no more harassment than having to go to school every day, though, and many people have to put up with that.

Some other side issues being looked at that are maybe really central issues:
- Child marriages to old men within the sect, and teen pregnancies
- The children have dental problems, and hygiene problems
- The children do not speak either English or French, and seem to not be learning either language.
- There are many other curriculum items, beside evolution, that the cult cannot accept

The leader of the sect also adds that some people in the surrounding community (Ste Agathe) call them the "Taliban" because of their women who have to wear clothes resembling burkas and are confined to the home. (See picture above from the Gazette, you decide)

This religious cult was accepted into Canada in 2004 as refugees,  fleeing Israel, where according to their leader, they were persecuted for not believing sufficiently in Zionism.

So in our "sound bite" journalism, we have a simple (and readily believed in Ontario) story of Jews trying to escape persecution in Quebec, but to me the more curious story is Jews trying to escape persecution from Israel. Unless these people were lying just to gain refugee status in Canada. Or unless Israelis had the same concerns for child welfare as Canadians.


Some follow up reading from different points of view (it seems to be a complex story)

Times of Israel
http://www.timesofisrael.com/suspected-jewish-child-abuse-cult-flees-quebec-homes/

The Jerusalem Post reports on the move from Quebec to Ontario
http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Iran-bound-extremist-haredi-cult-settles-in-Ontario-instead-332837

Toronto Star (more Ontario oriented view, many of the readers' comments are also quite critical of the cult.)
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/11/22/jewish_sect_says_exodus_from_quebec_tied_to_clash_with_education_authorities.html

Jonathan Kay, the National Post describes Judaism's Fundamentalist problem.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/11/21/jonathan-kay-judaisms-fundamentalism-problem/

A private Investigation,
http://privateinvesigations.blogspot.ca/2012/03/rabbi-shlomo-helbrans-haredi-cult.html

John F Kennedy Joins Ronald Reagan in Conservative Mythology

We have just had the 50th anniversary of John F Kennedy's death.  The memory is fuzzy now, I seem to recall that it was announced by the teacher while I was in school, but I don't remember which teacher or which grade.

Now we come to a modern headline attributed to Fox News.  "JFK posthumously joins the Republican Party".  That headline appeared as a text crawl in the Simpsons cartoon a few years ago, and resulted in the cartoonist Matt Groening receiving a warning from the Fox owners that he must stop putting fake Fox News crawls on his weekly TV animation.  Apparently, because people could not tell the difference between joke news and Fox news.

Now making it much harder to tell the difference between humour and fact:  On the 50th anniversary of JFK's death, Fox News joins a "growing body of thought" that JFK was more a conservative than a liberal.

This growing body of thought is backed up by a book by Ira Stoll  "JFK, Conservative".  Here are some quotes from Kennedy's life to back up the research.

http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2013/11/22/jfk-a-conservative-12-quotes-from-the-liberal-icon-that-you-wont-believe/

I don't want to say these quotes are cherry-picked, or that they ignore famous quotes where Kennedy called himself a liberal, but let me take the worst of them for a closer look.

"5. I’d be very happy to tell them I’m not a liberal at all…I’m not comfortable with those people. Saturday Evening Post, June 1953 "

I don't actually have the book, I'm not sure if the "dot dot dot" was in the book or not.  But as a self-taught bullshit detector, I have learned to recognize telltale signs, and one of the easiest to spot for a novice is "..."


The full quote is actually

“I’m not a liberal at all. I never joined the Americans for Democratic Action—I’m not comfortable with those people.”
John F. Kennedy in the Saturday Evening Post, 1956"

from www.sonoma.edu/exed/olli/nkhandout1.pdf‎

Other than getting the wrong year, the missing "..." actually is about joining the ADA, a liberal organization that ranks politicians on a scale of 0 to 100 on their liberal views.  They were like a self appointed organization to define who was liberal and who was not, and how pure they were with the liberal agenda.  It seems to me that the "..." on this web page is being used to leave out important information rather than unimportant information.  If Kennedy refers to "being uncomfortable with those people", he is not referring to "liberals", he is referring to a specific sub-group, the ADA.  It's kind of like a conservative distancing themselves from the Tea Party.


What's next on the conservative agenda, now that JFK has joined their ranks?  I expect to see a Fox News crawl on the Simpsons "Lee Harvey Oswald posthumously joins Democratic Party".  Except, of course that the Simpsons can no longer do news crawls attributed to Fox News.

Picture: from http://www.salon.com/2013/11/22/the_rights_jfk_myth_now_they_claim_he_was_conservative/

Remembrance Day Heats Up in Lucan

Just a few days before our annual war over Christmas gets into full swing, we have another annual war brewing, the war over Remembrance Day.  As you know, Remembrance Day is the day where we remember those who fought and died in the various wars that we participated in, which when I was in school meant mostly World Wars One and Two.  Now it also means the Afghan War, a war in which we tried to stamp out terrorism by invading Afghanistan, which had allowed Al Quaida terrorists to train openly in the years before 9/11.

So what is the war over Remembrance Day about, and more importantly, why must we have another war?

The opening shots were fired last year, in the tiny community of Lucan Ontario, where the local Public School did not say prayers as part of the Remembrance Day ceremonies.  The Principal decided, given that this was not a religious ceremony, and the school itself was not a religious school, that prayers were not necessary.

Now I must interrupt the story here, as my own experience is this:  When I was a kid, I do not remember saying prayers in school for Remembrance Day.  We sat in our seats in our own classrooms, and had two minutes of silence to remember the fallen soldiers.  I did not live in a big city, and this was back in the early sixties.  That was less than twenty years after the war, and many of our fathers had actually fought in the war, and I don't remember one peep of protest about it.  Not only that, but I attended a Christian Protestant school far from any cities.  To be fair, it was the province of Quebec which didn't have any non-religious schools at the time, and actually the Protestants were closer to being non-religious than the other public school system which was Roman Catholic.

Now to continue with my interruption by filling in a bit of theological background.  It was well known at the time in the Catholic schools that all Protestants went to hell, be they fallen soldiers or not.  And the Protestants were equally sure that dead Catholic soldiers were all in Hell.  So it seemed that by saying prayers, whether Catholic or Protestant, would only have the effect of increasing the suffering of many of the fallen soldiers, and do nothing for those who had already found heavenly bliss.  So I always assumed that the absence of religious overtones was a comfort for those of the wrong religion. (whichever it turned out to be).

Now to get back to the story in Lucan, which has a Catholic/Protestant connection too.  It seems that for over thirty years, the Catholic school and the Protestant (I mean non-religious public school, as this is Ontario) in Lucan have been holding joint ceremonies in the local Community Centre, presumably absorbing all the expenses of bussing in all their kids for the event.  Many parents also attend.  The schools alternate each year in organizing the ceremony.  And remarkably, (to me at least) the Catholics and Protestants have prayed together.  In one way, this is an admirable and much needed improvement on the religious discord between Protestants and Catholics that went on in my home town.  But it is a little late, as these days we have many other religions adding to the mix (Jews, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist etc) and we also have an increasing number of Atheists. So while the Catholics and Protestants in Lucan were finally getting their act together, other ideas were creeping in from the big cities, and last year the public school decided to stop saying prayers at school sponsored ceremonies.

But given the new situation, where Christians are starting to feel under fire from liberals, immigrants, and liberal atheists, the Catholics and Protestants banded together in Lucan to insist on prayer in the ceremony this year.  However, the Public school decided to skip the confrontation and have their ceremony in their own school instead.  Predictably, this did nothing to avoid a confrontation.

The London Free Press website (the closest big city) has a poll:

http://www.lfpress.com/2013/11/06/lucan-school-nixes-community-event

"Do prayers have a place in Remembrance Day ceremonies? " 

I don't like the question, as it seems to avoid the problem of how to let everyone have their own prayer, be it Protestant or Catholic, Jewish, or other, without offending anyone. My question is, Have any Canadian Soldiers who are also Jewish or Muslim, died in any Canadian war?  And if none have died, can we be sure none will ever die?  Maybe we should be at least be preparing for the eventuality by changing the immortal words "Between the crosses row on row", because Muslims and Jews do not use the cross as a grave marker.

Picture: Found on the Internet, could not find the credit for it.

Bankruptcy as it Applies to National Health Care

The word bankruptcy is being used in the news quite a bit lately, referring to how either Obamacare will bankrupt the United States government, or on the other hand, the recent government shutdown could bankrupt the United States.

It's not only in the news, as I hear ordinary people referring to the possible bankruptcy of the US.  As in "Obamacare is going to bankrupt the USA, eh?"  That last quote is from a Canadian. Canada has had a more extreme version of health care for at least 40 years, and Canada is apparently not bankrupt.  So obviously, "bankrupt" is one of those words that everybody thinks they know what it means, but actually nobody understands it any more.

As a public service, I am going to go over the meaning of the word "Bankrupt", and we will see more clearly whether the USA is going bankrupt, and if so, what may cause it.

First, let's try to understand what bankruptcy is.  When a person or a company gets very very much in debt, they sometimes reach a point where they will never be able to repay the money.  In the olden times, this is when the lenders would seize their person and sell them into slavery, and be done with it.  The money they could fetch as a slave was often not as much as their debts, but the lenders were thinking that it was better than nothing.

The key thing to remember is that bankruptcy is not another word for "broke", or "got no money".  It is caused entirely by a decision that the lender makes, whether to give up on the loan, grab whatever assets they can, sell them and be done with it, or to continue on, hoping to be repaid one day.

The concept of bankruptcy really only applies to individuals and companies, and apparently in some cases to municipal governments (I live not too far from Detroit). The USA is a country. What about a country going into bankruptcy?  What is the difference between a country and a company or individual, or local government?

There are a few ways a country can go "bankrupt".  (or we can use the term "sovereign default")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_default

One is where the country itself decides to stop honoring any agreement to repay debt or service foreign or domestic loans.  The other is where another country "B" or "C", who is a big lender to country "A", decides they will never get their money back, and so they seize country "A"'s assets.  They can readily seize any assets like bank accounts that are held in country "B" or "C" banks, but they cannot seize important tangible assets without declaring war, and so that is often the way things go.  As an example, the USA sent marines to seize Haiti's assets when they decided that Haiti could not repays its debts.  (July 28 1915)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Haiti

The USA national debt is well over a trillion dollars, check the national debt clock website.

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Also, each American's share of the national debt is $52,000 more or less. (mostly more)

But because the US government can raise money through taxes, most lenders assume they will be repaid eventually and let it ride.  The alternative, of course is either war or at least a break in relations.  By the way, a break in relations usually means a complete trade shutdown.  Which means (probably) no more foreign oil, and so no more giant pickup trucks and Hummers running around at top speed.

Now what will cause the USA to actually go bankrupt?  Obamacare?  Not likely.  The refusal of the US government to pay interest on its loans? Getting warmer.  A complete shutdown of the US government, including the Revenue department?  That starts to be worrisome.

I think the Republican slogan that they want to put an end to big government is more of a problem for bankruptcy than the watered down version of health care that Obama has proposed (actually, not only proposed, but passed into law.)

Back to motorcycling, I was reading on the Advrider site about an American rider who crashed, and would not go to see a doctor partly because he had no insurance.

http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=762377

Motorcyclists Do Try to Improve their Image

Motorcyclists try to improve their image.  Anyway, most do, but it seems there is a small minority always screwing it up for us.


This is my third blog on the same subject, the Hollywood Stuntz incident, where bikers pulled a man out of his car and beat him up.  This time, my blog is about what got the incident started.

I will start by comparing an authorized motorcycle group ride, such as a toy ride, pictured here.  Charity rides like this have been going on since the eighties to improve the often negative image of motorcyclists. Usually these rides are organized by a club, which invites any other motorcyclists who wish to participate.  A permit is obtained from the police, and a route is decided beforehand.  A large number of motorcyclists usually gather at the start-off point. The police, who have been notified in advance through the permit process, send officers to control traffic.  The ride leaves the parking area, and everyone follows, sometimes two hundred motorcycles may be in attendance.  The police temporarily block traffic at each intersection along the way to allow the procession to pass through without getting mixed up with cars.  It may last 5 minutes before the whole group goes by. Then normal traffic resumes.

At the final destination for the toy ride, each motorcyclist donates a brand new toy to the organizers, and these are then presented to a childrens' charity. Result? Some happy kids at Christmas.

There are sometimes problems on a toy ride.  For example one motorcyclist may crash into another, and somebody may get hurt.  I was on one ride where a police motorcycle officer crashed as he was rushing from one intersection to the next to block traffic.  Some of the public get steamed up waiting five or even ten minutes for the entire procession to pass, although I never heard of anyone getting so mad that physical violence was done.

Here is an article from an Edmonton toy ride with 3,500 participants.  These toy rides and other types of charity rides, have done a lot to improve the image of motorcyclists that were left in tatters by Hells Angels in the fifties and sixties.
http://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/thousands-of-motorcyclists-ride-to-help-city-s-less-fortunate-children-1.977703

Now let's examine the difference with a Hollywood Stuntz parade. In some ways it is the same as toy rides, in that maybe 200 bikers go for a ride in a group.  But there are differences. The Stuntz rides do not have permits, because their only purpose is performing illegal acts on public roads.  It goes without saying, that the purpose of the stuntz rides is NOT to improve the image of motorcyclists.

The lack of a permit for a Stuntz ride is the first problem, and starts a cascade of other problems.  I suppose this could have been worked out in advance with the authorities, but we are probably a long way from the authorities providing police escorts to permit stunt riding on public roads.  In any case, the way it stands today, the stunt riding parades have no police escort. But the need is still there to control non-parade traffic.  In fact it's even more necessary to stop traffic, since the riders will be performing dangerous stunts on the roadway.

I suppose in the minds of the stunt riders, there is not much difference between going on a motorcycle parade with or without a permit.  They appear to be quite excited to take over the job of the police officers stopping traffic.  Unfortunately, it is not that easy. All that the ordinary motorist sees is some hoodlum-looking biker trying to block his progress.  The car or truck driver may eventually realise that this is some kind of "event" with hundreds of motorcycles, that they does not really want to get into.  So most motorists, faced with a situation where their progress is blocked by bikers, will stop and wait it out.

There remains a huge difference between trained, disciplined, uniformed police officers stopping traffic, and mad-max-looking, untrained, and angry bikers stopping traffic.  Sooner or later some car driver is going to get scared at what is going on all around his or her car, and try to run for it.

A trained police officer would not (I hope) try to stop a car by riding a motorcycle in front of a moving SUV, then hitting the brakes.  A trained police officer would especially not try this when out of uniform, and with an unmarked motorcycle.  A trained police officer would not throw themselves in front of a vehicle to make it stop, or stand in front of it.  And hopefully, a trained police officer would not lose their temper and start screaming at a car driver while driving alongside them.  And unless this was the end of a long and dangerous chase, they would also not be smashing windows or breaking mirrors, or reaching in through an open window, or grabbing door handles.

Unfortunately all this is predictable when an unruly, undisciplined mob of bikers gets together with the sole purpose of having a large parade, without the assistance of the police to control traffic on public roads.

I hope that all the good done by hundreds of well organized charity toy rides is not undone by illegal Stuntz rides which end up with ordinary car riders getting beaten up.

More About Hollywood Stuntz

This is a follow up to my comments on the Hollywood Stuntz.  This time, the website "Slate" has put up a page with this misleading headline.

"Yes, “Motorcycle Gangs” Still Exist. No, They Didn’t Attack a Man in New York"

http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/10/02/alexian_lien_hollywood_stuntz_yes_motorcycle_gangs_still_exist_no_they_didn.html

You can read it yourself at the link above.  Hopefully you will see as I did that their argument is basically that "Hollywood Stuntz" is not technically a motorcycle gang, and therefore a "Motorcycle gang" did not attack a man in New York.  But that the Bandidos and Hells Angels and others like that, are the true and only real motorcycle gangs.  Therefore motorcycle gangs, though they still exist, did not attack a man in New York.

This attitude really gets at the heart of the public's misunderstanding about motorcycle gangs.  Slate puts a picture on their article, of a Bandido member wearing their colours on the back of his jacket.  I have already pointed out that the Bandidos are a criminal gang that does not require motorcycle ownership, or any ability to ride a motorcycle, to join up. Their central activity is crime, motorcycling is an optional sideline. The Hells Angels criminal activities rarely if ever involve motorcycles any more.  And it has been like this for some 30 years now, where groups of people riding motorcycles, even if they are criminals in real life, are not aggressively trying to terrorize ordinary citizens, and in fact are pointedly polite while riding.  (Maybe some cases to not draw attention to their criminal activities, I suppose).  While doing crime, they drive around in cars, SUV's vans, Escalades etc., with not a motorcycle in sight.

The Hollywood Stuntz, even though they do not ride "Harleys" with ape hangers, and do not wear black leather jackets with chains, or Nazi insignia, are still the original definition of a gang of motorcycle riders.  And while riding motorcycles, they do terrorizing people.  That is why people still hate  motorcycle gangs, although the criminal so-called "motorcycle" gangs have moved on to drugs and guns and prostitution. They are still remembered for the bad old days when they acted like the Hollywood Stuntz do today.  Any motorcycling the Hells Angels do is now very polite, safe and reflects well on the motorcycle community.  So all semantics aside about whether or not Hollywood Stuntz are a "real" motorcycle gang, they are a gang of people riding motorcycles going crazy, threatening and beating up people.  And this is not the only time this type of behaviour has happened with this type of crowd.  And if history is any judge, it will reflect badly on all motorcyclists.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZkgPfGX_l0

In the video above, you will see a Prius being surrounded.  Apparently one biker reached into the window, the driver rolled up the window on the hand, and the outside mirrors were knocked off in retaliation.

In Port Dover Ontario, we can have a hundred thousand motorcycle riders show up Friday 13 without any of the stupidity I see in this video, let alone attacking a car driver.  How long until we get some idiot copy cats riding motorcycles wanting to duplicate the feats they see on Youtube?

Hollywood Stunz gang Gives Bikers a Bad Name

How bad are you when the Hells Angels complain that your motorcycle gang is giving bikers a bad name?

Hollywood Stuntz is a loose gang in New York, who do illegal stunts on motorcycles, on public roads.  They ride in large numbers, seemingly for protection, and to assure a ready made appreciative audience for the stunts.

A video was posted on Youtube, showing this gang assaulting a driver in New York who was driving in an SUV with his wife and child.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ukdkgLYYbw&feature=c4-overview&list=UUod6IWpnppkLNGbMk-fLMdw

The above video was preceded by an American Express commercial, wonder if they know what their commercial are being paired with?

Anyway, opinions are starting to fly about what went on.  As I mentioned, the Hells Angels think this incident is giving motorcycle gangs a bad name.  And they should know something about that, being one of the original motorcycle gangs whose image we are still trying to live down.

The Hollywood Stuntz blog has disappeared (I can't say if it was official or not).  So I had to check a few others for some opinions.

hollywoodstuntz.blogspot.com  (no longer there, but you can use the name if you are quick enough, and you want your blog to have that name.)

I checked one other (Maybe) Texas based military interest blog, where the main opinion was that if New Yorkers simply got used to  driving around with heavy caliber automatic rifles, and sufficient ammunition to take out about a hundred bikers, this would never happen.

http://snafu-solomon.blogspot.ca/2013/10/hollywood-stuntz-terrorized-other.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/gSklN+(SNAFU!)

And another opinion comes from a white racist blog, Nicholas Stix "The Wild Ones: Racist Brown and Black Motorcycle Gang Hollywood Stuntz Terrorized NYC All Summer"

http://nicholasstixuncensored.blogspot.ca/2013/10/the-wild-ones-racist-brown-and-black.html

I don't want to get into a racist dispute, but it seems obvious to me that some people with whitish-toned skin are clearly permitted in the club.  Obviously this leads to counter claims that they either painted themselves white, or they are albino black guys, or they are Puerto Ricans, who may or may not be the "browns" that are referred to.  In any case, after the title the next line refers to the club as "black and brown dominated", making it harder to prove that it is not a racist club, because if blacks/browns are dominating the whites in the club, it would technically still be racist even though they clearly admit whites.  OK That's why I should not have even started into this stupid line of reasoning, it's even less productive than arguing evolution with a Born-Again Christian.  Also, this seems to be a very loose "club" along the lines of "whoever shows up that day is in".  I suspect there is no fixed membership or dues, but of course I could be wrong.  It is also referred to as a "Pop up club".

http://nypost.com/2013/10/02/nypd-lets-pop-up-bike-gangs-rampage/

While I'm at it, I would like to take a shot at the pro-gunners who claim that this proves you can not trust the police to save you and you should simply arm up with the baddest guns you can find before taking your family for a drive.  Obviously, the logical answer is that trying to mow down 100 bikers who themselves may be armed is not going to make this situation any better than calling the cops on your cell phone while you lock your doors (was not done by the SUV driver apparently, watch the video if its still there.)

In summary, I am going to have to side with the Hells Angels for the first time (I think). But not the gun nuts, and not the racists.  This kind of stuff is going to revive the bad name the bikers got during the fifties and has not completely faded to this day.

Conservative Theory that Trudeau is Going for the Stoner Vote

Stoner Kitty

I began to read this opinion piece online from the "Star Phoenix", and before the first paragraph was done, I was already getting that "right wing nutjob" vibe from the author, Les MacPherson.

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/Legalized+costly+buzz+kill+thanks+Justin/8762041/story.html

I didn't know this until I checked the internet, but yes, the Saskatoon Star Phoenix is owned by the same group as the right wing National Post.  So there is a good chance this is purposeful conservative propaganda.

Breaking down the article to its basic arguments and assumptions:

- Justin Trudeau (Liberal Leader) is promising to legalize pot in order to capture the all important stoner vote.

- Stoners will hate legalization, (if it happens) as government meddling will make pot more expensive and less appealing.

- Dealers will hate legalization, as they will be put out of business by excessive government regulation and taxing.

- Trudeau will not legalize marijuana anyway, he is only lying.  Hypocritical liberal governments do more marijuana busts than conservative governments.

- Conclusion: Trudeau should wait until the US legalizes marijuana before doing anything.

- Recommendation (implied): Don't vote for Trudeau, as he is a hypocrite and a Socialist, (if that is not too redundant)


Seems like an inoffensive article, but there are some underlying right-wing assumptions that I do not accept.

- The negative stereotyping and use of the pejorative name stoner.  Why are conservatives always stereotyping people????  OOOPS now I'm stereotyping.  Anyway, it's true.

- The assumption that all the people who want marijuana legalized are stoners, and only stoners want marijuana legalized.  That is not true, as many "non-stoners" believe that decriminalizing marijuana will boost our economy.  (a non-stoner is the opposite of what a stoner is supposed to be in this article, I have no other definition for it).

- The assumption that if the government gets involved in the marijuana business, things will fall apart.  This is dumb, even from a conservative free market point of view.  OK, we need a short lesson in right wing free enterprise.  ILLEGAL activities are not free enterprise.  LEGAL activities are not automatically "government run". By Les MacPherson's logic, black market gasoline would be cheaper and more potent than legal pump gas. I don't think so.

- Les's conclusion is typical of your basic Canadian Conservative:  Wait until the US does it, on the assumption that, except for Obama, the US is always right.

Picture:  http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/stoned-cat

I Think We All Know Why Obama Flubs Geography

I was reading about Sun News * fighting for status as a legitimate "news" channel.  In one of the comments, claiming that the liberal news was also biased, an example was given where the liberal news covered up for Obama's latest gaffe.

Apparently, on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Obama had said that various Atlantic seaports were on the Gulf of Mexico.  Is it possible that Obama has so little knowledge of US geography?  After all, I watched the show, and I did not notice any gaffe of that type.  But according to right wing sources, (Michelle Malkin) this gaffe was as big as the famous one where Republican Vice President Dan Quail said potato was spelled potatoe.
Let's compare the two gaffes.

First about Obama's gaffe:

According to newsbusters (a right wing blog), Obama said "If we don't deepen our ports all along the Gulf — places like Charleston, South Carolina, or Savannah, Georgia, or Jacksonville, Florida — if we don't do that, those ships are going to go someplace else. And we’ll lose jobs."

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2013/08/07/aps-russ-bynum-covers-obamas-gulf-ports-gaffe#ixzz2bTN4ykLj

A link to a video on Jay Leno's show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG52r79LtiI

Obama was naming places where deepening is needed, to me it means ports all along the Gulf *and* places like Charleston and Savannah.  He did not write "ports all along the Gulf  (places like Charleston, South Carolina, or Savannah, Georgia, or Jacksonville, Florida)."  Punctuation is important, especially when you are adjusting it to suit your propaganda purposes.

What kind of person will not only call this an example of Obama's ignorance, but also an example of Liberal left wing bias. I guess it's the same kind of person who will pretend there is actually a dash before and after  "places like...." instead of  commas.  And then say

"The only conceivable way to interpret what Obama actually said is that the ports of Charleston, Savannah, and Jacksonville are "along the Gulf" of Mexico. Of course, these ports are really on the Atlantic Ocean."

This text was not given in writing, it was in a live interview.  I heard a comma, I guess some nitpicker heard dashes, or some might have heard parentheses.  I already knew where these ports were, so it seems I was biased into hearing the commas.

Now let's compare Dan Quail's potatoe gaffe,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdqbi66oNuI

In the video of Dan Quail, a student is spelling potato on the blackboard.  Dan Quail jumps in and tells the student he is wrong, and he needs to add an "E" to the end of the word.

One is actually the definition of an embarassing gaffe, the other is a deliberate misunderstanding by a hostile  commentator.  Apparently right wing "news" organizations like Fox and Sun News do not see the difference.  That's why I do not consider them to be genuine news.  They are too biased.  That is "the only conceivable way to interpret" their ignorant arguments.

Next time, Obama should have two versions of the statement, one for liberals who know geography, and the other one for right wingers who need a map and some red arrows pointing to all the ports.

* Sun News is a Canadian TV "news" station that is similar to the U.S. Fox "News".  And for those who don't know what Fox News is, it is a network news channel that claims to be "Fair and Balanced" but also claims to be the voice of the right wing conservatives and Republicans, counteracting what they call the left wing liberal bias of the mainstream press.  Sun News and right wing backers have so far been blocked in Canada in two attempts. One, to eliminate the restrictions on false and misleading  information in the news.  And second to force Sun News onto all basic cable channels free of charge, claiming status as an independent genuine news organization.

Were Humans Used in Nutritional Experiments in the1940's?

On the CBC news this morning, I heard a newscaster make some disturbing allegations.  Apparently, nutritional researchers withheld food from hungry aboriginal children in residential schools in Canada, in order to study the effects of malnutrition.

I had already heard about the previous scandal, an experiment where researchers apparently gave vitamin and mineral supplements to some, but not all aboriginal schoolchildren.  To me, that did not seem as bad as withholding food from starving children.

I am not trying to make excuses for things that were done a long time ago.  I understand there was a lot more racism back then, in fact there is still a lot today, but at least it is not as overt.  There was also a different attitude towards corporal punishment of children.  We don't have the death penalty in Canada today, but we did then.  Experiments used to be performed on human beings, not just aboriginals either.  Check out Donald Ewen Cameron on Wikipedia, doing experiments with shock therapy and drugs, resulting in death of human test subjects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Ewen_Cameron

So it seems the ethical aspect of human experiments has come a long way since the fifties, in that we are much more careful about obtaining "Consent" of the subjects, and when we finally do the experiments, it is done with proper procedures and documentation, ensuring that we actually get some scientific benefit from the experiment.

Here is what the "Idle No More" (an Aboriginal activist) website posted about the situation, as quoted from the Canadian Press, under the title "HUNGRY ABORIGINAL PEOPLE USED IN BUREAUCRATS' EXPERIMENTS".  This title appears also on the CBC website, and many others.

http://www.idlenomore.ca/hungry_aboriginal_people_used_in_bureaucrats_experiments

If they withheld food from half of a group of starving children do see if they would die faster than a control group that got the regular rations, then that was evil by any standard.

If they gave minerals and vitamin supplements unknowingly to half the group, to see if there were any benefits to their health or mental states, without cutting back in any way on the food they were getting already, then the bureacrats and researchers were not evil, they were simply not acting according to modern standards on human research.

From the article above:

"The first experiment began in 1942 on 300 Norway House Cree. Of that group, 125 were selected to receive vitamin supplements which were withheld from the rest.
At the time, researchers calculated the local people were living on less than 1,500 calories a day. Normal, healthy adults generally require at least 2,000."

According to this, all the natives in some communities were basically going hungry, not just the children in residential schools. Instead of providing more food to the communities, the researchers gave selected people vitamin supplements.  If all the natives were hungry, that brings up many other questions about how they were fed, who was responsible for feeding them, and why were they not hunting/fishing/gathering berries, or otherwise using traditional sources of food?  None of that was mentioned in the article, although it seems familiar, just from Canadian and US history, and movies.

Here is another quote:

"One school deliberately held milk rations for two years to less than half the recommended amount to get a 'baseline' reading for when the allowance was increased."

If true, it would surely be a criminal act, even by the loose standards of 1947. But, I notice it does not say the rations were "cut", only "held".  Does that mean it was already normal practice to give half the recommended amount of milk?  Why?  Who set the recommended amount in the first place?

"At another, children were divided into one group that received vitamin, iron and iodine supplements and one that didn't."

Sounds reasonable for 1947.

"One school depressed levels of vitamin B1 to create another baseline before levels were boosted."

Did people know what vitamin B1 was in 1947?  If so how was the level depressed, by withholding food?  Was it in pill form?

"A special enriched flour that couldn't legally be sold elsewhere in Canada under food adulteration laws was used on children at another school."

This actually doesn't sound too evil, as I think we now basically use enriched flour everywhere and think nothing of it. It is your basic white  "Wonder Bread".  Of course if the illegal enriched flour had proven fatal, that would have been a bad thing.

"Many dental services were withdrawn from participating schools during that time. Gum health was an important measuring tool for scientists and they didn't want treatments on children's teeth distorting results."

If true, that is a crime, unless the treatments that were being withheld were also experimental.  In which case it's the opposite of a crime.  The actual treatments that were withheld are not specified.

"They knew from the beginning that the real problem and the cause of malnutrition was underfunding. That was established before the studies even started and when the studies were completed that was still the problem."

Studies in nutrition are not simple, because even when people have enough money and access to food, they can still be malnourished.  You need to have a healthy balanced diet, and not all people understand what a healthy diet is, or want to eat it.  You can be obese and still  suffer from nutritional deficiencies.  You cannot drink Coke and eat potato chips your whole life without serious side effects, not that I am suggesting anyone in 1947 would do that.  But you also cannot easily force people to eat a healthy diet.