Torture memo to the CIA

I wonder if they passed around check-lists or flow-charts so that the torturers could make D.I.Y. psychiatric diagnoses.

The Justice Department in 2002 told the CIA that its interrogators would be safe from prosecution for violations of anti-torture laws if they believed “in good faith” that harsh techniques used to break prisoners’ will would not cause “prolonged mental harm.”

Maybe they offered crash-courses on “How To Think You Are A Doctor 101″ too.

The New Europe, Same As The *Really* Old Europe…

I’ve linked to the image above because I’m getting the impression that many Canadian readers aren’t aware of what it is. Most of you would say that it’s a map of what, at any given time in its 1000 year history, was part of the massive Roman Empire of old. I wouldn’t blame you if you thought that because the resemblance is uncanny. Here’s what the Roman Empire actually held at any given time in its history:

Chop off a bit of modern-day Iraq, add on some of the Baltic and Nordic states and you’ve basically got the same thing.

So enough mystery; what you’re actually looking at in the top picture is the, as of this Sunday past, the new “Union of the Mediterranean”, a political entity which was born of such ridiculous circumstances, only the Eurocrats could’ve come up with it. This new union, which includes every current EU state, along with all but one country which borders the otherwise unimportant body of water is the baby of French President Nicholas Sarkozy, who was inspired to create the otherwise-pointless entity because the Europeans couldn’t decide whether they wanted to let Turkey into their cucumber-counting club or not. The official mandate that Sarkozy sees for the new UM (or MU?) is to promote trade, environmental protection and, eventually, European-type administration over the new conquered territo–err, members of this body that come from north Africa and the Middle East. One might suggest that the Europeans are trying to *civilize* Rome’s long-abandoned off-continent holdings again!

What strikes me as particularly amazing, although not all that surprising in retrospect, is that we now have a political entity that can in actuality become the reincarnation of the Roman Empire again not only in its ability to let western Europe influence and even dictate the domestic policy of other countries, but also in its ability to do so in a sphere of influence almost perfectly mirroring history’s most influential empire. I’m also obligated to point out that, as much as it’ll probably make Atheist dogmatics scream in agony to the contrary, it’s pretty hard to see how this new body couldn’t be capable of becoming the reincarnation of the sixth empire that the Bible says will come about again in the last days to serve as the political vehicle through which the antichrist will rule the world. To put this in perspective, what were the chances that an empire so geographically difficult to conquer on the first go and culturally diverse (see Mid-East Conflict) would become the mold through which a modern-day, diplomatic political territory be created, and in such a perfectly symmetrical way?

Speaking too of the Middle East, it is curious to see how the first meeting of the UM was so focused on reconciling the Palestinians and the Israelis; the National Post’s cover yesterday plastered the proud father-French President smiling as he hugged the Israeli PM and P.A.’s Chairman. I suppose this isn’t the time to bring up the fact that the whole tribulation is started with a peace treaty between Israel and it’s new best friend, antichrist?

I digress on the MU for the time being though. It’s still in its infancy and has yet to make any waves significant enough to reach this side of the Atlantic. It also doesn’t concern me if the usual suspects show up here to say how wrong I can be, no backing evidence or proof in hand as always! This post was more for the crowd that was expecting it sooner or later anyway, but just didn’t know when. It’s a public service message to those people because the MU was so quietly born that hardly any editor took notice…one might even say that it came “like a thief in the night!” Now I just await that talk of inking peace treaty…

Garth, Different Species and Two Different Types of Communication…

I have to apologize to Greg in advance since his requested title policy for this blog really won’t fit well tonight as I attempt to do some bullet-point blogging on a few different stories that have come up recently and deserve commenting on:

1)The Garth — Got the reception that he deserved for the “Screw the West, We’ll Take the Rest” redux. I hope he doesn’t come back to tell us he’s inclusive the next time a homosexual agenda issue comes up, but if he does, it won’t be the first time he’ll be caught directly lying to Canadians. That last note makes his quote from today all the more amusing (emphasis added):

For writing and acting in defence of my country, for opposing those who put self interests before Canada, for the decisions I have made, and the consequences they have yielded, I regret nothing.

Who knew Turner had such self-hatred?

2) Regarding the most recent evolution post, “Tom” has actually posted alleged proof for macroevolution (the effort is appreciated). Two problems though; First, after being told repeatedly by PZ Myers’ fanboys that we’ve had proof for years, this opening statement from Tom’s article doesn’t sound too compatible (emphasis really added!):

A major evolutionary innovation has unfurled right in front of researchers’ eyes. It’s the first time evolution has been caught in the act of making such a rare and complex new trait.

So, before June 9th of this year, would Darwinists have happened to have been acting on some level of faith or is the article, written by a well-respected science publication, just wrong and in need of serious correction? Secondly, I’m happy that the bacteria have discovered some new munchies, but as was brushed upon in the definition of a species argument, can we indicate if these lemon-sucking bacteria are in fact a completely different species from their brethren and not just hungrier?

3) I cannot sit by any longer when it comes to Harris-Decima. The Toronto Star’s resident polling firm (that should tell you a lot about their credibility right there!) has been doing weekly polls recently that indicate a trend in which the Harper Government is now on par with dog food in popularity questions they ask. However, their latest butcher job shows over 60% of Canadians preferring massive carbon taxes if

the rising price of fossil fuels is a reason we must move even more aggressively to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels

.

That’s a big if to be assuming there, and one that even I would agree with, were I actually polled. However, I thought the article the quote appears in was called Canadians want climate action now, poll suggests, not (oh, I don’t know), Canadians want action now to end addiction to high gas prices, addiction to oil, poll suggests. Oh, The Star…

4)Finally, it’s always cute to see the NDP attempt to orchestrate some sort of public backlash via the government. Of course, what will really happen is that NDP will fail but consumers will take care of themselves by canceling phone plans and the sort. The phone carriers might think that their government-mandated cartel creates a highway robbery scenario, but there are still millions of us non-mobile Canadians who make do just fine without cells, and it’ll stay that way until someone approaches us with a reasonable cell phone plan!

SEE ALSO: Joanne indicates she’ll be first blood if the new texting fees come in; looks like you got a winner here guys! Right From Alberta also noticed an interesting point about the NDP’s petition to stop these fees.

The Real Morgentaler Scandal

Four national newspaper chains, a bunch of chatty heads and literally hundreds of blogs and still, we seem to have all missed the boat on this one. Regardless of whether you see the new Order of Canada recipient as a mass-murderer or human rights crusader, the history doesn’t lie: Dr. Henry Morgentaler broke the law of the land, and was charged for it twice (in 1970 and in 1983). While he was acquitted the first time, it took a Supreme Court ruling to spare him from serving his full sentence. Now, before all of you pro-abortionists go ahead and disregard this as an evolution in our sensibilities, the law, or just the abortion lobby’s face-saving abilities, I should remind you to think about what you are endorsing. While the 1980s saw the social pendulum swing your way, the pandora’s box of contextual laws and rights can just as easily favour, say, a “crusader” like James Kopp who trashes our murder laws, but does so in order to stop other murders, or with rogue doctors who ignore the Canada Health Act and charge patients for their services, or companies who have strict hiring practices against gays. Yes, these ideas seem remote right now, but that’s the funny thing about trends — they change. At least if we still had a respect for the rule of law in this land, good intentions would not be an excuse that could be held up in the face of a blatant disrespect and disregard for the tools through which our society keeps its stability. I’m not even saying that Morgentaler is necessarily morally wrong just for breaking the law (although I personally believe he is), but rather that it’s a pretty sad day when the government rewards one of its citizens for so publicly snubbing it. Buller?

Darwin’s “Well, Dress Me Up And Call Me Science!” Tour Comes To Canada

In comparison to it’s American release, the Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed movie which challenges the dogma of Darwinian evolution has come to Canada with less of a ripple but alongside the symbolic victory of Mark Steyn over the “BC Human Rights’ Tribunal” and its thought crimes division. Using the tried and true methods of decrying anything that deviates from the notion that all life magically appeared on the Earth at some unpredictable point in the past and then morphed into the species we see today, the Darwinian apologists attacked the movie as being too friendly to deism and discussing ideas that *aren’t real science*. The former argument is trivial, overly emotional and frankly not worth discussing and more than saying that Atheists are always going to hate every other religion out there since one of their key beliefs is that their faith is being held back by all the rest, even if they merely exist (the complex behind this is another blog for another day by another blogger).

As for the latter though, wouldn’t it be interesting if we, for one moment, got truly investigative and turned the tables on the all too comfortable Darwinians who have become yet another group to hijack our education system for their own self-preservation and motives? After all, in the noise of bitter reviews, intimidating threats and exhaustive and bewildered requests to anti-Darwinists to just shut up, I think the evolution debate has failed to examine a key component: whether the theory of Charles Darwin is truly something worth wasting time on in the science class to begin with. After all, a physicist who learns anything from F=MA to the hydrogen fusion reaction that is continually taking place at the centre of our sun to even string theory is able to take that knowledge and apply it to the benefit of mankind in a strictly physical sense. Even if the highly controversial string theory proves to be a dead end, what it would tell us about how elementary particles don’t interact would help us to zone in on other understandings and ultimately give us a better way to understand the very microscopic. In turn, that would allow us to apply our knowledge one day to advancements that might, for example, allow for microscopic computers that write data onto quarks, just as F=MA gave us the first building blocks we needed to put a man on the moon. Chemistry need only need mention of companies like DOW or Pfizer to prove its contribution to our modern society and even a late-comer to quantitative analysis, biology, will soon prove invaluable to an entire generation of baby-boomers who are in the midst of retiring from the workforce currently. In fact, the driving force behind science is not just getting to have a better understanding of the world around us, from the very small to the very large, but also being able to apply that knowledge in some fashion.

When it comes to the necessity to teach Darwinian evolution in a grade 7 classroom, or high school, or even university, what is the purpose? I mean, we can keep clubing each other over the head about how detrimental it is to society for the other side to get a voice in on the debate, but as I noted above, the debate always ends up in the realm of the meta-physical; things pertaining to the existence, or lack thereof, of God! Has evolution allowed us to come up with any great invention or advancement? Is it so essential to our understanding of biology or chemistry that twelve year-olds need to understand it if they are going to pass their high school biology or chemistry courses? Or are we all fooling ourselves here, using findings that more properly belong in the hit-or-miss fields of archeology and social science to indoctrinate young minds with what is practically nothing more than a contemporary, social statement?

The fact is that evolution is still very much stuck in in the past, and will continue to be until it can offer actual testifiable evidence of one species giving way to another over the course of two or more generations. It’s all about the findings in the dirt, the rock layers and the pretty pastel pictures that appear in text books. The funny thing about history is that as it becomes more remote, the possibilities of the imagination grow exponentially. It’s also the truth that if evolution was so essential for our children to learn, I should have never graduated from university, nor anyone else who currently walks to Earth and believes that evolution deserves a more skeptical analysis, since the understanding of that knowledge should have been essential in understanding everything from RNA-DNA reactions to the immune system. Evolution should have to be to biology what F=MA is to physics if the official story is to be believed, wherein a student that fails to acknowledge the very foundations cannot comprehend or excel while studying the more advanced topics.

So as Expelled comes out this weekend in a fraction of the theatres it did in the US back in April, you’ll probably see a few fireworks fly as the Darwinians campaign to remain the only kid on the block. What the movie will continue to do though is extend a debate that has lasted for over 150 years and certainly isn’t going away; a debate where a lot of questions could be and should be asked. Ultimately, the most dangerous of those question for Darwinians isn’t “Can you prove it?”, although they certainly hate that one. Rather, if they want to spend valuable class time teaching my son or daughter about their great theory about nothing, the worst thing they could hear back from my kid is “So what?” The runner up might sound something like “Why are you so concerned about us hearing from the competition?”

Julie Couillard was a brothel madame in Montreal

A former immigration councilor insists that Julie Coulliard operated two brothels in Montreal where the prostitutes were young immigrant women. She also stated that Couillard was once a stripper herself.

This is all over the French language news but not a word among English Canada. Maybe Anglophones are bored of this story or maybe they are too prudish? Who knows?

UPDATED: (June24th, 2008 — 9:30AM)
I have not been able to find any written online support of this but the radio broadcast says that these brothels serviced businessmen, diplomats and politicians.

A Pictorial History of Enviro-Mentalism…

Thanks to Celestial Junk for coining the phrase, “Enviro-Mentalism“.

A long time ago in Vancouver, the earth was green.  Except before that, it was denuded at the turn of the century by logging companies - which is why 90% of the massive “old growth” trees in Stanley Park are less than 100 years old, and the forested mountains the give our fair city it’s emerald wreath are all “second growth” which isn’t supposed to happen according to the enviro-mentalists.

But I digress.

In those halcyon days, the evil supermarkets used these harbingers of the apocalypse: the brown paper bag to hold groceries.

Of course, the righteous ecological denizens of Vancouver rallied to fight this plague.  Our groceries were decimating the forests!  The owls, the bears!  They would have no home because of our evil bags!

Enter the plastic bag.  Ah, these little marvels cost us nothing, and they could be recycled into all manner of useful things, like fleece vests and children’s playground equipment!

But sadly, people couldn’t be bothered to recycle.  They used them as trash bags instead of stockpiling them and handing them into the local recycler.  Hence, off to the dreaded landfill, to fill up our world with non-bio-degradeable petrochemically based waste!

Now a new solution arises: the reusable cotton bags!  Now we have to worry about washing our bags, and now we have to pay for our garbage bags - plastic is still going to the landfill with every trash run, but now we can feel better about ourselves as we shop… and pack our own bags… and worry if they are dirty or not… and pay more for both them and for the garbage bags we have to use anyways…

Never mind the otherwise arable land that could be used for foodstuffs instead of growing cotton…

But I digress.

But this history is not just about groceries.  Now the history affects not just the buying of plants, but the discarding of plants.

We used to just load up our trucks, drive out to the sticks, and dump our grass clippings alongside of the road in the ditch.  Same went for sticks, weeds, etc.  We thought it was good - the green waste would just be absorbed by the forest or dirt, naturally compost back into the ground.

But no, in the big city, that is far too messy.  They started fining people for “dumping” leaves twigs and grass in amongst the naturally occurring leaves, twigs and grass.  Then they sent around “green waste” trucks and charging us for the convenience.  They demanded that we put the “green waste” in clear plastic bags.

Now, it seemed silly to put stuff that will ultimately pass into the soil in non-recyclable bags, but we did so because the pickup guys said they had to “see” that we weren’t stashing garbage in with the green waste.

Now however, the environmentalists have finally gotten wind of the evils of plastic bags.  “Cease and desist!  Evil clear petrochemicals!”  Now we must use…

Yes!  The paper bag!  Because they are bio-degradeable!  Where they used to be free at the grocery store, it’s now 5 for $3!

Funny thing is, with the old clear bags, they never cared how much I put in them.  I could stuff them as full as I want.  But now in this brave new world of paper bags and labelled receptacles, I have twice been denied pickup because it was “too heavy”.

With grass clippings.

And the forests will still be chopped down, mercilessly.

And we have to pay.  And pay.  And pay.  And pay.  And pay.

Failure of democracy in Zimbabwe

I think Mr. Tsvangirai is making the right decision.

At a news conference, Mr. Tsvangirai, who leads the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, or M.D.C., said he was unwilling to ask the party’s supporters to go to the polls on Friday “when that vote will cost them their lives.”

Giving up their lives just to go through the motions of an election would be a foolish sacrifice. No matter what the result of the election, a peaceful transfer of power would never take place.

Catholics help girl get abortion

When Catholics fire Catholic employees for un-Catholic actions, it is an outrage. However, when the state fires Catholics for un-Catholic actions, it is fine and dandy — they even get the Catholic authorities to help:

Officials have called the matter to the attention of U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) headquarters in Washington, urging it to prevent any repetition of the incident.

As far as the state is concerned, the main difference solely seems to be administrative:

It is illegal in Virginia for a social worker to sign a parental consent form for an abortion.

The morality of the actions do not seem relevant.

Nobody can possibly know the motives of the people who facilitated this girl’s abortion. All we can do is respond to their actions which, in my opinion, sabotage the Church. I find this whole thing to be demonically appalling and my rage is directed at Catholics. Any and all of the Catholics who knowingly facilitated this horror should be publicly shamed.

I want to re-iterated my recommendation that the Church should stop any partnerships with the state.

Competition Bureau accusation of gasoline collusion in Quebec

I want the Competition Bureau of Canada to disclose transcripts and tapes of the telephone conversations from their recent investigations of alleged gasoline cartels in Quebec. Without seeing their actual proof, I will not accept that a true cartel existed or at least one that warranted paying civil servants to stop. The way I figure, the cheapest and honest way of intervening is with threatening to release the proof as soon as it is discovered — not with a lengthy government investigation where some divine judgement is handed down from on high. Some people may think otherwise. Nevertheless, it warms my heart to read this:

The Competition Bureau devotes considerable resources to investigating allegations that competitors have engaged in price-fixing, also referred to as cartel activity.

Cartels are not stable. For any hypothetical cartel, each member can always profit by cheating, under-cutting and breaking the cartel. It makes no sense to think they can be a real threat to the consumer for any considerable length of time. Furthermore, there is nothing morally wrong with one retailer calling to find out the price of a competitor particularly when the goal is to under-cut his price. Just placing a telephone call is not proof that collusion occurred to raise prices. I have not found transcripts anywhere on the Bureau’s website or elsewhere on the internet. If somebody can direct me, I would be much obliged.

Blaming rising prices on cartels is too easy and getting governments to intervene can be foolhardy. In fact, government threats and interventions may contribute to anti-competitive behavior in the market and make things worse for the consumer. The Bureau offers immunity to retailers who participate in the investigations — that can actually subvert competition in the market by pitting one retailer against an other. To illustrate, an evil-retailer can instigate the formation of a cartel and rope his unsuspecting competitors into a trap. Once the cartel is rolling, the evil-retailer gets immunity after informing the bureau of a cartel in his local market.

So, at the end of the day, if one of these alleged cartel gas stations in Quebec goes out of business as a result of these penalties, I doubt the consumer will be better off — but his competitors will certainly be happy. Will the taxes spent in this investigation be a worthwhile investment? I doubt it.

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