Happy New Year!

The best of luck to everyone in 2004!

Humans and dinosaurs walked the earth together!

It seems like the creationists were correct after all, humans and dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time. The photographic evidence is indisputable. Conveniently Sadly, we can't actually examine the footprints, because of some sabotage by those sneaky evolutionists:

Two well known evolutionists were present and at least one was conspicuously disturbed by this presentation. Both flew to Dallas the next morning and went immediately to the Paluxy River. It is reliably reported that they were in the river that afternoon with an "iron bar."

Were it not for that sabotage, the heresy known as evolution would no longer be contaminating our biology textbooks...

Sharia law in Canada?

In a dangerous precedent, the Islamic Congress wants to bring Islamic Law to Canada. The sharia court would only hear civil cases, while secular courts would always be used for criminal proceedings.

Criminal sharia law is well known for its various atrocities. Most recently, a woman in Nigeria only barely escaped being stoned to death for having pre-marital sex. In a similiar vein, the sharia treatment of rape of truly horrifying:

Rape creates an especially difficult burden of proof for the victim. Shari'ah law only provides for punishment in cases of adultery, if both parties admit to have committed the "crime". If this is not the case, four independent witnesses have to be found; however, the witnesses must be male.

...and then, if the poor woman isn't sucessful at the rape trial...

A pregnancy as a result of rape first of all counts as evidence of adultery committed by the woman. The rape victim then has to prove that she really was raped... [otherwise] the woman will be charged with adultery, and is thus threatened with the death penalty

Of course, none of that will happen in Canada, since it will only be a civil court, but it is useful to understand the type of "law" that is being introduced here. Civil sharia law isn't exactly very nice to women either, from Quaran 4:11...

"Allah commands you regarding your children. For the male a share equivalent to that of two females. " [Quran 4:11]

Yup, thats not a joke, a female only gets half of the inheritance of a male, and they want to bring this law to Canada! The list goes on and on, with child custody, alimony, divorce proceedings, etc... sharia is just a nightmare waiting to happen.

Of course, both parties need to "agree" before the sharia court would be permitted to adjudicate the conflict, but such agreement can easily be forced upon someone who is otherwise unwilling.

In Canada, Canadian citizens are subject to Canadian law. There should be no expections.

(edit: The Canadian Council of Muslim Women isn't too happy with the idea of Sharia Law either)

More mad cow!

In August, when half of North America got hit by a blackout, the US almost immediately started blaming Canada. Soon after, as we all know, it was discovered that the culprit was a company in Ohio known as First Energy, and that was pretty much the end of the blame game there.

Now, with the mad cow scare, it seems that the US is going to try and pull off the same stunt. I understand their motivation, if they can pass off the blame for the infected cow to Canada, they might spare their beef industry from the full brunt of the paranoia that is about to descend upon their heads.

---

Of course, speaking of BSE, I have some interesting stats about variant CJD, the disease that is purportedly linked to mad cow disease. On the entire planet earth, a grand total of 153 people have been killed by vCJD. For some minor statistical comparisons, about 2000 people are killed every year by lightning, and, for a more relevant comparison, coronary heart disease kills about 500,000 people is the states alone every year.

Furthermore, all these statistics behind vCJD assume that there is actually a connection between eating meat contaminated with vCJD and the disease. The argument goes something like this:

1. BSE (mad cow) puts some holes in the brains of cows


2. vCJD does something similar


3. Therefore, eating meat with BSE gives you vCJD

My dog can put together a more logical argument.

OpSICK - Child soldiers

An insightful look into the use of children as soldiers by the Palestinians. Well written and researched.

However, the subcontext is even more interesting. This organization was hoping to open up a chapter in Concordia. Many similar clubs exist, such as Amnesty International and other even more partisan clubs such as SPHR (Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights), Hillel, Liberal Party, etc.

Of course, OpSICK was banned from opening a chapter at Concordia, because they are a "racist organization". Apparantly, even though OpSICK obviously fights against the use of children in the military all around the world, they should have left Palestine alone because that is a unique situation. Unbelievable.

Mad Cow! Mad Cow!

When a single cow in Canada was found to be possibly infected with mad cow disease, our friendly neighbors to the South went nuts, banning our beef way past the time it was shown that there really wasn't any threat*.

Now, the americans have their own homegrown case of Mad Cow disease, so I think we should extend them the same courtesy they showed us. Lets go nuts, shut down some borders, demand that they slaughter their herds, etc. etc.

*Of course, the hamburger that I eat poses much more of a threat to me in terms of heart disease than in terms of getting some other disease mildly related to BSE, but its important to never let facts get in the way of a good bout of paranoia.

Update: Turns out that Canada is going to lead by example, which is probably a better move, but petty revenge would have been so much more satisfying...

Palestinian Dialogue

World reknown for their civility and debating prowess, the Palestinians expressed their outrage at the Egyptian prime minister in the only language they understand...

...violence.

I'm ready to protest!

My T-shirt finally came in, I'll post a photo of yours truly wearing it shortly...

Now, all I need is a digital video camera and a good anti-Israel protest...

Are you going to hell?

As any religious Christian would know, we are all going to hell. One of the more scientifically minded nutcases has taken it upon himself to actually calculate the rate at which people are entering the fiery pits below.

He also has an interesting take on the creation vs. evolution "controversy". Normally the evolution nuts wouldn't understand science if it hammered them in the face, but this guy is a little different...

PS: In the time it took to write this post, 297 people went to hell.

Back from Montreal

A slight blogging hiatus as I went home to Montreal for the weekend.

Disaster!

While switching commenting systems, I seem to have screwed something up, and I can't solve the problem. I had to delete most of the old comments, and the archives are now offline, and I might not get them back :(

Genocide

An interesting state that describes the 8 steps of genocide. Offhand, in the middle east, I would say that that some people are working their way up to #5...

Followup to that EU Poll

Remember a few weeks back when Europeans revealed who they thought was the biggest threat to world peace? There were some interesting candidates: India/Pakistan, China, Taiwan, Russia and sundry republics, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Zimbabwe, etc.

But... the winner was Israel, by a wide margin. The biggest threat to world peace. We shook our collective heads and wondered what was screwing up the minds over at the EU; possibly the lack of genetically modified food, but more likely just standard anti-semitism.

Anyhow, a similar poll was commissioned for the states, and in quite the shocker it seems that Americans have a slightly better grasp of what is actually going on in the world than people in other countries. While they recognize that Israel is certainly a factor in international relations, they also realize that there are more dire and pressing threats.

Some points of interest:

The poll showed about 40 percent of Americans sympathize primarily with Israel in the Mideast conflict, compared to just 15 percent that sympathize with Palestinians, numbers Foxman said have remained consistent since 1991.

and...

About 73 percent said the United States was more likely to be attacked by terrorists because of its support for Israel, but 62 percent who gave that answer said the support should continue anyway.

I think my respect for Americans just went up a notch...

What would you do with a million dollars?

Ever wonder what happened to those people who won the big prizes on those reality shows? Most of the winners in the article seem to have invested their savings, though there was one notable exception. Lisa, winner of Big Brother 3, gave most of her money to charity.

Also, it seems that Chip and Reichen, happy gay couple and winner of Amazing Race, are no longer happy, though they are still gay. They split up after the show. I'm not surprised, they had very different personalities, and the show really brought it out.

Problems

(sigh) I wish the commenting would be easier to set up, but it isn't.

New comments

Ok, I'm fed up with the old commeting company, so I'm switching to Haloscan. I'll try and maintain both for a while, but eventually I'm going to dump the old one, it simply wasn't working well.

Christmas Cheer

How far can you toss Santa? My record is 320m or so...

My faith in humanity remains strong

The human race was put on trial today. A jury needed to deliver a verdict that would recognize our species as rational and logical creatures fit to exist in this universe. While the jury was chosen at random, their role in this cataclysmic event would be pivotal. Similar situations had occurred in the past, and the chosen juries had not always made the right decision. However, this was the most important to date, a wrong verdict would have been enough to send my respect for my fellow humans crashing down into the lowest trenches of the Pacific.

However, the jury came through, and made sure that Lillian was not the winner of Survivor: Pearl Islands. For those who never watched the season, Lillian was the worst quivering mass of stupidity to ever appear on a television screen. To give her a million dollars would have been final proof of the inability of our species to weed out the bad apples.

Thankfully though, it didn't happen. Hallelujah!

Saddam's Medical Exam

I happen to be glad that Saddam was captured, like many dictators, he was brutal and gratuitously cruel. However, I think that it is a big mistake to be humiliating him. Presumably the military was taking video throughout the entire extraction event. Why then did they choose to air the video of Hussein undergoing the medical examination?

It was a calculated move on the part of the Americans. They wanted to show that they had their enemy and that he was completely submissive. However, historically, humiliating your beaten enemies eventually comes back to bite you in the rear. Saddam looks bad enough as it is, there was no need to make that final dig by showing the medical examination.

Bring him to trial, and then execute him. That is the language understood by the mideast. Show pictures of his current appearance if you want to show how weak and ineffectual he has become. However, leave the medical exam as a private moment, it is not for public consumption.

The faked moon landings

I've seen this before, but I just found it again. Incontrovertible proof that the moon landings were faked.

Kyoto

(edited)
Ok, I had a comment here and it seems that I accidentally wiped it out. Thanks for the pointer Daniel :). To summarize quickly, I was hoping that Russia would not in fact ratify the Kyoto accords, since I think that the agreement is fundamentally flawed. Why is that you ask? Simple, any such agreement that doesn't include all three of China, India and the States is pointless. Kyoto does not do that, so it must be abandoned in favour of a more coercive accord, probably when Bush is no longer in the White House.

Finally, I'm listed

Typing in "Tainted Glass" into google finally shows my blog and dumps that crazy German girl into second place. I also have my first official random hit, somebody typed in "oath doctor nowadays" into google and my blog somehow turned up, weird.

My home page is still not in the search engine, I'll try to figure out whats going on shortly

Chutzpah

The European Union wants to have its cake and eat it too. They chose not to participate in the war on Iraq, and there is nothing wrong with that. However, now the Americans are going to be spending their own money for the reconstruction of Iraq.

So what do the greedy Europeans want? No, I should drop the word "want", they demand a share of the reconstruction contracts. I thought it was a joke when I first read it, but its actually true. They opposed the war, they didn't pay for any of the costs, they kept their soldier's at home, and now they think they have the right to American money?

I don't know how they can look at themselves in the mirror when they get out of bed. Its like refusing to help your neighbor while she is getting robbed, and then getting insulted when she doesn't come to your company to get some new locks installed.

American backbone

Demonstrating once again how flexible Americans can be when it comes to morality and policy, Bush denounced Taiwan for seeking to increase its de facto independence from China. The entire situation is of course ludicrous, Taiwan is an independent country, and the only reason this is not recognized is that China has decided to be a bully about it.

China, with a fairly atrocious human rights record, is facing off against Taiwan, a modern democratic nation. All of the Western democracies should be supporting Taiwan and recognizing its independence. Instead, we are showing the world that we don't really care about democracy, what we really care about is trade. Therefore, its ok to trample human rights and bully small nations, as long as you keep trading with the States.

Meanwhile, Bush caved in to the European Union and dropped steel tarrifs. The obvious juxtaposition is the Canadian lumber battle, where the US decided to stay the course of their protectionist policies.

We can continue! Defenseless Iraq gets invaded by the States. North Korea has nukes, so they get stern words. Afghanistan gets invaded for harboring terrorists, while in Saudi Arabia its business as usual.

The pattern is obvious. If you can hurt the Americans through trade or military, they will cower and comply to your demands. However, if you can't hurt them economically or through force, you had better watch out... the States is good at kicking countries when they are already down.

I knew it!

On the bottom of an Aryan Nation website, they have a link to... the Toronto Police Association! I would say I was surprised, but that would be a lie...

Google Bombing

Typing "miserable failure" into google now brings up the official biography of George Bush. Google needs to adjust its algorithm to give blogs a much much much steeper discount when counting the value of their links.

From the Fanfile :)

Paul pointed me to a story demonstrating how superstitious people can really go overboard at times. He also sent me a link to a mock ninja site which I have seen before, but it is still rather amusing... (turn up speaker for some great keyboard music)

Meanwhile, Daniel found a sexy anti-Bush website. I don't think it will change a single vote though, Democrats will be amused and buy calendars, while Republicans will shake their heads at the declining morals of modern society and vote for Bush again to stop the tide of immorality.

Spam

Some moron named George Takla decided to spam every newsgroup I read. The problem for George of course is that he posted his mailing address, which meant I was easily able to get his phone number:

Takla, George
690 Adelaide Ave E
Oshawa, ON
L1G 2A8
(905) 725-9785

George is getting a collect call from me tomorrow, I'm going to give him a little piece of my mind, and explain why spamming newsgroups with your real name is pretty stupid. As a bonus, while he faked his email address, he sent his spam through his internet provider's server... rogers.com, which means that he will also be losing his account through violation of his terms of service.

Its hard to be anonymous on the internet. Its possible, but you have to know what you are doing.

Mideast Librarians

It would seem that the infamous anti-semitic handbook, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", is a manuscript worthy of display in an Egyptian Library. The chief librarian explained why he put the book on display:

"When my eyes fell upon the rare copy of this dangerous book, I decided immediately to place it next to the Torah. Although it is not a monotheistic holy book, it has become one of the sacred [tenets] of the Jews, next to their first constitution, their religious law, [and] their way of life. In other words, it is not merely an ideological or theoretical book. "

And, just in case we don't really get the point, he throws in a bit of holocaust denial:

"In reality, an analysis of samples from the purported gas chambers has proven that these were sterilization chambers, without a sufficient quantity of cyanide to kill... had Hitler wanted to annihilate the Jews of Europe, he would have."

The more I look into the lies that are fed to the arab public, the less I think that they will ever be able to live peacefully with Israel.

Fruitcakes

If you thought that the Atkins diet was full of crap, check out the "Fruitarians". In particular the section on the danger of cooked foods.

Thousands of years ago, our ancestors picked up the bad habit of cooking their food which has been passed down to us ever since. This bad habit, which neither the scientists nor we ever question, is the true source of most disease.

Luckily, by converting to a Fruitarian lifestyle, I'll live for another 150 years. Thanks for the heads up!

Hippocratic Oath Redux

Misconceptions about the Hippocratic Oath seem to be cropping up again. It seems that whenever somebody wants to criticize the actions of a doctor, they like to bring up the Hippocratic Oath (eg. How could that doctor take part in capital punishment? Doesn't he know its against the Hippocratic Oath?)

The oath is an outdated anachronism. It has some interesting sentimental historical value, but I would hope that most doctors would not follow the actual oath, but rather some version modified to their own beliefs.

Some passages of note:

I will not cut persons laboring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work.

So, no surgery, which of course was the competing school of "medicine" in those times.

him who taught me this Art... to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation;

So, medical school should be free for the kids of doctors, but all the other poor shmoes need to pay.

I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked

A nice blanket statement against euthanasia. Obviously some people may agree with that sentiment, but I think that as a society we are beginning to recognize that people have the right to a peaceful death if they so desire it.

Using sections of the hippocratic oath to prove a point while neglecting the rest is like taking random sections of the bible to prove that gay people need to be burned at the stake. Some people do it, but the rest of the rational population should reject that line of reasoning without a second thought. Doctors are bound by modern moral principles, not guidelines created thousands of years ago.

The Darker side of Unions


So, a guy comes into his workplace drunk and toting a loading shotgun, hoping to give his boss a piece of his mind, or, failing that, a piece of a cartridge. Luckily, his boss was not around and the police came to arrest him shortly.

Our drunkard was fired.

Now he wants his job back, and here's the kicker, the union has decided to represent him! This in a nutshell sums up everything that is wrong with the modern union movement. Originally it was designed to protect the workers from exploitation at the hands of their employers. If a worker is being fired unfairly, then it is the obligation of the union to defend him if at all possible.

However, it seems that nowadays unions have dropped their old mantra of justice for workers and have instead acquired two new guiding principles:

• Robotic push to keep as many union jobs as possible under all circumstances, and to make sure that all union members keep those jobs regardless of incompetence.


• Left-wing political advocacy

I'll comment on union involvement in politics some other day. For now though, it must be understood that the union movement was never designed to help people keep jobs when they deserved to get fired. It was meant to defend the workers from arbitrary punishment at the hands of management.

The drunkard was not fired on a whim of management, he was fired with very just cause. The union should not only cease defending him, but should support his removal from the workplace.

Oh... and do you think this happened in the States? Nope, it was here in Canada, and the union that is defending their member beyond the point of stupidity is our beloved CUPE. (sigh)