This man has had an incredible impact on how we view the potential of the human brain. He would read up to 8 books a day, committing every bit of information to memory. He’d read the left page with the left eye, and the right page with the right eye. Not to mention an opening up to the incredibly complex world of autism.

You’ll find more neat ideas on www.thefuntheory.com.

In the Unites States, health care is pretty much the same. If you don’t have insurance, you’re fucked if you contract a long-term illness. If you do have insurance, they’ll blame some fabricated “pre-existing condition” that usually does not apply, in order to make it so that the sick don’t get their coverage. In all honesty, even Canadian insurance companies are disgusting.

The worst part? That New Brunswick lost out on the chance to have a government-run insurance option in 2004.


Fear Mongering in America

Not to mention how scary it is for people to bring an AR-15 to an Obama town hall meeting:

I would dare think that if people would be generally more informed and cared a little more about how their country was run, life would be much better.

I’ve read quite a bit about starting a business in the past three years, and I feel I know what I need to know. This couldn’t have happened sooner.

Here’s the first lecture:

When I was in High School, the guy whose locker was beside mine didn’t exactly have a model youth. His mother was divorced and deep into drugs and he had absolutely no self esteem. Regularly, pranksters would manipulate him into doing stupid things; they were entertained, and he thought they might actually care about him if he pulled off those stunts.

Fast forward a few years, this same guy discovers the wonders of having confidence in oneself. He is able to shrug off people who he doesn’t agree with, and just keep doing what he likes. In this case it was absolutely horrid, stupid and meaningless music; but it made him happy. The problem here, is that he only gained his confidence in a time where his worldview was completely distorted, when he was vulnerable.

I thought of that guy today, after reading two articles about the rise of militias in the US (here and here. There is a Youtube clip in question, run by the founder of the Ohio Militia. This video reminded me of my locker buddy to a tea.

Pale Horse

It shouldn’t take long for you to be reminded of someone similar to my high school locker mate. Within 10 seconds of this guy speaking, you can tell he’s an idiot. He has weird pauses between words, he tilts his head more than a bobble-head, then poses the first of many great questions: “Who else would I expect”. Indeed, that is a good question. Then he adds completely unrelated imagery, and convinces us of how thing are “really bad” without any explanation, because it must all be so blatantly obvious.

After this brief lack of substance, he jumps to telling people to buy themselves AR-15s (as you can see). Although his safety is off, I’m sure he can otherwise demonstrate the least bit of firearm discipline. He tells us to ask ourselves and ask: “Why do I not own one of these?” Personally, I can’t see a situation where I would need to shoot another person. I am quite convinced that my country (or continent) is quite stable as it is, and that the only people I fear is not my government, but people like Pale Horse who think shooting people is the answer. What about personal protection? Even if they someone is breaking into my home, I’m not going to three-up a person stealing by killing them. No, I don’t think that “the country is almost part of an–perhaps what the Nazis were trying to do” (1:20).

You’d think that this guy would take it as a sign that 90%, well, 99.999% of people that show interest to his group don’t actually participate. So I typed www.ohiomilitia.com and found that it was a dead dummy website, showing that most people who stumble on it look for MILFs, payday loans and accident lawyers. Ahh, after Googling it, I found the true website: http://www.freewebs.com/ohiomilitia/. As you can see, it is a pretty well designed site. It has Metallica playing on the background, although the Survival Training Tips are a bit hard on the eyes. His MySpace shows that he’s 26 and married with kids; could that be the root cause of such patriotism? I love the touch of Command and Conquer and Final Fantasy game music to his Youtube videos too.

Where do I sign up?


Let’s Be Thankful

Fortunately, attention seekers like this guy are on the fringe of the bell curve (0.001% of people who ask him about how to join, it seems). It’s great that they’re using their rights to shout out their views, until someone gets hurt. These people should not be left alone though. Show em’ some love, but don’t attack their views—they’ll just get more defensive.

Moral of the story, make it so that your elected officials make sure none of your doomsday scenarios see the light of day. Having a militia is hardly the answer, as I am sure a National Guard’s F-16 fighter jet could make light work of you.

The system obtains its energy by foraging – engaging in biologically-inspired, organism-like, energy-harvesting behavior which is the equivalent of eating. It can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable.

Trust Fox News to put a neat twist to the story: Upcoming Military Robot Could Feed On Dead Bodies.

In more important news, Stephen Harper said in an interview with the Globe And Mail:

You know, there’s two schools in economics on this. One is that there are some good taxes and the other is that no taxes are good taxes. I’m in the latter category. I don’t believe that any taxes are good taxes.

The author of the article, Jeffery Simpson, proceeds to vilify the PM for what he said. Even making the link that only “libertarian anarchists” think that way:

Only libertarian anarchists believe that all taxes are bad, and that society can get along without them. But who will pay, if not citizens, for the military on which the Harper government is lavishing billions of dollars? Who will pay for the police, the courts?

[...]

Indeed, the comment hearkens back to Mr. Harper’s days shilling for the National Citizens Coalition and early years with the Reform Party, when he believed that just about everything governments were doing was bad and wasteful and led to huge deficits. Since then, and especially as Prime Minister, Mr. Harper has shelved many of those views, since a distinguishing characteristic of his government has been a reluctance to cut government spending.

It didn’t take long for The National Post’s Terence Corcoran to respond:

But what is really going on here is a mounting Liberal campaign to set the state for tax increases to cover future deficits. Liberals cannot officially plant this idea, and they would much rather have Mr. Harper bear the burden by forcing him to raise taxes. As Rev. Simpson says, donning his economic hat, “economic growth alone will not restore Canada’s balanced budget.”

If that’s true, then the real alternative is is to cut spending. Now that, in Rev. Simpson’s Liberal church, is really, really scary, scary.

Can you guess what do the articles have in common? It’s just as much about ad homiem attacks as policy debate. I want to see an intelligent discussion on taxation, it’s benefits and shortcomings.

(More below the fold)


My current assumptions on taxation are:

• Being taxed sucks. Tax is bad for business.

• Business is good for the people

• I’m not a doctor, nor an accountant, nor a construction worker, nor a policy maker. To make this country as great as we want it to be, we need professionals and experts in these fields work for society, I need to pay tax.

• You get what you pay for; you have more money to work on government programs, the better off society is. This applies to the Armed Forces as much as education.

• The government wastes a lot of money

• The private sector is greedy (it needs to be in order to work best)

• Every human is created equal and should have access to the same resources to achieve wealth

Questions I’d like to see debated:

• To what extent should the individual contribute to the whole, as opposed to relying solely on themselves? What are our goals as citizens?

• Which economic policy work to achieve our goals? Trickle down?

• What is the best balance between business and taxation to achieve our goals?

I don’t see debate as much as people sticking to whatever ideas their peers support. I do not think it is a coincidence that most political divides are geographic, it is living proof that we see things subjectively. I do not claim to be much different, however.

I wish more journalists would try to see things objectively. The problem, however, is that once a conclusion is reached, the other side of the debate will decry the author ad homiem style. Lather, rinse, repeat.

My opinion on the debate is a complicated one, that has changed with time. In the past, I have been a staunch supporter of pro-choice. Since then I have given way, albeit not completely, to the pro-life aspect of the debate.

Where The Debate Gets Muddled

There are two key points that make this debate a controversial one: Deciding when life begins, and secondly, putting value to human life.

First, I will address the topic of the value of life. Some people agree with forcing a pregnant woman to bring a child to the world, even if it is to a broken home—while supporting the death penalty, which I feel shows a certain degree of hypocrisy. Some would say a Canadian of any age is “worth more” than a Nicraguan farmer. Throw in age, cultural, income, educational and health differences and you’ll have such a huge pool of varying opinions on the value of life that I could list on for a very long time. I think there are some people who would trade the lives of a dying Somalian they’ve never met to extend the life of their dog—and I can understand, no matter my opinion.

I speak as a secular humanist, therefore my argument hardly stems from a belief in any particular deity, nor from a book written by people who lived in a world without telephones or Google. At the base, my opinion is based on a respect for life. What many may not understand is that this is the same respect I share for any other animal or creature. It is difficult indeed to explain why I think a baby is worth as much as maggot larvae (again, is it not a devaluation of human life, it is rather an appreciation for all life).

Second, the debate also revolves around when life truly begins. Between masturbation and birth, where does one attribute life? Why may one be okay with killing those who hold an extreme opposite opinion, but do not to abort an egg that was fertilized a week prior? Again, you can tie in the appraisal of the value of life.

An Inconvenient Child

A 17-year old high school girl gets pregnant with her first sexual partner, only a month after they met. With my poorly-thought out valuing of human life, I’d say that unless it was very early in the pregnancy, or that the mother’s life was in danger, she should have the child. This is coming, however, from someone who has not lived through an unwanted pregnancy. I therefore consider my opinion to be a weak one.

It is startling to see how completely fired up people can get on either side of the debate once this hypothetical is brought up. It engulfs the debate entirely and leaves out discussions of the prevention of this situation.

Common Ground

I believe there are more important points to be debated, as I believe there is much more common ground between both sides of the argument than meets the eye. Without question, I believe that an abortion should be carried out if there is any danger to the life of the mother to proceed with the birth of the child. It is in my opinion, however, that only fraction of abortions are undertaken for this purpose. This is unfortunate, and I want it to change.

I also believe is that both pro-lifers and pro-choice supporters wish to decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies. It seems as though much of the focus is on the unwinnable philosophical and ethical grounds, as opposed to discussing actual solutions to the problem. I feel the debates should rather revolve around effective sexual education. It is in the opinion of American Psychological Association,the American Medical Association, the National Association of School Psychologists, the Society for Adolescent Medicine (endorsed by the American College Health Association), the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Public Health Association, that abstinence-only education does not work, and I would dare think it even makes matters worse. I’ve once read in a conservative blog that research has proven otherwise, according to The Heritage Foundation. Unfortunately, the latter does not cite any of its references, and I openly question the foundation’s agenda, considering the use of terms such as “out-of-wedlock childbearing”.

Positive Change

In other words, let’s cut the bullshit and teach people about the consequences of sex, how to protect oneself during sex and what it means to have a child. The day we set aside out ideological differences is the day we’ll see more positive change.

What the Hell happened to reporting on events in Iran? What’s going on there? Why the fuck are we STILL talking about Michael Jackson? What’s happening in China? Riots? How about Pakistan’s Swat region? Israelis taking over Palestinian fishing boats?

Fucksakes the world pisses me off sometimes.

That way, I could upload in people’s minds whatever it takes to fully appreciate, say, Richard Feynman. Everything from his lectures to when he tells the story about his (hilarious) stint at Los Alamos. Once you get to know how funny, kind and brilliant this man is, then you can fully appreciate chats like these:

But then again, such a machine could just as easily corrupt many people’s minds if false information were purposely forced upon them. I think it would have more of an impact than the Atomic Bomb on our entire race.

• 10 of the 20 basic amino acids necessary for life may be destined, thermodynamically, to occur whenever they can. The simple version can be found here, the medium summary here, and the actual article here. Not that anyone will be interested in reading them.

• Ants that are taking over the world

• Not surprising at all: Dolphins who have trained their human captors

• Matthew Good’s Canada Day post is worth reading, just to savor the awesome follow-up. (Gee, that website layout almost looks like my own!)

And last but not least,

• Al-Jazeera English could be broadcasting in Canada by fall. Let the rumble of the West begin. I couldn’t be happier.