Wiley's Long-Awaited Update

The Road Runner episode we've waited 20 years to see.
Posted by George Murphy on Sunday, October 30, 2011

Keeping Tabs

In the interests of holding our Federal politicians accountable, we have....:

The TrudeauMeter

Use this.  Keep track.  Write Letters.  Demand Action.

A Message From Ellen

As the American election campaign continues, there have been persistent stories about Americans looking into moving to Canada, should Donald Trump (or whoever else they can't abide) win the presidency.  

Ellen had this message....

Dear Infidels....

The other day, I posted a short video clip to my Facebook page.

Another ardent Facebook watcher took umbrage, calling it naive and insulting.  I'd agree that the article was probably an over-simplification, but I'm not sure about the other criticisms.  I'd say the evidence seems to support the video's main contentions.

My response went this way:

Well, I'm not certain what you find insulting about the video clip, although it's probably an over simplification of the situation. However, let's take a look at what it said.

By my count, there were 5 or 6 points made in the clip. I did a simple Google search on each one just to see if there were any exaggerations.

First, calling it a “war”. The Americans started this back in Dubya's time with the “War on Terror”. Never mind that it's impossible to wage a war on an idea, the origin of this use dates back at least that far. Besides, when you have jet fighters, rockets, bombings, mass exodus of people.... what else could you call it?

Ted Cruz has actually called for a crackdown on Muslim neighbourhoods. Personally, I don't know what that tactic might achieve other than resentment and fear, but that's what Ted Cruz has asked for. I'd also point out that the shooter in the Sandy Hook school murders was white and, probably, nominally Christian. I don't recall Ted asking for a crackdown on white Christian neighbourhoods, but perhaps I shouldn't be surprised.

Trump has condoned torture. His statements have been documented. This is a man running to be President of the USA. Google “Trump” and “torture”.

Cable news and, indeed, most news outlets, have made a very big deal out of every “terrorist” bombing, or whatever. No real surprise. That's what news organizations do. If it bleeds, it leads, as you know. But there is a significant difference between the way the media covers terrorist attacks in places like Paris and how it covers (or doesn't cover) terrorist attacks in places like Beruit. This article describes the differences.

In fact, if you Google “media coverage of terrorism”, you will find many, many articles that discuss what is troubling about how the media deals with all of this. You might not agree, but there it is.

The term “existential threat” has become a bit of a cliché. Do some research. Even Obama doesn't think ISIS is an “existential threat” to the USA. ISIS is a band of thugs and murderers, but that's about it.

 It's a well-known fact that rogue organizations like ISIS badly wish to create a “them vs us” mentality. It makes it so much easier to recruit new members. There are many sources online that describe how they do this and what Western reactions do to help.

 The main goal of any terrorist organization is to instill terror in the hearts and minds of a group of people or a country. I'd say, given the reaction in the USA, it's at least partially working. Personally, I find many, many other things more scary, including some of those white folk wandering around America with their guns. The numbers back me up on this.

Although you brought it up, the video did not suggest ignoring terrorism. The problem has far deeper roots than that. In no particular order, the West created chaos in Libya (sure, “we” got rid of a madman, but you can't claim the country is now somehow better – it's a complete mess); the West has been meddling in Afghanistan for decades. It's a mess too.

Then there was Iraq and you can't claim that Iraq is now better off after years of war. Currently, it's Syria, and the only real difference here is that Europe and, to a very small extent, North America, has been inundated with refugees, a situation that only shows that there may be consequences to sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong.

Some people could see the initial video and claim that it advocates ignoring acts of terrorism.  That's certainly NOT what I think the video is saying.  Whatever you call them, acts like the bombings in Paris, Brussels, Boston and London are criminal acts.  They kill and maim.  They most certainly should NOT be ignored but dealt with as the criminal acts they are.  

The main point is this: many countries in the West have been meddling in the affairs of other regions for decades, continuing traditions that started in the colonial era.  Our foreign policies have been motivated by misguided attempts at regime change abetted by corporate greed.  Stable but brutal regimes have been removed and replaced by chaos.  We've attempted to force social change without understanding that it's really none of our business. Our policies and interventions have NOT been working.  At all.  And the chickens are coming home to roost.

End of an Error

Former Toronto Mayor, Rob Ford, died a few days ago.

As is often the case, the death was marked by editorials contending that he was misunderstood, improperly maligned, "flawed", of the common man..... and so on.  Sure.  Right.

I felt Rob Ford was a hot air buffoon and an embarrassment to Toronto and Canada.  Trump Lite, if you like.

Apparently I am not alone in my opinions on this matter:

From the Torontoist: "An Honest Assessment of Rob Ford's Legacy".

From TVO: "The Rob Ford Legacy that Many Refuse to Confront".

From Rabble.ca: "On the Death of Rob Ford and the mourning of Abusive Men".

Fixing the World - Bang for the Buck Edition

One of my favourite podcasts is Freakonomics Radio.  Their episodes usually have, as you might guess from the name, an economics bent, they're entertaining, informative and, importantly, based on real-world data.

In a show from December 14, 2015, titled: "Fixing the World - Bang for the Buck Edition", the show's writer and host interviewed Bjorn Lomborg, who runs the Copenhagen Consensus Center.

"The Copenhagen Consensus Center is a think tank that researches and publishes the smartest solutions for the world's biggest problems. Its studies are conducted by more than 100 economists from internationally renowned institutions, including seven Nobel Laureates, to advise policy-makers and philanthropists how to spend their money most effectively."

 Fixing the world would seem to be a mammoth undertaking, and it is, but real progress can be achieved if good choices are made - by getting the best "bang for the buck".

During this program, there was a brief discussion about extending educational opportunities to more people, particularly poor people.  Education, obviously, is of prime importance in lifting people out of poverty.

In the USA's current election campaign, one issue has been the cost of post-secondary education.  One of the candidates for the Democrats, Bernie Sanders, has suggested that university education should be free.  You have to admit that it's an attractive option.

The Copenhagen Consensus Center has a different perspective.  It's contention is that the people attending university are mostly wealthy (in a relative sense), so free education at that level would really just be (another) subsidy for the well-off.  Far better, the Center believes, would be to offer many more scholarships, something that would direct funds to people who really need it.

LOMBORG: Yeah, the problem is that the way it’s formulated, they want to promise, and this is typical for these sorts of documents, they want to promise everybody to be able to get into, for instance, university. It’s a beautiful idea, but the problem is for most countries it ends up being a way to subsidize rich people’s kids to go to college. If you make college free, because most of the attendees at universities are from the high classes, that is effectively a subsidy to rich people’s kids. Instead what you should be doing is if you want to get more poor kids into college, you should be giving them scholarships. That’s a much cheaper much more directed way to make sure that you get a better socio-economic profile in college. But let’s not kid ourselves. This is not what makes productivity dramatically rise in the first 30 or 50 years of development. That’s much more about getting everyone educated so they can read and write.

The discussion then moved on to climate change, specifically fossil fuel subsidies and increasing the share of renewables by 2030.

 DUBNER: Let me ask you about a phenomenal and a poor ranking the Copenhagen Consensus Center has given for two goals in the climate change arena. Phenomenal mark goes to the proposal to “by 2030 phase out inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies.” But a poor mark to the proposal to “double the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix by 2030.” At first blush those might seem to be contradictory. Explain why one gets phenomenal the other poor.

The answer might surprise you, so I'll leave it there and let you investigate the response for yourself.  The full transcript of the interview can be found here.

Climate Change Deniers Are Going Berserk - Again

Yes, it's true.  What with the Paris climate change meeting last fall, the new Canadian PM meeting with the premiers to discuss climate change, a federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change (and a woman, no less), the NDP in power in Alberta (and a woman, no less), Saskatchewan's Brad Wall in full pre-election mode.... the climate change denial trolls are out in force.

The "debating points" haven't changed.  All of them have been noted and addressed on the pages of Skeptical Science.

A few favourite "points" have reappeared, like this one: The earth was much warmer in the past and the climate has always been changing.

Very true, as the following chart shows (note the varying horizontal scale of years).

While it's very true to say that the earth has been warmer in the past, it's also irrelevant.

Here's the problem.  Until the last little bit at the right-hand side of the chart, we humans weren't here.  Neither were our crops, our coastal cities and 7 billion of us.  The concern is the very rapid increase on the far right.  It's unprecedented in the earth's history and certainly during all of human history.  Now, all of a sudden (geologically speaking) addition of CO2 is forcing a rapid change.  Are we ready for this?  I don't think so.

Some deniers, apparently those without access to Google, wonder how we even know what the earth's temperature was "back then".  Now, we could be talking about what temperatures were 6000 years ago (Stockwell Day's age of the earth) or a few billion years ago, which is the real age of the earth, according to science.  But I digress.  How do "they" know?  This is how.

Everyone in Alberta and Saskatchewan is all wound up over possible new pipelines.  With Keystone XL mired in American politics and Northern Gateway unlikely to ever happen, focus has shifted to Energy East.  A couple of points:

Oil shipped to any coast, such as New Brunswick, is destined for export, not for Canadian use.  The numbers explain why.  Refinery capacity in St John is about 300K bbl/day.  A pipeline would deliver about 1M bbl/day.  Can you imagine what that excess would do once it got to the coast?  You have 3 guesses.

Little discussion has revolved around whether or not we should even be encouraging more fossil fuel use by building another pipeline.  Rather than spend $35B on a pipeline, imagine what we might have if we spent $35B on alternative energy sources.

The pipeline, however, makes little economic sense, as this article points out.

And the price on carbon....  Conservatives are literally frothing at the mouth over yet another tax grab that, in their words, won't achieve anything.

They need to look to BC to see what is possible.

Update - April 25, 2016, an article by Bill Nye - "Climate Deniers: It's Time to Stop Denying"

Presidential Election 2016 - It's Time for Canada to Lend a Hand

It's getting almost painful to watch what's happening south of the 49th.

Here's how we can help.



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