Gun Control Priorities

According to the latest Macleans magazine, Tampa, Fla. is gearing up for the summer Republican convention by banning weapons from the downtown area.  Things like slingshots, paintball guns and switchblades have made a prohibited list and will not be allowed. However, state law prevents any city from regulating the possession of actual guns, and so [...]

O Canada

I consider myself to be well left of centre politically, but I have been thinking a lot lately about the extent to which the government imposes decisions and restrictions on us, supposedly for our own good.  I think that restrictions are important.  I think people should be required to wear seat belts.  I think a [...]

Chocolate, Easter, Child Slavery and Dumb Blindness

I was going to do an entry on child slavery being used to harvest the beans used to make Easter eggs.  Then, while researching the story, I stumbled upon something that just blew me away in its ignorance. First the chocolate story, best summed up here in a CNN video. There is another video, more [...]

Bully

The difference between the American and Canadian ratings for the movie Bully is a strong indicator of what sets the two countries and cultures apart. In the U.S. countless young people are bullied every year for a variety of reasons.  Not all of them have to do with sexual orientation, but sometimes it is the [...]

PIG GENOCIDE

If you are a small, family farm, pig raiser in Michigan it will be hard for you to accept any government party claims which assert that the U.S. is the land of the free.  In a country that constantly praises itself for respecting individual rights and small government, April 1st will see a small army [...]

Cancer Cure Found? Two Years Ago???

Here’s a reputable CTV news report talking about a very real lead on a cheap drug to treat or cure cancer.  Whether or not it pans out, the significant point in the story is that we may never know because big pharma companies will never consider testing it.  The reporter says that she knows of [...]

HOW DEAD IS DEAD?

Read the interview with Dick Teresi. Years ago I read a SciFi book called Passages by Connie Willis.  In the book a team of doctors investigate brain activity during near death experiences and find that subjects often return to the same hallucinations before they are brought back to consciousness.  Their explanation was that as the [...]

Some Advice On Pi Day

  Kliffer’s advice to dorks: “Stay inside. Watch Revenge of the Nerds, play a video game. For God’s sake, don’t think for a second that you are a cool dude because you know a hundred digits after 3.14. You have to fixate on body image, bully the weak and memorize sports stats for that.”   [...]

KONY 2012

So is this a potentially powerful example of grass roots, social media based, public empowerment, or is it just another example of social and consumerist exploitation? The criticisms of Invisible Children can be found HERE.  There are a lot of additional links on that site that lead to the primary articles from which the quotes [...]

The True Cost of Piracy

I’m fully aware that this entry might be interpreted as a rationalization of piracy.  The facts, however, shed some interesting light on the claims that the media industries and the lawmakers want us to believe.  Whatever the ultimate judgement on the issue of piracy, it is clear that there is a lot of information in [...]

Stranger Than Fiction

Yes, this is a real news story.  I wonder if it’s possible to secure the film rights, because this one has the potential to be turned into anything from a political drama to dark humor to courtroom blockbuster. It starts with four senior citizens from a Georgia militia being arrested for plotting an attack on [...]

Occupy the Government

Currently in Wisconsin we are seeing an almost miraculous expression of participatory democracy in the spirit of the Occupy movement.  Many states, including Wisconsin, have a provision to recall the election with a certain number of signatures on a petition.  That means that if the public collects a certain number of signatures on a petition, [...]