To accomplish this I’ve started an intermittent video blog/podcast supplement to this blog. Only two episodes are up so far – the first on Fusion: Hot and Cold and the second on GMO Labelling – and it’s only available through YouTube for now (I may look into the technical aspects of how to iTunes it next week). You can subscribe to the RSS feed here or follow the YouTube playlist here.

My goal is to produce quality, short, informative and interesting videos. It will take a few before I hit my stride and I don’t promise a consistent release schedule (which means it may drop off the radar for a while).

Here’s the first two episodes:

Episode 1: Fusion Hot and Cold

Episode 2: GMO Labeling

On Tuesday afternoon, I’ll be on CITR’s Radio Freethinker show talking about all the latest news from the BC Humanists.

The show runs for a full hour, so if you have ideas for what I should talk about, drop them below (obviously soon so that I can be somewhat prepared).

The show will be available as a podcast afterwards and I’ll link to it here when it’s online.

Justin Trudeau betrays his political immaturity and narcissism in suggesting that his commitment to a united Canada is dependent on whether the Conservative government validates his personal values, say prominent political analysts.

And just who are these “prominent political analysts”?

First, we have Calgary School professor and (un)Friend of Science Barry Cooper. Ever the expert on talking about Quebec separation, in 1991 Cooper argued that Canada would be better off if Quebec separated in his book in Deconfederation: Canada without Quebec.

Second, we have Carleton philosophy professor Tom Darby. I couldn’t find much on this “prominent” analyst other than an obscure dystopian e-novel he wrote last year and another article by the journalist same person who wrote the above Sun article. In standard Conservative rhetoric, Sibley quotes Darby:

The most conservative people in this country right now are Liberals and New Democrats. Politics is all about change. Conservatives are supposed to be the ones afraid of change, but now those who fear change the most are the people who like to think of themselves as progressive.

Third, breaking the trend we have University of Ottawa political science professor Robert Asselin. His bio from an iPolitics article he wrote

Robert Asselin is the Associate Director of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. He has served as an advisor and speechwriter to the prime minister of Canada, communications director to the Leader of the Official Opposition, policy advisor to the minister of intergovernmental affairs as well as chief of staff to the associate minister of National Defence. He was a senior adviser and speechwriter for the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada for three national election campaigns.

The only other source they quote is a Conservative back bencher decrying the situation.

I wonder how many professors Sibley called before he got enough trash-talking Trudeau to fill an article or if he just has the same guys on speed dial.

The show’s byline is “it’s about free enterprise” and is unapologetically right-wing, so take what you want from the rest of it.

I wish I hadn’t called humanism “atheism plus” and would have expanded a bit more on how we believe in people’s ability to be good on their own, but it is what it is. Every interview could go a bit better, and this represents a bit of exposure and some practice.

But then they have a day when they put out a pair of articles like they did last Thursday.

Nuclear scary!

First, we have the ever-detestable Alex Roslin piping more fuel into Fukushima fallout fears with his latest attempt to find a conspiracy where none exists. Nearly all of Roslin’s writing for The Straight devolves into paranoid writings, where everything produced by science from vaccines to nanotechnology to nuclear energy is a vicious evil out to pollute our precious bodily fluids.

Roslin’s focus in this piece is that, after extensive digging, he’s found out the average radiation level in rainwater in Calgary in March. He seems to suggest a Health Canada conspiracy to cover up the average of 8.18 bq/L. Health Canada’s recommendation for drinking water is 6 bq/L. Note that we don’t generally drink ran water, rather we (at least in Calgary and anywhere near the mountains) drink purified glacial run-off. Roslin doesn’t seem to care about inconvenient truths though, and wants to make things sound quite dire.

He then refers to the average levels of radioactive-iodine in Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Ottawa, and while none of the averages exceed Canada’s guidelines,

…the level discovered in Ottawa did surpass the more stringent ceiling for drinking water used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is 54 times less than the six becquerels per litre of iodine-131 (a radioactive isotope) allowed in this country.

Nothing like the special pleading necessary to make his case. Note that he doesn’t discuss why the EPA levels are different than Health Canada’s, just that a difference exist and any radiation is evil… because it’s radioactive.

His fear-mongering goes on, focussing on the unconfirmed measurements of one SFU researcher, what Roslin considers insufficient drinking water measurements, some comments about Japan (which don’t relate to his initial thesis about Health Canada), and finishes by stating that “there’s no safe level of radiation” and calls for a phase out of all nuclear power (he doesn’t offer any alternatives though).

It’s typical fear-mongering, and it’s sadly par-for-the-course from The Georgia Straight.

Smart meters scary!

The second article is presented as “news” but is really more than free publicity for the kooky ideas of Finlandia Natural Pharmacy owner Harlan Lahti. In an homage to the famous Princess Bride quote “you keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means”, the article is titled B.C. Hydro’s smart meters rile the skeptics.

A quick search of Lahti reveals his Pharmacy’s website where he promotes enagic water ionizers, detoxification, natural flu preventions (i.e. anti-vaccination), and brainwave optimization. And that’s just what I found on the front page.

The bias of the article is so rich. It plays Lahti as the victim of evil government bureaucrats who swooped in and tried to force smart meters on his pharmacy. The hero of the story was lucky to avoid this dangerous health hazard by finding a substitute power meter he happened to have lying around.

How do we know these meters are dangerous? Because Magda Havas and the non-peer reviewed BioInitiative report said so. Here’s a snip to demonstrate the lack of real science behind Ms. Havas’ “research”

…these meters emit not only radio-frequency radiation but also what she calls “dirty electricity”. Together, she said, these two can cause a lot of health troubles.

There is only ONE kind of electricity – the movement of charges. There is no “clean” and “dirty” electricity, it’s all the same. Adjectives like “dirty” taint an argument with emotional biases. It’s not science.

Moving along though, the article contains just over 800 words, a mere 100 of which are dedicated to reality. I’ll even give them to you:

“On matters like this, B.C. Hydro relies on the health authorities,” [BC Hydro spokesperson Cindy] Verschoor told the Straight by phone about health concerns. “So we have been in contact with the provincial health authorities, and they have advised that smart meters are safe.”

Verschoor added that B.C. Hydro safety standards for radio frequencies surpass those in Europe. Online information provided by the Crown corporation cite as an example the “precautionary limit” of 4.5 microwatts per square centimetre in sensitive areas like schools and hospitals in Switzerland. B.C. Hydro smart meters emit less than two microwatts per square centimeter at the same distance of eight inches.

How’s that for reporting? One side gets an emotional story, several “experts” with little qualifications, while the reality-based community has to settle for two paragraphs quoted from a BC Hydro spokesperson. The “journalist” couldn’t even be bothered to call the BC or Canadian Health authorities for their positions. He doesn’t even go into any depth with how that tiny amount of radiation couldn’t even affect you if you slept on the meter.

I don’t have much more to say about this. I’ve covered Smart Meters before so I don’t feel like wasting more breathe here.

Conclusions

Apparently all it takes to get a quaky story in the Georgia Straight is to call them up and give a loose conspiracy theory suggesting modern technology, forced on you by the government, is damaging your health. You don’t even need any evidence.

You remember Kai Nagata right?

He wrote what may have been the best resignation letter ever. It was essentially a manifesto for change in the Canadian media climate.

Well, lucky for us, The Tyee found him and has started letting his unfiltered words hit the internet.

And wow does he have things to say.

He’s already started a series called “Warnings from Quebec”, which begins by painting the bleak picture of media centralization that has become Quebec under Quebecor rule. Nagata notes that Quebecor has been crucial in forcing secret laws through the provinces National Assembly to support the construction of a new arena, to be owned by Quebecor, in Quebec City. He questions the new motto of Quebecor president “What’s good for Quebecor is good for all Quebeckers” and worries about the extreme agendas being pushed by Quebecor.

Part 2 introduces us to the ex-Parti Quebecois members who quit over their party’s sell out to Quebecor. He notes how the PQ’s implosion has basically cost them their next election, which is of little concern to Quebecor who may have found the ideal puppet in Francois Legault – potential leader of an uncreated, but high-polling, new right-wing party. He finishes by asking whether any large corporate media in Canada is free of bias, noting that only the independent Toronto Star and Le Devoir endorsed anyone other than the Conservatives in 2008 and 2011.

Finally, Nagata concludes with a blistering two-page analysis** of Quebecor’s new Sun News Network, which he claims has a steadily rising viewership (his source is a Sun newspaper, so I’m still a bit skeptical). He discusses the prevalence of polling data in Quebecor papers, which seem to have been used to promote the Quebec arena – asking respondents to single out who is to blame for delays. He worries about the lack of critical analysis of Quebecor (save for a few courageous columnists) and concludes by worrying about the isolating effect that such media centralization can result in.

Go read all three pieces, and feel worried. But then feel a bit better knowing that at least someone’s paying attention.

*At least it’s a good thing that’s it’s being written.

**I hate when online articles are split across pages. We have scroll bars for a reason.

Tanzi apparently believes that because government spending has dropped as a fraction of the GDP in Canada and Sweden over the past 20 years that it will continue to drop into the future. I guess two data points does make a linear trend. Neil Reynolds, the author of the article, compares the levels that we’re spending with those of the 1920s and the 1700 and 1800s, and seems to argue that we should go back to such spending.

That’s right.

Reynolds is actually suggesting that we ought to roll back our clocks to a time when:

• Women were not allowed to vote
• Slavery was legal
• Racism was accepted
• There was no public health care
• There was no social security
• Homosexuality was a crime
• Capital punishment was allowed
• Corporal punishment of children was allowed

Oh the good old days.

Of course Reynolds doesn’t say this, he says “Mr. Tanzi contemplates no return to Dickens.” Tanzi merely wants to rid us of the inefficient government, which can then be replaced by… well it’s note clear, but supposedly it has to do with market solutions.

Good thing the market always has our best interests at heart…

One specific issue that really got me in this article was this bit:

Mr. Tanzi is not “anti-government” for ideological reasons. He goes, he says, where the empirical evidence takes him – which makes his 14th book, Governments Versus Markets: The Changing Economic Role of the State (published in May), so important.

To be fair, I haven’t read this book, but Reynolds did a piss-poor job of presenting any of that evidence in this article. All he provided was a couple of data points for Canada and Sweden’s government spending as percent of GDP. Meanwhile, we have trends like the USA, bastion of free-market capitalism that it is, that are ballooning out of control. This graph would even suggest that spending is either going to remain constant (since apparently we just do a linear regression from 1990) or will continue to rise.

Taking a broader picture of nations, Wikipedia has a list of countries government spending as a percentage of GDP. While nations like Cuba and Zimbabwe top the list, most of Europe sits in the 40-60% range. Meanwhile, countries like Burma, Guatemala, and Haiti fall near the end of the list.

Perhaps Tanzi sees some advantage to living in a nation like Burma (with government expenditures of a mere 8% GDP), but I seem to doubt it as he seems to have spend his life in Italy and USA (with spending of 48.8% and 38.9% respectively).

Tanzi and Reynolds do admit that reducing government spending will increase inequality, but they figure that’s peachy because communism is evil. And I wish that were a strawman argument:

Mr. Tanzi concedes that the diminished state will increase economic inequality. But he argues that equality can’t be the state’s only goal. “If it were,” he says, “North Korea and Cuba would be model welfare states.” Further, though, he argues that there will be many other ways to reduce inequality – when people are once again lightly taxed. The irony of the 21st century, he says, is that big governments have consistently pre-empted reform – by replacing market functions instead of merely regulating them.

[citations desperately needed]

What other ways are we talking about? Private charity?

The best article I could find* on private charity comes from Margaret Little [pdf]**. She notes that private welfare was replaced by public systems, which are now being eroded and replaced again by private charity. Unfortunately, many of these charities have hidden (or overt) agendas, and may discriminate in their generosity. She cites the Salvation Army as an example of one religious organization that has been known to proselytize to its patrons.

This Globe piece really angered me. Hence the disjointed analysis presented here. Nearly everything in it is wrong, and I’d almost go as far as saying it approaches Fractal Wrongness. I may have to come back and pick apart specific pieces one-by-one.

It really worries me that our media is giving such an uncritical platform to such dangerous ideas. No wonder our inequality is rising rapidly.

*I tried a couple quick searches on Google and Google Scholar, but it is exceptionally hard to find good, objective data on the efficiency and efficacy of private charity versus government welfare. Most come either from Libertarians (who often begin by decrying be taxed at gunpoint) or the religious. If anyone has some good peer-reviewed data on this, please send it to me.

**Margaret Little, “The Blurring of Boundaries: Private and Public Welfare for Single Mothers in Ontario.” Studies in Political Economy 47, pp. 89-109. Summer 1995.

[Edit: Fixed wording]

While the [BC] government has provided the subsidy [overpaid BC Ferries CEO David] Hahn said that B.C. Ferries needed, the news about continued falling ridership has to be seen as a sign that this is a service badly in need of being returned to where it belongs – as a public service. [emphasis mine]

The paper has many harsh words for premier Christy Clark for failure to take real action over falling ridership and skyrocketing fares at BC Ferries. It further criticizes NDP leader Adrian Dix for not yet stating his plan to fix the agency. Hopefully, once the election is on we’ll hear it.

Going off the details that are undisputed as of now, a bomb was set off in downtown Oslo, near the government buildings and later a man dressed as a police officer opened fire on delegates of a Labour Party youth camp. (Real) Police believe the two events are linked and the death toll is still rising and is at least 10.

The New York Times had initially reported that an Islamic fundamentalist group had taken credit for the bombing, but the paper was quick to note that such claims are often false.

Any time a terrorist attack (and I define this as a terrorist attack since it was an attack that inspired terror) occurs, it’s almost instinct now to blame Muslims. Hopefully most people take a second and realize it’s not any or even a sizable number of Muslims who could commit such atrocities (can anyone picture Mayor Nenshi doing anything so atrocious?). Finally, we actually realize that in situations like this, we need to wait until some facts come out before posting our favourite violent sections of the Koran in relation to this attack.

Almost ironically, some reports are starting to come out now, and they’re worthy of the same skepticism as the initial reports, that the gunmen was a blonde Norwegian and has no links to any Islamic group. The irony comes from the fact that this man may prove to have ties to ultra-right organizations that strongly oppose the left-leaning governing Labour party and Muslim immigration.

Rather than Islamo-Fascists it may prove to be just old fashioned Western Fascists.

Of course if a xenophobic right-wing group had escaped without being caught, they could have pinned the blame on Muslims and immigrants, potentially swinging popular opinion over to some of their more extremist policies.

But now I’m into idle speculation.

I wish the best for the investigators and Norwegian people. Norway holds a soft-spot in my heart as the place Alberta (and Canada) could be if we actually worked together.

I came up with a shorter piece on our country’s need for a vision to replace the cynical politics that seems to rule today.

A tease:

With our country’s 144th birthday upon us, we ought to stop, recollect, and decide our vision for this diverse land. Perhaps it is a part of our perpetual national identity crisis, but I believe that we need to rekindle the belief in a better future that drove the exploration and formation of Canada.

Visionary examples fill our history, from our transnational railway, to establishing the international peacekeeping forces of the United Nations, to Tommy Douglas’ universal health care system. Yet, the past few decades have lacked that vision, with our only goal of the 1990s being to eliminate the federal deficit.