Global Warming and Common Sense

At a time when the climate is changing, in large part because of excessive and wasteful use of energy, why would anyone want to do this, when they could use this.

My Scanning Project Progresses

My scanning project is progressing. I have scanned over 500 slides so far. These photos, taken with my Konica Autoreflex T3, are also from the Gatineau Park. They were taken in September 1978, almost exactly a year later than the last posted images.

Click on the photos to see larger images.

The Contradictions of Religion and Religious Tolerance

One can understand the birth of religion at a time before the age of reason and science, when people were looking for simple explanations of the world around them. The biggest contradiction of religion is why it has remained so dominant in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries when we actually understand the origin of the universe and how man evolved.

Of course the answer is simple. Religious belief defies logic because it excludes logic. Religion does not try to convince you that god exists based on science or logic. In fact religion suspends logic and science and asks you to believe on the basis of faith - to just decide to believe.

So how do people choose a religion. In most cases they do not actually choose, they inherit their religion from their parents or the cultural community they live in. And how do they decide what to believe. Again they do not decide, they are told what to believe by religious leaders, who follow teachings developed thousands of years ago and passed on or modified dependent on the intricacies of the politics of their particular religion. In the cases of some newer religions the “theology” is simply the figment of the imagination of a charismatic leader.

The next big contradiction of religion is it’s responsibility for good and evil. I do not need to go through the history of religion to point out the evil done in it’s name by believers, except to point out that most genocides are justified by religious beliefs, as interpreted by the religious leaders of the time.

But, on the other hand, much good has been done by religious people, from the abolitionists movement and the underground railroad to Canadian medicare, made possible by a Baptist minister from Saskatchewan. And indeed many good people credit their “goodness” to their religious beliefs.

But reason tells us that one can be a good person without religion. What religion enables, is good people to do evil things because they have been convinced, usually by charismatic leaders, that it is the will of god. There is no greater evil than good people doing evil things because god told them to.

The latest contradiction with religion is the development of the concept of religious tolerance. Religious tolerance teaches that other people are not unworthy or evil because they belong to the wrong religion. Religious tolerance removes the justification for evil, such as genocides, perpetrated in the name of god.

But religion is supposedly based on the true word of god. How can there be more than one true word of god. There cannot. And the acceptance of religious tolerance is an unstated acceptance that religion is man-made, not god-made.

I have no problem with religions as communities of fellowship with sets of rules to life by and rituals that celebrates the stages of ones life. Just do not try and tell me it is all based on the word of a non-existent god.

I am all for religious tolerance because it can help to end the evil done in the name of religion as well as make the true nature of religion as something man-made not god-made, finally evident to all “true believers” everywhere.

Phasing Out Tobacco

A United States Senator has an interesting idea.

U.S. Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., has proposed a tobacco-control plan that cuts to the chase and simply orders companies to get fewer people to smoke. With roots in the regulation of power plant emissions and the educational reform act known as No Child Left Behind, Enzi's idea is that government would set performance goals for tobacco companies to meet. Instead of conventional "command and control" regulation -- in which government regulators tell people what to do -- under "outcome-based regulation," government tells them what to achieve.

How would tobacco firms comply? They could raise prices, promote cessation aids, sell nontobacco competitive products or innovate in ways we can't imagine. What to do and how to do it is their decision to make.

Under the senator's plan, tobacco companies would be required to reduce their U.S. customer base by approximately 90 percent over two decades. At the end of that period, our country could be down to an incredibly low smoking rate of about 2 percent, an ambitious target. Companies that failed to meet performance goals would face whopping financial penalties, making it fiscally more attractive for them to lose smokers than to gain new ones.

So is this feasible and how would it be done.

The tobacco industry is very much like the oil and gas industry - it is a dying industry with an addicted customer base that will pay almost anything for the product. In both cases, one for environmental and the other for health reasons, they know they have to phase themselves out. The oil and gas industry also knows it has a limited supply of resources. Virtually every oil and gas company has established an alternative and renewable energy component to eventually replace it’s fossil fuel production, in large part from the revenues from higher gasoline prices that they know their automobile dependant customer base will pay no matter what..

The tobacco industry should do what the oil and gas industry has done - not react to it’s decline but be “pro-active” and plan for it.

The tobacco industry could use additional profits from higher prices that it knows it’s addicted customers will pay to move into moral alternatives to tobacco production and sales. Higher prices will deter new customers which will help it achieve its mandated goal, not to mention the fact that enticing people to become addicted to tobacco is about as immoral as you can get.

Governments should immediately remove tobacco taxation from the general revenue stream (Consolidated Revenue Fund) so as not to be dependent on a tax base that it is attempting to phase out. The funds could be dedicated to a fund to pay for tobacco related health costs that will eventually decline over time. Some of it could also go into incentive payments to tobacco companies that lower their sales faster than the mandated targets.

This would all be in addition to government regulations prohibiting cigarette advertising, sales to minors and smoking in public.

Multiculturalism and Reasonable Accommodation - It’s as Canadian as a Kilt or a Hijab

When you invite friends over do you ever serve food that their religion forbids them to eat. If you go to a wedding of someone of another faith do suggest they should be married in a “Canadian” church. If neighbours invite you to a cultural celebration do you complain about their foreign customs. Of course not, because that would be impolite and certainly not the Canadian way. That is essentially the spirit of “reasonable accommodation” practiced at the personal level.

So why does something that is so natural on a personal level become so controversial on a societal level.

Recent census results indicate that currently there are just over one million aboriginal people in this country. The rest of us are immigrants, or descendants of immigrants. We come from all over the world and we are what makes Canada the wonderful country that it is.

Certainly, due to history, certain groups have become more dominant and certain customs more ingrained in our way of life than others. For example we have a government based on the British Parliamentary system and Christian religious holidays enshrined in statute law. But we are also strengthened by adding the customs of newer Canadian to our way of life.

Canada is a multicultural country that is only strengthened by the many customs and cultures of the people that immigrated to this country to become Canadians. Multiculturalism means that not only do we allow immigrant groups to maintain their customs but also share them with them.

So what is “reasonable accommodation”. Leonard Stern, writing in The Ottawa Citizen, said it best:

Ode to a sales clerk

Celebrity Success Stories

Well I have been skimming through my wife's People Magazine for the latest news, The big success story seems to be about how a celebrity couple has been able to stay together for so long - "How They Make It Work", a whole year. Another sucess story is of celebrity married couple expecting their first child. File under celebrity oddities for having the marriage before the baby. And the last story is the big news that a certain celebrity wants to lose a whopping five pounds, yes count them, 1,2,3,4,5 pounds. Since when is losing 5 pounds, nevermind wanting to lose 5 pounds, news - only in Celebrityland. Or maybe it was just a slow news week - not enough people checking into, or running away from, rehab this week.

The Two Issues in the Chalk River Nuclear Safety/Radioisotopes Affair

Stephen Harper is starting to remind me of Larry O’Brien. They both seem to have no concept of the role of government and public policy beyond the Do What I Say I’m the Boss School of Leadership.

There are two issues involved in the Chalk River nuclear safety/radioisotopes affair.

The second issue is whether Parliament should have passed legislation requiring restarting of the reactor. What Parliament essentially said was that the shortage of radioisotopes justified lowering the normal safety standards for the reactor. It is Parliament’s role to balance competing interests. While many of us disagreed with the legislation, it was within Parliaments role.

The first issue is whether the government should have attempted to influence and intimidate Linda Keen and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission into not doing their job and then fire her for doing her job.

The government claims she was fired for lack of leadership. If Linda Keen has demonstrated anything it is leadership. The government may not have like the leadership she provided but it is ludicrous to suggest she did not provide leadership.

It is the role of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to set and enforce safety standards in the nuclear industry. That is what they did in the case of the Chalk River reactor. When Atomic Energy of Canada Limited failed to do required safety upgrades the Commission it did it’s job and ordered the reactor shut down. It is not the role of the Commission to let outside factors or interests influence it’s decisions. Indeed it would be derelict in it’s duty if it let outside interests, or political intimidation, influence it’s decision-making.

If anyone lacks leadership it is Stephen Harper who does not understand the difference between leadership and intimidation.

ELECTION NOW !

It is time for the opposition parties to force an election, and to force the election on the Tory government’s favourite topic - “public safety”. When the Tories talk about “public safety” they are usually talking about crime and what the government has done is indeed a crime against the Canadian people.

It is time for the opposition parties to move, at the first possible opportunity (next available opposition motion day), the following motion:

Whereas the government has:

shown it’s disregard for the safety of Canadians;

disregarded the independence of an arm-length regulatory agency charged with protecting the safety of Canadians;

attempted to intimidate the head of the independent agency to have the agency ignore it’s legislated responsibility to protect Canadians safety;

introduced and passed legislation placing Canadians safety at risk;

put the economic interests of a private corporation before the safety of Canadians;

showed disrespect to a Parliamentary Committee by acting on an issue prior to it’s study by the Committee and interfered with the independence of the Committee by firing the head of an independent regulatory agency immediately prior to her testimony before the Parliamentary Committee;

eliminated the independence of the regulatory agency by putting it under the direct control of the government via an Assistant Deputy Minister;

Be it resolved that this House has lost confidence in the government.

We can only hope that the opposition parties will not let their complicity with the government’s actions prevent them from doing the right thing for the Canadian people.

Starting A New Project

Today I started scanning and uploading my collection of almost 4,000 slides. The photos below were taken in the Gatineau Park in September, 1977. These are some of the first photos taken with my first real single lens reflex camera, a Konica Autoreflex T3.

Click on the photos to see larger images.

Osama and Katrina as Agents of God

Well, I’ve been doing it again - channel flipping and stopping on the religion channel (VisionTV). Last evening I heard a preacher going on about how Hurricane Katrina and terrorist attacks are god’s punishment for the United States godlessness:

Will the United States continue to experience more Katrina-like hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters. Will we continue to experience the attacks of terrorism. My friends, history in the Bible has demonstrated over and over that when nations reject the god of creation they will be judged.

At the end of the show I was directed to the website for Tomorrow's World - Magazine and Television program. And what did I find there.

Highlighted at the top of the page was an article entitled: The Plain Truth About Homosexuality. I will not repeat it here except for a short excerpt that struck me as “amusing”.

What do they seek to accomplish? Jesus Christ said, "You will know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16). What are the actual "fruits"—the results—of the homosexual lifestyle?

Trust me the rest of the article is not amusing, but filled with pseudo science and pure and utter hate propaganda.

There is more interesting stuff to be found on this website, such as references to the mainstream churches this organization shares the channel with:

Martin Luther's earliest New Testament translations include many illustrations picturing the "Whore of Babylon" as the Roman Catholic Church. Describing this widely understood interpretation, Roland Bainton tells us: "Fallen Babylon is plainly Rome" (Here I Stand, p. 258).

Countless Protestant books, pamphlets, and tracts make that same identification today. They brand the Roman Catholic Church as the "great Whore" of Revelation 17.

But, it must be admitted, most Protestant denominational writers have stopped making this identification. After publishing those editions of the Bible, and pamphlets and tracts, they suddenly came to the embarrassing realization that they were telling on themselves!

For the corrupt Roman "mother" church has given birth to harlot daughters! If the clear, consistent principles of scriptural identification are to be honestly applied, the Protestant churches are "harlot daughters" of a paganized, apostate Rome!

They came out of her in protest. But, as we have clearly seen, they retained most of her pagan doctrines and concepts. They are still following Rome's example of mixing in the politics and wars of this world. And we have seen abundant Protestant testimony that they recognize she is their "mother" church!

This program is on Basic Cable. If I want to get basic Canadian Network television as well as Newsworld I have to buy this package and pay for this garbage and this hate.

Why am I forced to pay for the “Superstition Channel” with my Basic Cable, but if I want any of the educational or science channels like Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel or History Channel I have to buy another package.

Does nobody monitor the garbage these religious organizations are promoting. Are there no standards as to who is allowed on the Basic Cable channels that we have to pay for to get Canadian Network television.

I am beginning to think that we really need an investigation into just what is on Vision TV. Even if they keep the worse stuff off the channel and on their websites should these organizations really be given prime space on Basic Cable television.