sad sad day for humanity

what's the importance of reaching mutual understanding, when you can send robots to "defend" your position?

The American Dream, in its current incarnation obsessed with bigger and better by the fewer and fewer, is threatening ever more rapidly the delicate balance keeping humanity off the brink of implosion.

the veil has been lifted

Islamic officials and romaticists may try to convince me that the veil (or burqa or niqab) is a symbol of humility and respect for their spouse (who is supposed to be the center of their universe and should be the only person privileged to see them without), but below is the real reason why I suspect militants want so desperately to impose the veil. Not altogether surprising coming from those who dispense with the "thou shall not kill" and other such formalities on their way to martyrdom.

According to PAKISTAN'S RED MOSQUE SHOWDOWN on Spiegel Online:

"Aziz was arrested Wednesday trying to flee the mosque in a woman's burqa. He was spotted by a female police officer because of his height and large stomach. Aziz, who was still dressed in the burqa he had used as a disguise during his interview, ..."

More at Mosque Chief Arrested Trying to Flee in Burqa on The Australian

reckless foray into the origins of public health - and social impact

Too many people believe theirs is "the truth" (miracle cure, solution, prevention, answer, whatever), not willing (or perhaps unable) to accept or admit (or understand) that they found a "whatever" that only works for their particular combination of factors including genes, health, age, state of mind, nutrition, activity level, environmental exposure, medications, etc. Emboldening these people is that given the vast number of people they know and the high probability that, through mutual yet independent choices, they know them because, as they say, birds of a feather flock together, it is highly likely that the "whatever" will work for most of them when shared; if it doesn't, the embarrassment of failure and aversion to accountability usually influences them to turn their backs on anybody who does not respond positively to the "whatever" as expected. Too often, this can be poisoning or death.

I am pretty sure greater minds than most of us today are willing to recognize came to this realization a few generations ago and actually had the opportunity to impose a concept called "public health" - investigation of the collective wisdom from witchdoctors, grandmas, religions and other sources of such "tribal knowledge" - and prescribe of a course of action that is demonstrated to be safe and effective, regardless of whatever factors made up your life. The problem with this is twofold: (1) public misperception, due in no small part to the arguments they used to justify imposing their program to a simple-minded public and vote-eager politicians: these prescriptions are NOT designed to promote actual wellness, just a reduction/delay in the immediate badness and increase your chances of not dying right away (aka "greater longevity"); and (2) they contribute to the decline of individual responsibility for the choices we make on a daily basis because they filter out anything that is not safe and effective for the vast majority of combinations and permutations of aforementioned variables, contributing even more to the social absolution of personal responsibility for one's health. Besides, there'll be a similar-purpose fix for anything that may go awry in the process. Naturally, the mega-food industry is a major willing (if unknowing) partner in and benefactor of this phenomenon, as they have inherited carte blanche to provide us with non-nutrients that sell well because they are pretty and last weeks longer than the natural stuff, despite actually preventing the body from fixing itself and silencing our own body's cues designed to improve our lifestyle.

So: We continue to make (and sustain) poor life choices (including letting the mega-food industry slowly poison us) because we naively believe big-pharma and public health will cure us, after too many people suffered from the misguided broad application of "tribal knowledge" that came as a result of a lack of understanding of the root causes and respect of individual factors that is typical of faith-based approaches.

The "cure" for this is, if there is any, is education - about the importance of the state of our bodies at any given time, and how to take have control over what we can (inputs, stresses, and compensators). This requires time and resources, and the will to commit them despite high competition from the immediate profits of investing in today's instant-gratification economy.

In the end, I guess, it comes down to respect for the individual and human rights in general, so that each can respect him/herself sufficiently well to perceive and address what they need to be healthy. Unfortunately, that creates highly inconvenient demographics for marketers and overzealous leaders hungry for control, so they target the public to influence the election of representatives who strangle the funding of once-important public institutions, leaving them with little choice but to exchange their purpose and credibility for funding (and direction) from big-pharma and mega-food inc.

it's funny cuz it's true

wiiitis - i can relate!

Atheist?

Having evolved to a point somewhere between cocksure ignorance and thoughtful uncertainty, I firmly believe believe that "God" does not exist as we "know" (or have been led to believe) him to be. Most major religions have some parts of it right, but over generations too many bits of folklore and interpretation have been mixed in to make the explanation easier to remember and associate to (for instance, we are taught we were cast in his image, when that is probably the other way around simply because we cannot fathom him taking any other form).
He is everywhere, being everything around us here and beyond. He is us, casting judgment through history on others after they have fallen. He is omniscient, noticing everything because every bit of universe is him, and as far as humanity is concerned, he is us because we as a society will eventually be aware of everything. He is omnipotent, as natural forces are part of him, but he has no will (a distinctively human trait) other than to explore, discover and observe. He is the Borg hive and we are but semi-random cogs in the Collective not fully aware of each other, blinded as we are with our infatuation with our "independence." People and animals and rocks and planets are all just tiny little bits of him, and the more we learn, the more we are aware of his full extent. The scientific method really should be embraced by everybody so they can discover just how amazing "he" really is, but they'll have to get over their mortal insecurities, release their childhood teachings, give up their religious security blankets, and accept that we individually are meaningless other than for the connections and experiences we contribute to the human experience.

I am not atheist. I am pantheist.

Et tu, Roomba?

Roomba picked up an inordinate amount of unrecognizable crap on its second tour of duty this morning, including several pieces of macaroni and corn chips. Based on the fact that we haven't eaten any such foods here in at least several months, I conclude that (a) the house is dirtier that we thought it was; and (b) it found some new areas that it missed on its maiden voyage yesterday. I shouldn't be too hard on it, though, since the cleaning lady has been missing those same areas, consistently, for a long time...

Addendum: I just had to rescue it because the bin was full. Apparently it has no problem eating toddler socks. With the HUGE amount of dust also in the bin, the cleaning lady obviously hasn't been sweeping under furniture in the kid's room either. I expected lots of plaster dust from renovations, but entire dust bunny tribes?!?

I love my Roomba

fantastic piece of kit. i felt like i was in high school again, flipping chairs on top of tables at the end of the day so the cleaner could do his bit. i love my roomba!

purpose

found this note from a long time ago:

I like to think that by providing people with information, I can raise their awareness and their interest of the context, meaning and importance, so they feel empowere and confident to make decisions that better reflect their vision of how they want things to be.

Hm. Interesting.

does this apply to taxes?

"No man has a moral right to withhold his support from an organization that is striving to improve conditions within his sphere."
- Teddy Roosevelt

Toxic Care

Dangerous chemicals in personal care products compromise health

If all this is true, which it probably is to some extent, I wish the government would extend the direct-to-consumer ban on advertising of pharmaceuticals to ALL household products, because they seem unable to safely control or regulate what goes in them.

I'm beginning to suspect that Lucas' allergies, in fact the epidemic of food allergies in North America, might be related to this toxic soup we use ironically enough for "hygiene" purposes.

when is progress too much?

Though a lot of fun to play with and show off with, I'm not sure adding all sorts of new capabilities in mobile phones is such a good thing. First, I'm getting a little uncomfortable with the increasing popularity of bombarding us with ever more E-M waves, and second, wave after wave of new cellphone technology certainly isn't good for the environment:

If there must be new models with new gimmicks every few months, why can't there be a single charger or transformer that can be used interchangeably by all companies' products and from year to year? Why can't there be some sort of standard? How technologically advanced is a cord such that it must be replaced with a new model every six months? The proliferation and sheer waste of this type of practice is mind-boggling.

Someone has to pay for all those disposable cords, chargers and adapters, to say nothing of the products themselves. That someone is all of us. And not just for the product, but also for the pollution created when it's made and disposed of - right back into the biosphere. It's time for producers to take responsibility for their products' entire life cycles and not just pretend like they can wash their hands of the problem when it goes out the door.
-David Suzuki

with us, or...

"The concept of a collective guilt is a flawed morality," she says. "The idea that 'We're on the side of God and everyone else is evil' has and always will be disastrous."
Shadia Drury, a philosophy professor and Canada Research Chair for Social Justice, and author of "Terror and Civilization: Christianity, Politics and the Western Psyche."
Another book for me to read (someday).

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=249e7155-1044-463f-a1d4-6f5cafa5912b&k=80884

value of recycling paper

By Recycling 1 ton of paper you save:
17 trees 6953 gallons of water
463 gallons of oil
587 pounds of air pollution
3.06 cubic yards of landfill space
4077 Kilowatt hours of energy
thanks toiletpaperworld

correlations do not imply causal relationships!

After receiving a chain mail about the "dangers" of microwave ovens and then pointing out that Snopes.com proved it to be a cheap emotional attempt to promote nonsense, the sender mentioned that "microwaves for being around for several decades....hasn't cancer also been on the rise in the last couple of decades......"
Those that know me know that I can't let that kind of invalid association go unchecked. I replied the following:

as are synthetic fabrics, plastics, toxins from industrial processes, processed foods, and the erosion of natural habitats that buffer human pollution. On the "up" side, we have longer life expectancies, political stability, education, careers, internet, ample food and clothing, infrastructure to keep us warm in winter, cool in summer... the only thing you can sustain indefinitely is balance, but nobody seems to agree as to where the right mix is or what factors to include. why? because human nature does not appear to be programmed that way since, sadly, the only way we can keep our mental and physical skills at their best is through continued conflict.

This is why civilizations rise and fall, and ours has already peaked.

pride versus responsibility

I recently asked the following question after reading a ridiculous disclaimer buried deep within a website that claims a more natural lifestyle while denouncing big industry.

If you believe in your message as much as your products, why the lengthy and extensive disclaimers?

This is nicely linked with my general observation that once marketeers or accountants take over a business, the company is doomed because their product is no longer the focus of operations, becoming an annoying detail that they need to hire lawyers to protect them from if ever their neglect or misleading claims leads to someone's harm.

Thought for the Day

Thought for the Day
"The American Indians found out what happens when you don't control immigration."

INTERESTING STATISTIC

Along the lines of the Queen revoking their independence:

INTERESTING STATISTIC
Regardless of where you stand on the issue of the U.S. involvement in Iraq, here's a sobering statistic:

There has been a monthly average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theatre of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2,112 deaths. That gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.

The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000 persons for the same period. That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in the U.S. Capital than you are in Iraq.

Conclusion: The U.S. should pull out of Washington

Senate defamation

In the conclusion to his speech to the Senate on bill S-4 on Sept 7, 2006, Prime Minister Harper said:

In conclusion, I would like to read a quote from a book I reviewed recently. On page 206, the author writes, and I quote:
"Probably on no other public question in Canada has there been such unanimity of opinion as on that of the necessity for Senate reform."
The author is Robert MacKay.
The book is The Unreformed Senate of Canada.
The year is 1926.
Honourable Senators, this institution, the Senate of Canada, must truly change.
And I hope you join us, the Government and the Canadian people, in being a constructive partner in that change.
Passage of S-4 would be a modest move forward.
And after that, we will continue to move forward with further proposals.
- As part of our plan to give Canadians the accountable, democratic institution they desire - and deserve.

Why does he imply that the Senate has not undergone any change since 1926? I cannot bring myself to believe that he is not aware that:

In 1927, Canada's highest court ruled that women could sit as Senators. Four months later, the government of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King recommended for appointment Canada's first female senator;

Since 1965, newly appointed members may not sit in the Senate after reaching the age of seventy-five; and

Since 1985, the Speaker is authorized to appoint another Senator to take his or her place temporarily. (This last change appears minor, but is significant in that it allows the Senate to continue functioning despite the absence of the official Speaker.)

Despite the fact that there have been many attempts at revamping the senate, all of which have failed, it drives me nuts to witness deliberate misinformation. All the more so since it originates from the most influential office in Canada.

There are many other reasons why Senate reform should be pursued. Why did he choose to invoke such an outdated assessment? Why doesn't the Senate sue the PM for libel/slander? Now THAT would be exciting!

(sidenote: this came close:

Bellavance, “Senator Files Defamation Suit against Bloc MP," A8. In April 1998, then Bloc Québécois MP Jean-Paul Marchand sent his constituents, at taxpayers’ expense, an anti-Senate leaflet in which certain Senators, myself included, were named as collecting a House of Commons pension along with their Senate salaries. In response, I launched a defamation suit in Québec Superior Court. Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette, who was also smeared by the leaflet, filed a similar action. Mr. Marchand later apologized, calling his own actions “a deplorable mistake.” Eventually, he agreed to pay an out-of-court settlement. On the other side of the chamber, former Senator Ron Ghitter (PC – Alberta) successfully filed suit against Rob Anders for remarks made by the Calgary MP in a Reform Party fundraising letter.

Unfortunately, despite any possible excess of self-interest, I really don't think the Senate has enough influence to compete against Harper and the best lawyers oil money and tithing can buy.

sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Senate
http://www.sen.parl.gc.ca/sjoyal/Joyal's%20book%20docs/Introduction%20(Eng).htm

Templeton Prize

I could have come up with this too! Wait a minute, my ENTIRE BLOG (nearly) is about this!
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/03/14/taylor-templeton.html?ref=rss

Geekiness

1. Happy Pi day !~!
2. Physics graffiti: "Heizenberg may have been here"
3. Engineering mantra: "Cows are round"