Terahertz

I think there’s a couple key things to think about while CTV shows Harper at every Olympic event they see him at:

1. This a good reminder that the NDP gave their free Olympic tickets back to VANOC because they didn’t believe they were entitled to something average Canadians were having a difficult time getting their hands on any. Meanwhile Harper and the Conservatives had no problem reaping the perks (even he donates our tax dollars back to the Olympics).
2. Seeing Harper at the Games should be a good reminder that he’s not at work right now.
3. In Harper’s interview with CTV he stated his support of Canadian athletes, but that support apparently doesn’t extend to include the Own The Podium program that most of our athletes have been crediting to our record setting medal count.

In about my second or third year at the University of Alberta, a referendum was held to charge students a fee to build a new Physical Activities Complex (PAC). The fee failed, in part because students of the day would be paying for a building to come and would also have no input on the design or operation of the facility.

Basically, most of us saw it as a grab by PhysEd students to make everyone pay for them to get a new building.

Well, PAC is back as PAW, but now the fee will only be put in place once the building is finished. Further, it looks like students will actually get a majority role in the makeup of the board of the building.

But there’s another key difference. PAW stands for “Physical Activity & Wellness” and in terms of “wellness” the supporters state the following:

Broad Scope of Wellness – The PAW Centre will combine new construction with renovations of existing facilities in order to address the broader idea of health and wellness. Physical, mental, and spiritual wellness concerns were identified and addressed in the design of the facility. This holistic approach will ensure the PAW Centre appeals to all students. [emphasis added]

So how will they address these spiritual concerns?

• Meditation/Yoga Rooms – special facilities will cater to rapidly-growing programs aiming to focus and relax the body and mind.
• Prayer Space – adequate space for prayer is critical to addressing the spiritual aspects of wellness for many students. The PAW Centre will address the space shortage for groups on campus that desire a large space to pray.

This reminds me of the news releases from the University of Toronto in 2005 when they were building a Multi-Faith Centre. The newly formed UT Secular Alliance, led then by now CFI Canada Executive Director Justin Trottier, opposed the creation of the building on the grounds that a secular university should not be dedicating money to the promotion of religion.

In the end the UofT still built the building, but the university did take secular worldviews into account and now includes a Humanist chaplain and a link to the UTSA.

Over a year ago the UofA agreed with the UofA Atheists and Agnostics that the school is a pluralistic secular institution and modified the convocation charge to include more humanistic elements and a sort-of opt-out of using your degree for God. The challenge for the UAAA this time will be to either outright oppose the creation of dedicated prayer space on campus – with student funds – or to demand space for Humanistic and secular world views.

While I am not longer at the school, I will be keenly interested in how this referendum goes, and what dialogue the UAAA can spark.

Just a quick plug for Vancouver’s upcoming third SkeptiCamp. This will be a great grassroots opportunity to meet like-minded sceptics and present and listen to some awesome topics.

I haven’t written it yet, but I’m hoping to present a talk on the evidence for the Big Bang, and relating that in elevator format. Roughly titled “13.7 billion years in 90 seconds.”

At least I have a 2-week break known as the Olympics to hammer out my talks.

The conference is on 20 March at UBC and registration is open, and t-shirts are available.

I hope to see you all there (if you’re in the lower mainland, otherwise, found your own).

Dear Ivy Ash,

I read your article vilifying atheism [Leave religions alone, February 8] and I had to comment. Perhaps it is cowardly of me, but I chose to copy most your letter because you express unoriginal thoughts on a subject that is far more simple than you think. You’ll find I make no apologies.

There is a certain truth to what you’re saying. Graham Templeton is as bigoted as your postmodern relativism. His article reads as a blind attack at people. And there are Christians, Muslims, Jews, and even Wiccan atrocities. Yet there is actual substance to the critiques of religion that are being provided, and ad hominen attacks back and forth solve little. And it’s easy to conflate an attack on blind, irrational faith with one directed at the believers themselves.

There’s more to atheism, Ms. Ivy Ash (a funny name for a fundamentalist Wiccan – see that, we can all use useless ad hominens and oxymoronic terms to emotionally bias our readers) than just bigotry. There’s love, for one thing, and tragedy (those exist in every human). There’s critical thinking. There’s understanding that, as Richard Dawkins points out, without an understanding of the Bible, “you can’t understand English literature and culture.” But there’s also a greater subtlety to atheists critiques then you seem to comprehend. These include realizing that the Bible is a myth that was written and rewritten by human beings over long periods of time. It’s realizing that the ethnography of the Bible is more likely a fictitious myth, as no actual evidence that the events of Exodus exists. But you can throw a few more ad hominens in to ensure that if your shoddy arguments aren’t enough, you can at least make fun of us.

Now, lest you think I may be an atheist, I’ll tell you right now, I am. But I’m also more than that. I’m a humanist, a person who finds inherent worth in every person.I’m a naturalist, someone who accepts the scientific method as our greatest source of knowledge, and that method has yet to reveal any evidence of something beyond this world. And I’m a skeptic, someone who only accepts claims that are backed up by objective evidence. Our views have also survived Roman Catholicism’s widespread eradication efforts of the past, and present. And yet to this day, religious bigotry still targets atheists as immoral and subhuman.

Now we need to talk about the truth. Since you seem to believe in a postmodern, relativistic form of truth, in that whatever works for you is true, I think I ought to take a second to explain what’s behind the apparent aggravation of atheists (alliterations are always awesome). Atheists, in general, arrive at their worldview via a critical evaluation of the claims that are made by various proponents of the true faith. Similarly, when new evidence is presented, atheists are generally open to evaluating that evidence to see if there’s an inconsistency within their worldview. To date, there hasn’t been enough evidence for the vast majority of us to require supernatural explanations. If there’s anything the success of the sceptical scientific method has taught us, it’s that an objective truth does exist outside our minds (this keyboard I type on exists). Yet postmodernists are making intellectual war on the existence of objective truths in an attempt to destroy several hundred years of scientific progress. That is, progress that has led to the ability for you to write an article on your computer, email it to the Peak, and for it to appear within the hands of tens of readers within a week.

Now, I’ll be honest. I don’t have the highest esteem for theists. In fact, since most theists rank atheists the least trustworthy demographic, there’s evidence of a deep seated, and in this case hypocritical, bigotry. Why? Apparently in your case it’s partly daddy issues. Or as you admit more likely, you were raised with a bigoted view that sees belief in a god as necessary for a meaningful and moral life. Both of which are demonstrably false by the growing number of happy, fulfilled atheists across the world. Of course, we can all get annoyed by fools with whiny diatribes, but that by no means gives you the right to write off all atheists as assholes. I’m not about to declare all Wiccans as overly-sensitive hypocrites because of your piece.

Finally, who is it that you think you’re talking about? Who, exactly, are you preaching to? Obviously you are writing to Mr. Templeton and trying to publicly chastise him for writing such tripe, but 90% of the articles in The Peak are crap. More likely you feel you need a stage to showcase how progressive and accepting your Wiccan beliefs are. You try to save yourself a little at the end, by admitting there are “fine upstanding atheists who aren’t bigoted at all.” And I will agree that Graham’s (suddenly you’re on first name basis?) article was offensive, but you failed to define it as either hate-filled or hypocritical. Clearly, the only hate literature that’s appropriate in Canada is anti-atheist hate literature. Or perhaps, you might want to understand that free speech is still allowed in Canada, but hate literature, defined as literature that incites and advocates violence, is properly regulated.

Most sincerely, Ian Bushfield

P.S. Because you couldn’t fit enough ad hominens in the actual 958 word letter, you had to give us a pointless post-script.

People generally acknowledge that BC politics is messed up, but this push to regain the corporate municipal vote [pdf] here really takes puts the ass in asylum.

The claim is that businesses are being unfairly taxed without representation, ergo businesses ought to have a vote at the municipal level.

Never mind that every business owner and employee that actually lives in the city they operate in already has a vote.

Never mind that the only other place in the world that shills like this is the business district of London, England.

Never mind that the guy who wrote that trite in the Vancouver Sun is “known for showing up at Burnaby council meetings wearing his scoutmaster uniform.”

Just remember that democracy is, in it’s most pure form, a system of people governing themselves. In Canada, at least, corporations are not people.

I noted a week ago that an anti-choice group in Kelowna had gotten approved to show their graphic and misleading ad to local TV viewers.

It turns out that CHBC-TV has blocked the ad for being too offensive for some of their viewers.

I have to agree with Unrepentant Old Hippie on this one:

Other than that, I’d actually be against pulling it — the fetus fetishists have as much right as organizations like PETA to flog their cause.  And they sometimes get more mileage (not to mention the persecution high they’re forever chasing) from being “censored” than they do when their campaigns run themselves out and die quiet and unremarkable little deaths.

While you may not like what they say, they still have a right to say it.

A few quick stories of note recently:

• A whooping cough outbreak is occurring in the BC West Kootenay region because woo-woo parents think vaccines are evil and now their children are at risk of dying. And some people ask what’s the harm in letting people believe in alternative medicine.
• Speaking of unfounded woo, NDP MP Denise Savoie has claimed that evil “toxins” are to blame for NDP Leader Jack Layton’s recently diagnosed prostate cancer. Throw out the fact she doesn’t state what specific toxins cause cancer and implies all chemicals are evil. Perhaps cancer is more frequent now because we’re living longer and are better at detecting it.
• Further to the Jack Layton story, it’s commendable to see everyone setting aside partisanship to wish him the best for a speedy recovery.
• The BC Civil Liberties Association is rightly backing the right of University of Victoria’s Your Protecting Youth pro-life student group. While I disagree with the groups stance, they do have a right to exist and organize and pushing them aside is the wrong thing to do. If the group crosses the lines of civil discourse and propagates falsehoods, then there may be a case for disbanding them, but the same ought to apply to any and all campus groups.
• The Kamloops Atheists report that the local “Daily News” paper refused to publish any atheist material in their religion page since “the rest of the paper was for atheist material.” They subsequently didn’t publish the request article anywhere in the paper. Further they note that the Kamloops Christian School is teaching Biblical Creationism with equal time to the “theory” of evolution.
• Finally, to end on a positive note, the Centre for Inquiry Vancouver has just hired Radio Freethinker co-host Ethan Clow as their new Executive Director, making him the third paid CFI employee in Canada. I look forward to see continued success for CFI and wish Ethan the best of luck. Further to that, I’ve accepted a position as CFI Canada’s Campus Outreach Director, and hope to continue the success of the dozens of student groups across the country.

A neocon tool who uses SFUs student newspaper, The Peak, to spout his views alerted me (and the 5 other readers of the Peak) that populist Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is blaming the Haitian earthquake on a secret US weapon test before they turn the weapon on Iran.

Not feeling like I can trust Van Maren’s fact-checking ability, I ran a source check to see how many news articles “chavez earthquake” returns. A mere 700 if you were wondering. And most of those are because Chavez is a president of a nearby country.

But what about “chavez earthquake weapon”? Now you only get 70 hits, with such great sources as “World Press Review,” “NowPublic,” and FOXNews.

Ah, FOXNews, what a reputable source. They of course jump on the chance to blast a socialist leader as a crazy wackaloon and state the following:

The United States apparently possesses an "earthquake weapon" that set off the catastrophic quake in Haiti and killed 200,000 innocents. Don’t believe it’s true? Just ask Hugo Chavez. [emphasis theirs]

They claim the story originated on “the Venezuelan strongman’s state mouthpiece ViVe TV” (does that make FOXNews the Republican party’s mouthpiece?) but was taken down recently. They try linking to the Google cached pages which aren’t all too damning.

The only other source for this story seems to be a YouTube channel called “RussiaToday” which has this video:

This is supposedly the YouTube arm of the Russian state run RT TV station. They quote Spanish Newspaper ABC, and you can find the translated article here. It quotes the Venezuelan TV station as well.

These claims fly on the heels of the substantiated reports that Chavez claimed that the US was “taking [military] advantage of the tragedy” and moving to occupy Haiti.

Here’s the facts:

• Chavez distrusts the USA and claimed they were invading Haiti
• FOXNews is not known for portraying Chavez (or any other socialists) in a positive light
• Someone (either ViVe TV or RT or FOXNews) published a story claiming the Haitian earthquake was caused by a secret US weapon test
• That story no longer exists (or never did) as a primary source
• People will believe most of the crap they read if it fits their agenda

Could Chavez had said crazy things? Probably. While I am more of a socialist than the average North American, I’m not going to march behind everything a socialist leader says (as blindly following generally ends badly), and I don’t think the USA is trying to invade Haiti (it makes no strategic sense, do they need more sweatshops in Haiti?).

But at the same time, FOXNews isn’t the bastion of unbiased press, hell there’s a whole freakin’ Wikipedia Page on FOXNews Controversies.

So perhaps this is one of those mystical reporting times when the truth actually does lie somewhere in the middle, with Chavez a bit crazy, and FOXNews a bit loose with their journalistic integrity.

Groundhog Day is one of the weirdest traditions that we have retained from yesteryear.

I think it mainly has to do with rural towns that don’t have much else going for them, but lets them get news at least once per year.

Really, what else do you know about Wiarton, Punxsutawney, or even Balzac (my own hometown) than the fact that an obese rodent lives in each of those cities?

Anecdotally, I know that regardless of what Balzac Billy told me about the end of winter, February and March are usually really cold in Southern Alberta, so it was mostly for a laugh if the mammal suggested that winter was ending.

More empirically, groundhogs have an average that’s actually below 50%, which you might expect if shooting in the dark, however, I think in most of North America, winter tends to stretch about 6 weeks from today regardless of what the animals predict.

Even this year, you have 7 predictions of early Spring, and 4 of continued winter, with some predicting the opposite, within the same state!

Since Groundhogs aren’t worth listening too, here’s my prediction (with no meteorological or climatological training): Vancouver will be warm and rainy right through the Olympics with partial breaks in the clouds, the rest of Canada will be chilly but improving over the next 6 weeks.

Apparently Ed Neeland at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus in Kelowna has started a “Creation Club” and has written a big-old-bag of crazy for the local newspaper.

First, he misunderstands philosophy of science in that falsifiability is not the only way we actually do science and much of our knowledge is learned inductively.

He then decides that evolution is the same as the Big Bang and abiogenisis, neither of which Charles Darwin or subsequent evolutionary biologists have written about since neither of which deal with evolution by natural selection. Furthermore, both are wildly supported by facts and data, including experiments that demonstrate the basis for life. He seems to think that since it’s unobservable in a single lifetime that therefore the Bible is more right.

Finally, he obsesses about information again, with no definition of what it is that he’s talking about or demonstration that he even understands how biological evolution work.

Somehow, UBC decided to give this man a PhD in Chemistry and then hired him as an Associate Professor. I think they need to refund his money.

At least almost all of the comments on his article are trying to actually teach him science.