Here are a few good finds: You are not so smart illuminates widespread misconceptions about the world by summing up psychological research on the subject of each post.  Essential reading for maintaining an honest amount of skepticism. Arthur Silber and Chris Floyd have rhetorical skills occasionally reminiscent of Shaw or Twain, and on top of that I agree with nearly everything they write. Greg Palast is an independent investigative journalist.  Perhaps I should say the independent investigative journalist, since I am not aware of any other freelancers who go further in their investigations …
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Responding to the opinion that sexual ethics are a key element of Christian faith, he writes: And do I think that Christianity’s sexual doctrines are a corner-stone of the faith? Not in the slightest. Jesus was uninterested in these matters. True faith is not fixated on sex; it has left sex behind – along with money and wealth and pride – in the pursuit of the divine. The only people fixated on sex are those who wish to use its power to control others. …
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Lord of the Flies is disturbing because it reveals a few dark insights about human nature.  Left to their own devices, the juvenile characters in the book become tribal, authoritarian, superstitious, punitive and reactionary.  Their perspective becomes increasingly divorced from reality and their new, irrational perceptions are reinforced by group thinking and the collective persecution of the weak. The book springs to mind because it’s recently occurred to me how strongly the behavior of BP resembles the type of behavior I expect from a little girl I look after, and that of very …
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Huffington Post has a slide show of 265 images of the BP spill.  Recommended viewing for those who would seek to underplay the scale of the disaster, but still lacking the gut-wrenching images of suffering wildlife that characterized BP’s other big American fuck-up, the Exxon Valdez spill.  BP will not allow photographers to travel freely in the area, lamely asserting it’s a “safety issue” when it is quite obviously a PR issue.  How can it be a “safety issue” to specifically exclude press from scheduled flights?  It’s either safe or not safe, …
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This is my recent resolution, but on further consideration I decided to amend that to “more doing than kvetching”, since I can’t morally justify letting up on my criticism of certain wrong-headed evangelical policies with enormous social costs.  I can change the tone of my complaints – a little less potty mouth and a few more verifiable facts and reputable studies supporting my arguments – but failing to complain would be no different from consenting.   Nonetheless, I need to add some meaningful action to the mix and, rather than grabbing issues that are in the …
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Good news for pirates: According to Netahanyu, international waters are Israeli jurisdiction.  Not only that, but if you board a ship and slaughter the unarmed civilian passengers in international waters, it is an act of “self-defense“. I’m sure there are a few boatloads of relieved Nigerians out there today. In other news, Canadian Prime Minister Harper expressed his regret that Israel’s unprovoked massacre of a humanitarian aid convoy in international waters ruined what could otherwise have been a great photo op for Harper. “I’m sorry this has coloured this …
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Hat tip to Dale at Faith in Honest Doubt for reminding me what a clueless dickhead Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is when it comes to understanding internet privacy concerns. In his own words: Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity No, Mark.  Having two identities for yourself is an example of “having a job”.  Would it be great if nobody had to have a job?  Hell, yeah, sure it would.  But that’s not the world you or I live in.  You and I, Mark, live in a world where a Catholic school educator can be fired from her job for ticking …
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That was an expression floated around high schools in my area when I was growing up.  (In case the meaning isn’t obvious, I’ll clarify that it was specifically used by boys who were not having much luck getting into the pants of secular school girls, in a province where Catholics have their own separate school system.) Today I’m really feeling it though.  If I believed in a god I would feel sincerely grateful toward her for inspiring 40 secret mistresses of Catholic priests to petition the pope in an effort to put an end the twisted, arbitrary, mind-warping rule of clerical …
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Dear Catholic clergy. I have a great idea.  How about first you stop raping children, sheltering the rapists from meaningful consequences and denying accusations of wrong-doing , then you lecture women about how you can’t tell the difference between abortion and murder? There is a definite trend here:  Catholic priests can’t tell the difference between pedophilia and homosexuality and they can’t tell the difference between birth control and murder. In fact, at times Catholics react as if homosexuality is worse than pedophilia and abortion is worse than murder.  When …
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A few days ago I recalled Stephen Harper’s 2003 article proposing the gradual (“incremental”), discreet (“careful”) fusion of social conservative and fiscal conservative policies as a strategy for the budding theo-conservative movement.   To quote the man himself: Rebalancing the conservative agenda will require careful political judgment. First, the issues must be chosen carefully. For example, the social conservative issues we choose should not be denominational, but should unite social conservatives of different denominations and even different faiths. It …
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The inimitable godless blogger P.Z. Meyers has had a go at theistic evolutionist Karl Giberson for an article where he claims science has not only failed to dislodge creationism, but failed abysmally.  Giberson argues non-creationists need to tell creationists it’s “OK to believe in God”, and then gently persuade them that you can believe in evolution as well.  For his part, Meyers insists that it would be better to root out magical thinking entirely from the whole of human civilization. I think both arguments are deeply flawed, for the simple reason that cdesign …
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It looks like those contemptible lunatics who physically attacked Lars Viks haven’t gotten the memo, because a few days ago they set his house on fire.  So, as promised, here is a corresponding shop: Yeah, baby. …
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Pedgehog at Anti-Choice is Anti-Awesome made an interesting observation vis a vis the anti choice march in New Brunswick: there was a noticeable age gap – I didn’t see many people between the ages of 12 and 60. I was curious as to whether the same conspicuous absence of “people who would be impacted by changes to abortion law” occurred in Ottawa.  Observe: Children and old folks. So, do we of child-bearing age get any say in this not-to-be-reopened abortion debate or is Steve just going to proceed as if he can muster a majority by pandering to superstitious old folks …
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Harper’s administration made headlines last week for announcing it intends to cut funding from any international NGO that provides access to safe abortions.  So far, there hasn’t been much analysis of how much funding we’re talking about, or what the impact will be, or where that budget is going to go instead. Thanks to Olivia Ward at the Star, we can begin to get an inkling of the implications: In London, International Planned Parenthood Federation is waiting for a call from Canada that will preserve life-saving programs that help 31 million women and children. But nearly a …
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…Snow White’s wicked stepmother. For more of this kind of thing, go here. …
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I wasn’t planning to participate in Draw Muhammed Day.  I’m not much of a joiner and (mostly) don’t try to offend and enrage tens of millions of people just for shits and giggles, but the recent violent attack on Lars Viks pisses me off so damn much I simply can not stand idly by while Islamists offer a bounty for deadly violence for a little bit of harmless blasphemy. I wholeheartedly agree with  Thorbjørn Jagland when he writes: As secretary-general of the Council of Europe, I strongly believe that freedom of expression is fundamental to our values, and something that …
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On the National Review Online, a very cute bit of delusional, self-aggrandizing nonsense appears in John Derbyshire’s blog.  “The Derb” introduces this piece as if it were a random email circulating around Wall Street rather than a torrent of his very own personal bile.  After a few meandering opening remarks, we get to the heart of the matter: “Go ahead and continue to take us down, but you’re only going to hurt yourselves. What’s going to happen when we can’t find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: We’re going to take yours.” Yeah, …
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Juxtaposition of the day: From here: Parliament, power grids, and nuclear facilities were the intended targets in an attack that Fahim Ahmad hoped Canada would never recover from, the Crown said as it laid out its case against three men arrested almost four years ago… The Crown intends to call up to 11 witnesses, most of whom will be police officers, and play for the jury about 70 wiretap conversations. In one of those, Ahmad is heard saying the kind of attack he was planning has “never been done before,” Jaffe said. “They’re probably expecting what happened in …
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I know religious fundamentalists lie.  Everyone in their right mind knows this.  They have to lie in order to manhandle the world they see into the shape of myths so ancient and ignorant that they predate our realization the earth is not flat. But there’s a small part of me – the part that believes human nature is basically good – that wants to believe they are not lying on purpose.  I want to believe they are the hapless victims of an incredible but sincere cognitive affliction preventing them from accepting things that are obviously true, like evolution, and forcing them …
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We can’t produce them because they are of such an extremely sensitive nature that disclosing them in confidence to elected representatives with a legitimate mandate to establish POW policy would jeopardize our whole mission in Afghanistan.  Besides, we’ve made no effort whatsoever to catalogue these extremely sensitive documents or store them in an orderly and secure fashion. Anybody else smell bullshit? …
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From Canwest: “The parliamentary culture and media commentary (in Canada) continues to be more about an ongoing battle to ‘win’ a coveted majority rather than a focus on achieving stable governance and policy — an experience that may soon be replicated” in Britain, wrote researcher Anne White, a former director at the Toronto Board of Trade.” I wouldn’t worry if I were them.  Stephen Harper and his posse are a rather unique phenomenon.  Recall, if you will, the Christmas Harper spent nostalgically gazing at multiple pictures of himself.  David Cameron …
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Self-described “Catholic Zionist” MP Jason Kenney – the Conservative MP who banned UK Member of Parliament George Galloway from entering Canada because of his open acknowledgment of Israel’s war crimes – is in the news this week for two more appalling decisions. To wit: Camara Sow begged Immigration Minister Jason Kenney Monday to step in and allow her to stay in Canada until her baby is born. “I want the minister to help me to stay here, beside my husband,” an emotional Camara Sow said. “I’m sick, I’m pregnant and I’m afraid …
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… is subjected to some rather amusing parody here: Take the Crack Shack or Mansion challenge! “We aim to discover what 1 million dollars will buy you in Vancouver, Canada, and whether your Mansion be distinguishable from a crack shack.  Instructions: Select “Crack Shack” or “Million Dollar Mansion” for each option.” My score: 8 out of 16.  I did better on the the beta version, but they’d left in clues like realty signs in the yard and all the certified crack shacks were either much nicer or much more decrepit than the average Vancouver …
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Really smart.  Smarter than quite a few people I can think of.  From the BBC: …the University of Auckland team set seven wild crows, which had temporarily been captured and placed in an aviary, a complicated problem. The birds were presented with some out-of reach food; a long tool, which could be used to extract the food, but which was also out of reach, tucked behind the bars of a box; and a short tool, which could be used to extract the long tool, but which was attached to the end of a dangling piece of string tied to the crow’s perch. Professor Russell Gray, from the …
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Thank you, whoever you are.  That’s quite nice to come back to after such a lengthy hiatus.  It’s been a tumultuous time what with two new jobs and two big moves, but things have calmed down a bit now.  I have no jobs yet but live in a beautiful part of the world.  I’m ready to hold forth again as soon as I come up with some thoughts worth sharing.  In the mean time, here are a few photos enhanced with the Redynamix HDR filter in photoshop.  I feel like I left on a strange note with that last post and it needs an opposite bookend. …
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I haven’t been posting for a while.  The reason for this is that I’ve been promoted.  The new role takes up all my mental energy and then some, but it also gives me an opportunity to influence something I thought was immutable:  a local government’s power to invade the privacy of those who live in the shadow of its authority. While I’m learning the ropes – familiarising myself with the legislation, case history, policy and culture that directs the actions of the bureaucracy I work for – I don’t think I will have any steam left over for continuing …
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My crush on Obama dissipated the moment the election was declared.  This morning I woke up with a crush on the whole of America instead.  I want to drive from Montreal to New Orleans now, and back up the West Coast to grandma’s house, kissing you all on the lips.  (I might steer clear of Texas though). Yes, you are! In other news, my man points out that while McCain was pimping Joe the Plumber, Obama was borrowing some of his own inspirational rhetoric from another popular “name plus occupation” character. …
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