Global Warming Without the Hysteria

Global warming seems to be on the retreat, if you were to judge by how many clothes I wear when I go out for a walk. Of course everybody knows by now that there is a controversy. The Global Warming Industry is pitted against the oil industry to win the hearts and minds of the SUV drivers.

Who to believe? It seems to me that you can't just poke your nose outside to get the truth. And can you really trust the news? I'm not talking about Fox news, of course, they are clearly biased. And Tiger Woods, you don't believe them either, just stick with your Buddhist religion no matter what Fox News tells you to do.

There is really no trusted independent source of news any more. Well I might be tempted to say this blog is trusted and independent, but I have an obvious bias toward my own blog, so my journalistic integrity stops me from making that claim. I will leave that to others.

Also, studying the science is impossible for most people who do not have the training to analyse the data. So you end up having to trust competing conclusions.

Some pictures that might be worth looking at, that I believe are free of bias, are pictures of the arctic ocean ice cover changing with time, which many people believe is indicative of the current change in our climate. Some think there is more ice now, or that the ice was receding, and now its advancing. You don't need to trust them, you can look at the pictures of Arctic Sea Ice for yourself. And you don't have to look at the dates that are chose by biased sources to prove their own point. Fill in your own two dates and click on "submit". It is "do it yourself science".

What will this prove to you? Maybe nothing. Maybe it will get you thinking that this is a complicated question. Maybe you don't even care if the ice cap is expanding or shrinking. But at least here is one source that I hope we can all agree is unbiased, and maybe we can get away from charges of lying and deception.

Now my own observations are this, and hopefully these are unbiased in any way (except that as Mary Ann says I always look at the "cup half empty").

• There is a claim being made by many respected scientists, that drilling and burning petroleum is causing high levels of CO2 which is suspected of warming the atmosphere. They may be right or wrong, of course.
• We have only one planet. It would be nice to have another just in case, but we don't.
• It would be very easy for people to waste less gas if they just put their minds to it. Back in the sixties, we used a lot less than now, was that so bad? And I see a lot of people being wasteful in their energy use. Sometimes it's even me.
• We need oil for many vital things, for food production, for fuel, to make plastics, and who knows what else. We may very well invent some new thing in the future that uses even more oil.
  
• I don't know if we are running out, but for sure nobody is putting any back in. To claim that we have another 100 years supply at least is pure conjecture.
• The price of oil can go up very suddenly, while our wealth can also drop very suddenly. Really bad things happen if we can't afford oil any more.

So based on those hopefully correct and unbiased assumptions, I would suggest we start cutting back on oil use. Leave more oil for the future just in case our descendants need it. At the same time, this is playing it safe with our climate. In my opinion, it is the responsible thing to do, when you strip away all the hysteria.

Please leave a comment below if you think there is anything in this post that is biased or incorrect. All comments are treated with respect, as my only interest is the truth. Personally, I would prefer that global warming was either a hoax or benign. And if global warming did turned out to be a hoax, it would certainly increase my admiration and respect for the oil companies, because that's what many of them have been saying all along.

Judge For Yourself if Avatar 3D is Simplistic

Several reviews of Avatar (which Mary Ann and I have now seen twice) compare the characters of Grace Augustine and Norm Spellman to the Peace Corps. Also several people have pointed out that Avatar is an over simplified made up story to promote green and multicultural values.

I was in Sierra Leone, West Africa in 1969-72 with CUSO, a Canadian organization similar to the Peace Corps. Although obviously Avatar was fictitious, it is analogous to some events that took place on Earth. Not a single event but a combination of events taken from different places and times, woven together into one story. I would like to compare Pandora to the diamond war in Sierra Leone, so that you can decide for yourself just how oversimplified (or not) it may be. Starting with the idea that Grace was in an equivalent of the Peace Corps.

Although the Peace Corps was spread around the world, it generally went to what we called "Developing Countries". Most often, these were newly independent European Colonies. By contrast, Pandora does not appear to be newly independent, in fact it appears that the colonization process is just beginning. I think you can tell by the fact that the Na'vi do not use any Earth technology at all. If they had any history of being a colony, they would be using things from Earth, such as clothes, vehicles, houses, roads, weapons, books, televisions, radios, telephones, cooking implements, and food. Of those probably the most critical would be food, as it represents more of an economic a dependency than all the rest.

The Na'vi seem to be completely free from any of these dependencies, and so cannot be easily (or peacefully) be manipulated by the mining company. In this sense, they are like an undiscovered tribe in the Amazon jungle, which is a far cry from many of the African people of Sierra Leone in 1969, who listened to radios, played electric guitars, drove cars, lived in houses, and went to school. Sierra Leone was able to produce most of its own food, so starvation was not a problem. And while they did not have a lot of Western luxuries, they didn't really have local alternatives. Meanwhile, the fictitious Na'vi on Pandora had their own shelters, beds, bows and arrows, and horses and birds for transportation. They also made and wore their own clothing, followed their own religion, and had their own (seemingly informal) system of education. And again, they did not depend on Earth for food.

Another indication that there was no history of colonization, is that Grace Augustine is formally studying the Na'vi and the planet of Pandora as if they were a newly discovered life form and ecosystem.

There was a school set up on Pandora by the mining company to teach English to the Na'vi. I'm not sure if they taught anything else except maybe some games, which I saw the Na'vi kids playing in the school yard. Apparently, Grace was a teacher at the school, which would somewhat like the Peace Corps. She also dressed her Avatar up in a way that looked similar to popular Peace Corps clothing.

I want to state emphatically that neither the Peace Corps nor CUSO was made up of scientists like Dr. Grace Augustine who went to study the native people. CUSO and the Peace Corps did some teaching, and the Peace Corp was also involved in agriculture and building. We didn't even have our own schools, we taught at local schools. If anything our overall goal may have been more to promote international understanding. If we did "study" the local people, it was only in the sense that we learned from our hosts, and they learned from us. It was not a formally organized science project, and we never had to report to anyone what we had learned.

As far as I could see in the movie, the mutual learning that went on with the Na'vi was strained. The Na'vi were keeping the Earth people, including Grace, from learning about their ways, especially the spirit tree. When the US Marine/avatar, Jake Sully was learning about the Na'vi, they cooperated only because a mysterious sign had been given, otherwise they were prepared to kill him. And furthermore, Jake was first only there to learn how to best destroy Pandora. All in all, a very hostile exchange of ideas compared to when I was in Africa, where I had no motive to destroy the Africans, and they had none to destroy me. But then my stay in Sierra Leone probably would not have made a very exciting movie.

Sierra Leone unfortunately had the equivalent of "unobtanium", it was diamonds. While I was there diamonds did not cause much of a problem, but twenty years after I left, the country became devastated by a horrendous war caused by evil outsiders who were after the diamonds, and wanted the local people to move out. These outsiders were not Europeans or Americans, but other Africans. However, they were financed and armed by Europeans who paid well for these diamonds, and provided plane loads of AK47's and whatever else was needed to kill local people.

The nearest comparison to the movie character of Parker Selfridge, the mining executive, would be Pat Robertson, of the Christian Broadcasting Network. He entered into a seven million dollar mining partnership with neighbouring dictator Charles Taylor, an African "Born Again Christian", who in turn sent armed militias into Sierra Leone to terrorize the people. I would say Charles Taylor was the equivalent of evil Colonel Miles Quaritch, and today Charles Taylor is being tried at The Hague for war crimes. By contrast, in Avatar, it was the Earth people themselves who did the dirty work of killing the natives, and from the reactions I heard in the audience, after the show, this would not be acceptable in our modern western society. But the way it was done in Sierra Leone, through proxy militias, was apparently more tolerable. I think this elimination of proxies was the greatest oversimplification of the film, but it was done to let people see more clearly who is really behind the violence. The results are the same, though. Diamonds get mined, people get displaced and terrorized by modern weaponry. The situation in Sierra Leone has been resolved since 2001, partly through knowledge spread by activists, partly through improvements to the diamond marketing system, and partly through the British Commandos (sent by Tony Blair) and UN peacekeepers.

Neither the military, nor any mining companies played any role in the Peace Corps Sierra Leone, as far as I could tell. Although I understand from talking to other people, that there may have been some connection with the military in other places like Central America back in the eighties, which the Americans consider almost like their back yard. But I didn't go there, so I have no first hand knowledge.

The Canadian military has absolutely no connection with CUSO anywhere in the world, and this was true back in 1969, and is still true today. Same for mining or oil companies. And don't think Canada does not have evil companies. Talisman, a Canadian company from Alberta, used to have drilling rights in the Sudan, where airplanes were regularly used to bomb native villages to clear the right of way for Talisman's oil exploration. I saw an interview with a Talisman board member, who was being questioned about this activity, and I remember him saying "They have too many tribes in Africa anyway". Almost sounds like dialogue from the film. So much for one moviegoer I overheard saying "They couldn't be Canadians, they must be Americans"

There were two feature movies made about Sierra Leone's diamond war, both were fictitious, based on true events.

"Blood Diamond" 2006, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a South African mercenary looking for diamonds, and Jennifer Connelly and activist and journalist.

"Lord of War" 2005, starring Nicholas cage as the arms dealer.

I liked both of them, although I wished they could have been shot on location, I do not think they were, for example in Blood Diamond, they were driving on the left, which Sierra Leone abandoned while I was there.

Picture: Jennifer Connelly photographing the atrocities in "Blood Diamond"

Republicans in the Office (Of Counter Terrorism)

An interesting case has just come up in the murky world of intelligence gathering. It once again brings up the topic of how best to get important information, by torture or not by torture?

The pro-torture crowd uses this simple situation to make their case. An atomic bomb is about to go off in 10 minutes in New York. You have the bomber in custody, and he doesn't want to talk. Do you torture him and get the answers you need, or wimp out and let the building blow up (and most of the rest of the city?) A simple situation with a simple answer.

This situation is actually the easy part of the process of intelligence gathering. You have the bad guy in custody. You know he knows something that you need to know. You have a way to verify quickly whether or not his answer is correct. At that point you really would have to fumble the ball badly to not get the information you need, like for example if you threatened him with a loaded gun, it prematurely went off and killed him.  So let's stop using this mythical situation to rationalize torture.

A part of intelligence gathering that has importance in real life, is having ordinary people voluntarily come forward with important information. I know this is too passive to have any appeal to the bulked-up-on-steroids types among us, but in the overall security picture, this part of the intelligence gathering is usually 60 percent of the effort. In this type of operation, you must be seen as the "good guys" by at least some of the local people, and you must have the infrastructure in place to sort through the incoming data. Notice here that passive intelligence is actually somewhat in conflict with torture intelligence.

Now for the most difficult part of the process, the one that breaks down most often, and is the greatest threat to our security. Once the raw data is obtained by one department, how and when does it get passed to another department within the system? That is where the usual office politics and personality conflicts get in the way of people doing their job, day in and day out to the best of their abilities. To learn more about how office bickering can reduce effectiveness, you will need to go to "Dilbert". I know it's a cartoon, but it is a cartoon ironically based on "tips" sent in by people on the ground who deal with this stuff every day in a real office.

The situation I started off with in this blog post is the underwear bomber. Nobody needed to be tortured to save that plane. The very fact that an internationally well liked African-American was president, and had signed a bill renouncing torture, made it possible that the bomber's own father would come forward with the tip that his son was going to try something. All that was necessary to stop him was that the various paper shufflers in government offices should be able to promptly deliver this information to the right inbasket. You would think that since this problem was identified as part of the cause of 9/11, something could have been done about it by now.

But sadly, most of the public discourse is still all about whether or not to torture. If not torture, then even stupider things such as whether to declare war on Yemen. The debate is not about people in the bureaucracy doing their jobs. And what might help is to at least have somebody in charge of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Obama's appointee has been blocked for months now. By petty political bickering, of course. The head of Customs and Border Protection agency also remains vacant, but no one has been chosen yet, so I'm not sure if you can blame that on political bickering. That won't even begin until someone is chosen.

Another issue about these appointees and why so may jobs are unfilled (125 senior political appointments remain open and 96 nominations await Congressional confirmation). Would you want to take a job that apparently the entire country thinks is so irrelevant that the job is empty for up to a year, and yet if any attack ever succeeded, the person holding that job would be the first to be pilloried? Now that is classical office politics.

Picture: My words on the cartoon.

Republicans in the Movies: Commando (1985)

Last night I watched a movie on TV that was not just stupid, but stupid without pause or letup for the entire show. Not that I didn't enjoy it, as it did have a few elements that I like, and there is also the interest after a while in how long can they keep this up, or even top it.

The movie was Commando (1985) with a young looking Arnold Schwarzenegger as hero, and his female sidekick Rae Dawn Chong. The basic plot is Arnold (Johnny Matrix, I believe that is one of the earliest uses of the word Matrix in popular culture) is recruited by bad guys (you don't need to know why or who) to assassinate someone (again, who cares?). They kidnap his daughter to ensure his cooperation. Arnold does not really cooperate, and at one point commandeers a random car driven by Rae Dawn (Cindy) which he proceeds to demolish bit by bit, starting by ripping out the passenger seat with his bare hands so that he has enough room to sit. They take off in pursuit of bad guys, so you have more car chases (that was not the first one, or the last) and as Arnold says "Then all hell breaks loose" and he ends up killing over a hundred people. I lost count, partly because it was not clear, for example if the guy whose arm he cut off actually died once the camera moved on to the next person to be killed.

Rae Dawn is at first apprehensive of this crazy guy who grabs her from behind in her car in a parking garage, and tells her to drive somewhere, and he's not going to hurt her, and to trust him, but he can't tell her why. But then as the mayhem unfolds and more and more people end up dead including an entire regiment of mall cops, her attitude softens, and she starts to help him out by learning how to fire a rocket launcher, steal another car, rescue Arnold from police custody by shooting the rocket launcher at the van taking Arnold away, and then piloting an airplane she has never seen before (she is also a pilot).

The high point of the movie came for me with Arnold and Rae Dawn in the float plane. Rae Dawn is the pilot, as Arnold does not know how to fly a plane. As they struggle to take off under a hail of bullets (the only way to fly), Arnold sees a large boat ahead of them and says says "watch out for the boat" Rae Dawn "EEEEK We're not going to make it". Arnold say "Yes we will!". I did not have time to think: does he know the lift properties of this plane, the weight of himself plus all the weapons he's carrying, the fuel load, the height of the ship, the wind speed and direction? No he didn't know or care about any of those things, he just reached over and pushed the throttle all the way to the max.

How stupid is it for Rae Dawn, supposedly a trained pilot in this film, who is trying to take off and get over some obstacle, to not have the throttle pushed all the way to full power?

But this certainly is a central Arnold idea, not only Arnold but all his fans. It does not matter if you are not a trained pilot, the most important thing is "common sense". Arnold may not have the intellectual book learning, but he has the common sense to know the most important thing is to push the throttle all the way.

The same theme crops up again and again. For instance when Rae Dawn picks up a rocket launcher and aims it at the police van, she has it backwards and takes out a building behind her on the first shot then for the second shot she turns it around and wipes out the van, miraculously not killing Arnold who is sitting in the back, right where the rocket hits. He asks her "How did you learn that". She answers simply "I read the instructions". So the "book learning" that does not say which direction to point the rocket launcher, and it probably should also have said "Caution: if you point it at the back of a van and fire you may kill everybody inside"

Think of Arnold Schwarzenegger's political career. He decides the Governor of California does not know anything about running a state, so Arnold takes over, with the idea that his common sense will prevail, just like in the movies. And surprisingly, a lot of people agreed. I guess he has not done too badly, but California is closer to being bankrupt now than it was when the girly men were in charge. That's the difference between being macho but ignorant in reality and in the movies.

I have a brother-in-law who is an airline pilot. Some years ago, on a family outing I was in the car driven by a non-pilot brother in law, with the pilot driving the car behind. As we took off at moderate speed, the car behind fell further and further back. Both of us were wondering how he could ever fly a plane if he was so reluctant to mash the accelerator pedal in an SUV. So I asked him when we stopped "Is there ever any situation when taking off with a plane where you do not use full throttle?" He answered, yes, lots of times. OKayyy, so that would be what I call "counter intuitive".

The entire movie is on Youtube. Beginning of part 4, Arnold grabs Rae Dawn from behind. "Don't move, get in the cah!" Rae Dawn "You said don't move!" Arnold "Do it!"

Part 6 (at 8:47) Rocket launcher girl

Part 7 (at 2:00) Full throttle "This is not a plane, it's a canoe with wings"


Part one starts here:

Cycle Canada's One Bike Challenge

I just got my subscription renewed to Cycle Canada by my grandson, who sold one to me through his grade 5 magazine subscription program. I had let my last subscription lapse after they printed the picture of a guy with a naked butt. Guess what is on page 14 of my first renewal issue? Hey, nothing wrong with that, but if I really wanted a magazine with naked butts, I'd want them to be female, and I don't see any of those in Cycle Canada.

Enough ranting, time to discuss an idea I got from one article, called "The One Bike Challenge". Four people each picked a bike as if they could only have one bike to ride. Me, I have three different ones in the garage, including Mary Ann's Burgman that I can ride whenever I want to. Actually the only time I can't ride it is when she is riding it. When we go out on a ride together, I can't ride it because Mary Ann has not yet learned how to ride a manual shift bike. My primary bike is the Kawasaki Vulcan 900 Classic LT (LT meaning with windshield and saddlebags). I also have a 1970 Honda CD175 which is fun to ride because it is like my first bike, and brings back memories.

I would go one step further than this challenge to choose only one bike. How about only one bike for 15 years? Now that gives you something to think about, instead of riding one for a few months then trading it in. Sorry, but you pick one and you're stuck with it.

There are certain qualities a bike has to have if you want to stick with only one bike and keep it for a long time. They are not the same qualities you look for if you can have a rotating stable of bikes, with four available on any given day. For one bike, I don't think that horsepower and outright performance are all that important. And neither is style. That's because you get bored with anything but classic styles pretty quickly, and fashions change. All you need is reasonable horsepower. Since power keeps going up in new bikes, no matter what you have today will be considered feeble in ten years. Forty years ago a Triumph Bonneville 650 was considered very powerful. Today that amount of power would barely qualify it to be a beginners bike. Next is cornering and braking ability. You need these, of course, but almost any bike today can do that adequately if you're not racing.

Versatility is important if you stick with one bike for the long haul. Not only should it be able to perform adequately in almost any riding situation, from gravel to freeways, but it should be easily modified to slightly different requirements, should they arise. For instance, you may need to add a backrest, a trunk or a luggage rack. Or maybe remove the windshield or change the handlebars or mirrors. Those are some things a versatile bike should be able to do.

If I'm stuck with one bike, I am likely to give up riding if I find it painful once the novelty wears off. A related issue is ease of use for the controls. The controls get used a lot, thousands of times each riding season, if not on each ride. The handlebars should not be stiff or require heavy effort. The gearshift should be positive, and not stick between, or miss gears. The brakes should be powerful, but not prone to sudden locking up, and easy to apply maximum braking power with no warning if an emergency arises. The throttle is used constantly, and should not require little adjustments every few seconds, and should not vibrate until your hand goes to sleep either. I also like a bike with a starter button that works every time, even if the bike has been sitting for months.

Reliability is never having to say hello to the dealer's mechanic, unless you are at a free hot dog roast put on by the dealer as a public relations event. I am willing to do a lot of fiddly work myself, but I do not enjoy disassembling modern engines or transmissions on expensive bikes. And to me reliability means that I don't have to worry that when the bike fails it is going to strand me beside the road without warning thousands of miles from home, and need to be trucked or pushed to the nearest dealer.

Here are some of the features that I would look for that make a bike more rider friendly. A big gas tank that doesn't keep running out and needing to be filled, 300 km per tank is OK. Fuel injection has been refined enough to be a feature I want. Otherwise the bike may not start easily after sitting for weeks. Tubeless tires mean you can use a patch kit and pump on the road, otherwise you may need to call for a truck. Modern tube tires are really hard to change beside the road.

I would avoid a bike that has a chain and no centre stand (e.g. Kawasaki Versys), because oiling the chain would be an annoying affair on a long trip. I had one of the low maintenance O-ring chains that might be OK, but I also had a centre stand on that bike. The Vulcan also has no centre stand, which I wish it had, but then it has a lube-free belt drive. I did meet a guy once on a motorcycle who took it to the dealer every time he needed to adjust the chain. That's not like me.

I still want a bike that can carry a passenger in comfort and safety, though I rarely do it any more.

I think I could actually make do with any one of the bikes in the garage, but the Honda CD175 is forty years old, and has tube tires. It starts reasonably well without fuel injection, with the kick or electric start, but that's because it came along before clean air requirements. The biggest downfall of the CD175 is the engine that I feel bad for flogging at top speed for any length of time. So I try to keep it to 80 kph, which is really slow for the big roads and no good for the freeway. I have been on the freeway for short stretches, where I lean down and hammer it, but I feel guilty.

The Burgman 400 is fantastic around town, and I think it would do just as well going to the west coast. Its' top speed is 140 kph! It has great weather protection, carries luggage easily, except that if you strap a duffel bag to the passenger seat it is awkward getting at the under seat compartment. My only real problem is understanding how to get all the body panels off to do the maintenance. It's not impossible, but very different from working on a typical open engined motorcycle.

The Vulcan is a bike that is very middle of the road, and I could do almost anything with it. In 30,000 km I have had no trips to the mechanic, except to replace a rear tire that was worn out. And then I went to an independent shop. The only worry is getting a flat with the tube tires, but I really have not had many flats in the last 30 years.

My old BMW K1100LT would also be considered, as I did actually have it for 15 years, and many of those years it was my only bike. I would not say it was as reliable as my Vulcan, though. The BMW needed some work in the first few years under warranty. After that it never had to go back to the dealer, but the ABS brakes stopped doing their thing, and I did need to troubleshoot some problems myself, plus do the regular maintenance as the bike got older and piled on the miles. It was fuel injected, with really good weather protection and luggage capacity. It was actually quite easy to work on, for example the rear wheel came off with just a few bolts. But the K1100LT was pricey, (in today's terms, a little over twice the cost of the Vulcan), and it vibrated annoyingly at times, and it ultimately failed suddenly, completely, and with little warning, on a part that lies buried too deep in the machine to be easily checked. I did ask the dealer and he wanted $1000 and several days just to look, so it must be complicated. It's also nice to buy from a local dealer that does not get shut down by the manufacturer a few years after you bought the bike.

So my "one bike challenge" winner is any bike I ride right now, which is just about the same conclusion that Cycle Canada came to.

Picture: Me getting ready to go for the first ride of the season on my BMW a few years ago. There is one thing I miss about that bike, it blew dozens of little donut sized smoke rings that floated over the driveway when I started it up first time in the spring. But not enough to keep for that reason alone.

Are Liberal Universities Brainwashing Students?

Most American universities are accused by the right wing conservatives of being too liberal. Certainly, polls of professors etc. substantiate the opinion. For example, only 5% of scientists claim to be Republican while about 40% claim to be Democrat. Similarly, fundamental religious groups feel excluded from power at Universities, where most professors, if they are religious at all, are not usually evangelical. The Christian religious fundamentalists have lately been strongly supporting the right wing agenda politically.

Extreme statements have been made about liberal universities brainwashing students, and not just in normal classroom lectures. As first year students arrive, orientation programs have been set up that also provide a liberal bias. "Affirmative Action Offices" are there to enforce liberal attitudes such as tolerance of non-Christian religions, and to prevent racial harassment.

There is a controversy about the non profit group "Foundation for Individual Rights in Education" or "FIRE". I first heard of FIRE in connection with two cases. The first case was at the University of Delaware. Freshman students were being subjected to an indoctrination program that promoted multiculturalism. FIRE tried to stop the program, citing in particular a sentence in the workbook stating "All white people in America are racists." and "Black people cannot be racist". The second case at Purdue in Indiana, where a student was reading a book about the KKK in a janitorial lunch room, and was accused of racism. An apology was made by the University after it was learned that the book was not racist, and actually came from the Purdue University library, and of course after FIRE (and the ACLU) defended the student.

After viewing the two videos about these cases, without knowing anything about FIRE, I simply concluded that FIRE was a right wing organization defending white students, Christians, or Republicans against harassment charges from minority groups, feminists, or liberals. Well it turned out to be far more complicated than that. So either they are hiding their agenda extremely well, or they are in fact an even handed and balanced organization.

(Delaware video) I have to comment on the slick propaganda in this production. Using the phrase "diversity" of opinion to attack multiculturalism and it's "Diversity" of cultures is clever word transposing. And you would never imagine Delaware has a very low 5% black student population, from the random campus shot at 3:11. It's also offensive to have the students chuckling at 3:17 while discussing black women and "All the oppression". Maybe those students really needed this program in order to have their eyes opened.

(Purdue video) Keith is portrayed as the sweetest guy in the world. It is never really explained in the video why an illiterate black woman on the janitorial staff would have taken offense at his book.

Is FIRE a front organization set up to appear as neutral and independent while it actually is carrying out a right wing racist agenda?

FIRE has vigorously defended it's status as an independent organization whose only interest is to protect students exercising their freedom of speech. They point out that they have also defended Prof. Ward Churchill, who made derogatory statements about Jews. (He still got fired, though, but for plagiarism, not Jew hating) They were founded by, and still have as CEO, Harvey A. Silvergate, who defended students for protesting the Vietnam war back in the sixties. Some of FIRE's top people claim to be Democrats, and "classical liberals".

But the reality seems to be that FIRE is attracting a lot of support from the right. They say it is not their fault. Most of the universities are very liberal, so naturally most cases of students (and faculty) being reprimanded, will probably be for expressing points of view that are conservative, racist, homophobic, or Christian. Apparently students are rarely reprimanded for making anti-Republican, anti-Christian, or anti-white race comments. Although FIRE claims to have defended a student newspaper for printing a story with the headline "Fuck Bush".

FIRE's logic actually kind of makes sense, but mostly as good propaganda. Because I am a liberal myself, I see universities as being the natural place of liberal values. Any university that encourages freedom of thought is naturally going to be liberal, is going to favour broad mindedness over narrow patriotism, should favour multiculturalism over white privilege. A university is of course going to question stories like Noah, and Adam and Eve, and support the Theory of Evolution against Christian creationism. Some American freshmen arrive at university unaware that their country was stolen from the Indians, don't know the world is billions of years old, are not aware that America still has racism, believe America singlehandedly saved the world at least three times, in some cases don't even know that George Washington was the first president, and some can't find America on a world map.

So to millions of patriotic, racist and fundamentalist Americans, first year at university can be an experience like being "brainwashed" into hating their country. And some of these students are naturally going to complain, especially if organizations like FIRE are offering $5000 scholarships for any videos of them having their "freedom of speech" curbed.

The jury is still out on whether "Foundation for Individual Rights in Education" is a front group for the right wing or not. I think the larger point is that as American culture becomes more right wing in general, led by anti-intellectual organizations like Fox News, there is going to be a bigger disconnect between places of higher learning, and the general American public. FIRE's supporting donations are increasingly going to come from conservatives. And as that happens, I believe it is inevitable that FIRE will increasingly defend conservative students against liberal university values, while trying to maintain the cover of neutrality as long as they can.

Here is a typical (I guess) FIRE case being discussed in a blog, how the University of Minnesota is brainwashing K-12 teachers into hating America. All the people commenting seem to be conservative, and the rhetoric is all at a typical Fox News anti-intellectual level, including the original blog and the readers comments. Unfortunately, those are the people most likely to donate to FIRE. I sure wouldn't.

Picture: I photoshopped (Actually using Gimp in Linux, I just use photoshop as a generic word) a girl's head with soap in the hair to represent brainwashing on to a "property of liberal university" T-shirt. Too subtle?

Dealing with Propaganda

Is there any more frustrating activity on Earth than dealing with propaganda? You may think it is so simple, your friend or family member has just converted to a wacko cult and you think that just a few plain facts will straighten them out. Then everybody can be friends again.

It does not work like that. People who are brainwashed into wackodom are not just sitting there waiting for someone to "explain" to them that they are brainwashed. They are actually looking at you as though you are the brainwashed one, and need some sorting out. Does that sound more familiar?

Surely you have had the experience before. A friend or family member suddenly becomes a Mormon or a Scientologist or a Conservative, and they start to spoon feed you their best propaganda. You think "This is ridiculous!" And try to explain to them how the earth could not be 2000 years old, how faith healing is a scam, how Muslims are not going to take over the world, or how wind turbines or the second coming of Jesus are not going to destroy the environment, or how global warming will.

So far I guess I have only presented examples from the liberal side, so to be fair, let's not assume only liberals are sane. Global warming may turn out to really be a hoax, and the Muslims may actually take over the world. However, allowing for the possibility of being wrong makes things even more complicated. But this only serves to emphasise how difficult it is to deal with propaganda, because in the end, you may be forced to admit that the real brainless zombie is you.

The frustration gets worse as people get abusive in their language, and become threatening. For example bringing loaded guns to make their point clear. And it does not help to know that one of the main aims of propaganda is to create and spread frustration/anger/confusion. Another main goal, of course, is to spread fear. And it is shockingly effective at doing both.

I am surprised at how even amateurish propaganda that you often find in chain emails can instantly get my blood pressure up to dangerous levels. Luckily I always seem to get it back down before a call to 911 is needed. It helps to remember that the goal of propaganda is to get you frustrated. That very frustration is the mechanism by which the human mind eventually surrenders itself to the control of the "greater good", be it a religion or ideology.

Does anything really work against propaganda? The delete key for email, the recycling bin for paper mail are two effective tools. I find that in personal conversations, things are not so bad, and I think this is similar for most people. If you feel you must respond to emails (like I often do), it's best to keep it polite, delete strong words, throw in lots of moderate words like "some" or "in my opinion" instead of extreme words like "never" and "always", and "only an idiot would think this" (even though it's true.) At least you have that luxury in emails that you don't have in real live conversations, so use it.

Humour helps, but is tricky to use. For example threatening physical violence is a tricky form of satire. Much better to use what is called "self deprecating humour" as it is not so likely to misfire and cause offence. Patience also helps. Remember that struggling against propaganda is one of the most frustrating and unrewarding tasks ever devised for the human mind. Unless of course, you succeed in the holy grail of getting the other person to admit they were a brainwashed zombie. But that has not happened for me yet. Luckily (or unluckily) I seem so far to have an almost infinite capacity for responding to propaganda. I would think of it almost as a gift from God, except ironically I don't believe in God.

Picture: Propaganda battle over health care, Canada 1946. I took it from this blog