From Trek to Tech: PADD, meet iPad

Now, for those of you with an interest in Technology, Apple has now broken their silence after a leak and much speculation as to what their new tech product is going to be: iPad!

Now, I don’t try to hide my inner-nerd (which I love dearly btw), but I’m a huge Star Trek fan, and it never fails to amaze me how that single television series in all of it’s incarnations has inspired our technological development. When you think about some of the tools we take for granted today that was (at least partially) inspired by Star Trek, it sort of interesting to speculate where we can go in the future. Things like Cell Phones for example: Star Trek communicator (from the original series). The Internet: Federation Database accessible from any location hooked up to it (I could be stretching here, but you never know). And several other inspirations.

Now, we have the iPad, successor to the iPhone. In essence, it’s an answer to Star Trek: The Next Generation’s PADD or Personal Access Display Device. At the time, a very exciting idea allowing multiple functions to be combined into a mobile, hand held display that wasn’t so large as to be unwieldy but not too small to be difficult to see.

Seems we have it!

Obligatory Copenhagen Post

Having not authored a post in a while, I figured I would rise today and wax polemic about Copenhagen, the massive  conference at which our government and all enviro-sinner nations, i.e. the West — of which Canada with its oilsands is the worst, we are told — will be compelled to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by set proportions regardless of the detrimental, yea disastrous, effects it might have on our economies, while also promising to transfer even more wealth from the ingenious companies and hard-working citizens of this nation via taxation to the governments and companies of poorer nations so they can combat “climate change” without hurting their economies.

Vox Day rightly argues that this is historically, scientifically, economically and politically insane.

It is historically insane because we know the planet was more than two degrees warmer as recently as 500 years ago. It is scientifically insane because we know beyond any shadow of a doubt that the world is not warming according to any of the predictions based on models which are based on the idea that higher carbon dioxide levels produce higher temperatures. It is economically insane because it strengthens the contractionary forces that are already in the process of plunging the world into the greatest depression of the modern era. It is politically insane because it reverses more than 300 years of advancing human liberty and democracy.

Adding to the insanity is the specter of “approved” middlemen, a global governance structure, managing the transfer of wealth and enforcing environmental targets.  The rank hypocrisy on display at Copenhagen leads one to believe the scams resulting from global emissions management, some of which have already started to unfold in Europe, would make the UN Oil-for-Food scandal look like petty theft.

The first impression one receives of the summit is the sheer hypocrisy of it. Here are green campaigners who damn the rest of us for the size of our “carbon footprints” and challenge us each to reduce our carbon output by one tonne per year. Yet they themselves are flying in using a squadron of private jets, hiring a fleet of limousines and gorging themselves on expensive food flown in from around the world.

In all of Denmark, there are only a few of dozen limousines for hire. So more than 1,000 of the gas-guzzling, carbon-belching behemoths have been driven to Copenhagen from Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and France. Since, at most, 140 heads of state and heads of government will attend the week-long conference, the bulk of these land yachts are being delivered for use by United Nations officials, the heads of environmental organizations and celebrities. All these people preach environmental sustainability for others, yet do not practice it themselves.

Digressing a bit, I suspect the governing “Conservatives” are thinking long and hard about their play at Copenhagen given their stronghold in Western Canada, oil country.  I’ve no doubt they’ve been inundated with queries and demands from the grassroots in light of the CRU leak, and I suspect they will take a beating on the hustings and in the pocketbook should they capitulate to the anti-freedom forces in Copenhagen and/or align Canada in any way with a carbon trading scheme.  If the CPC has any hope of forming a majority government, they’d best steer clear of these local landmines.

Back to Copenhagen, which, of course, is merely step one in the twisted world of enviro-fascism.  Oh, you didn’t hear?  Yes, the AGW prophet, Al Gore, served notice that the bar has already been raised.

Even if a deal is reached at the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen next week it will only be the first step towards the far more radical cuts that are needed in global carbon emissions, Al Gore, the former US Vice-President, told The Times last night….

He insisted that the present goal set for Copenhagen of stabilising world emissions of carbon dioxide at or below 450 parts per million — enough to prevent a rise in average global temperatures of no more than 2C — was insufficient and a safer target would be 350 parts per million.

“Insufficient.”  A fitting conclusion to an obligatory post about Copenhagen, for it reminds us that no matter what we do it will never be enough for the enviro-fascist leftards seeking to destroy Capitalism and Western freedom.  It reminds us that environmental policy has a fascist chassis and a socialist economic engine.  It reminds us that Copenhagen and all such global management endeavours are fundamentally about the transfer of power from the individual to the State.  It reminds us that freedom is being bartered under the guise of “being green.”  It reminds us to punish the CPC if they buckle.

Update 8 PM EST: Ice core context.  An absolute must see.  (Hat tip SDA.)  As has been mentioned previously, the issue is not whether we are currently in a warming period. It’s whether it is unprecedented and whether the cause is assuredly carbon dioxide and man-made emissions.

Blogs v. The Legacy Media

Occasionally the question comes up as to why I get my news from blogs instead of conventional big media news sources. Blogs are written by amateurs, they’re full of unsourced opinions, they’re poorly edited. Journalists writing for the legacy media are trained professionals following relatively strict codes of conduct, with layers of editing and access to vast amounts of well-sourced information. All true.

For an up-to-the-minute example of why blogs are superior to, for example, big newspapers, look no further than one of the least reputable of my favourite American blogs, Ace of Spades HQ: ClimateGate gets real legs – London Times reports on CRU’s thrown away raw data:

Their data ditching is actually old, high profile coverage of it and its implications, not so old.

Exactly my point. I read about the data loss weeks before the CRU email scandal broke. People relying on the London Times are only reading about this today.

Trust, But Verify

The key lesson to take away from the CRU email scandal is: trust, but verify. It’s an old expression, but it’s the key to why the “deniers” are looking prescient while the true believers look like dupes. Expert opinions are valuable for assessing many aspects of the world we live in. However, when the methods and data sources used to bolster these opinions are shrouded in secrecy this should be taken as a warning sign that something is amiss.

Peer review cuts both ways: it is a valuable tool for weeding out inappropriately formed opinions, but in the wrong hands it can just as easily be used to keep a poorly constructed “concensus” insulated from the kind of rigorous intellectual debate that a subject of this importance deserves.

With any topic of public debate, we should never trust without question opinions formed in a black box, no matter how much we otherwise trust and admire the source.

(Thanks to Instapundit, Ace of Spades, Mark Steyn and The Volokh Conspiracy)

Will Climategate Melt Away The Myths of Scientific Nobility?

Well, it looks like it didn’t take long for the doubts to begin. Hitting back at an absolutely damning development from last weekend, the folks at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which incidentally acts more like a political than a scientific body, are now claiming the OJ Simpson defence — the evidence is tampered!

Ever since this story broke earlier in the week, I keep getting brought back to this clip of Dr. David Berlinski, professor of mathematics (formerly of the University of Paris). The problem with the dogmatic climate clan is that they did have a clue, and didn’t tell us about it.

There’s a larger issue at stake here though, given the amount of credibility we invest in the research and academic professions. It’s not that good work doesn’t get done, it almost always does, and by very talented people too. However, like any other profession involving people, there is always the temptation to fudge the numbers. A CFO would be criminally negligent if he didn’t institute internal controls over money handling; likewise, an engineer who doesn’t do her due diligence on a project has to answer to the law. So, isn’t it time that there was some self-imposed regulation among the scientific community? After all, some of the research we’re talking about will mean the difference of not only dollars, but lives. What guarantees do we have that the piles of scientific goop fed to us is legitimate and free of unreasonable personal bias?

Again, other professions have taken great strides to negate the human effect so why not the science profession? Given the amount of tax dollars we give to the folks in question, is it too much to ask for a little more than the scientific method as an ethical guide for the research?

Suzuki Bonus: David Suzuki’s thoughts from an earlier time on how he sees humans (the good part starts 20 seconds in)!

Pope Looks For Extraterrestrials, So What?

I love the topic of aliens when it comes to theological issues. It seems to be a simple, straight forward issue that shows critics of Christianity, be they militant atheists, stateists and company, for the ignorant windbags that they are. I’m not sure why either, but the topic seems to melt away any pretension that these folks have of getting Christianity just by having them muddle through the implications of having alien life on other planets.

Unfortunately, it seems that the Vatican has fallen prey to this culture of confusion as it’s now launching an investigation that will, in part, deal with the ramifications of aliens existing. We should’ve expect better from the seat of Roman Catholicism, since it has so clearly drawn the line in the past on other issues that are, er, more down to Earth although as the axiom of the the believer’s faith teaches, we’re all prone to err. It’s also a shame too since ABC is currently airing a (so far) excellent remake of the 1983 classic “V” series in which a Catholic priest serves as one of the principle characters and the theological ramifications are only mentioned briefly.

Wouldn’t it strike a huge blow to Christians, especially those who are faithful to the word of Scripture, you ask? Not as much as you would think. Those who study the Bible know that it is primarily concerned with one thing: the redemptive plan of God for humanity. The state is very Earth-focused, and narrows down even further for most of the Old Testament to what’s going on in and with Israel, only to shift later in the New Testament to what is happening to churches planted in Rome, Greece and modern Turkey. Scripture could’ve written about God’s creation of little green men in Genesis 1 and 2, but for that matter, it could’ve also covered the Qin Dynasty of ancient China. Investigating and understanding why the Bible doesn’t do this is crucial to even beginning to rectify The Way with visitors from other planets — it simply doesn’t deal with the plan of salvation ordained by God, but nothing in Scripture rules out God exercising His creative power by creating other life forms.

Most Bible critics who moonlight as sci-fi buffs know this, and that’s why they try to target the redemptive implications instead. A common presumptive mistake, made by the V series mentioned above, is the automatic presumption that aliens, if they’re intelligent, would need to be redeemed.

There are three possibilities: a)yes, they need redemption; b) no, they don’t; and c) they do but they’ve been set aside as beyond redemption. In a)’s case, the aliens would be much like humanity, but before missionaries run off to expand the kingdom, it should be pointed out that God’s plan for redemption would be different for another species than it would be for humans, who are born again as children of Abraham. If a) were true, what is to say that there isn’t already a plan that God has implemented long before a visit to Earth? This is where the attacks begin to fall apart, because they simply presume to know too much. b) is the case that all the other creatures on Earth fall under, and frankly would be the most likely. The notion of innocent creatures interacting with humans is not a new idea as many faithful would see angels as fitting this role perfectly. As for c), it might not be the most politically correct, but God is beyond silly political notions anyway; nothing says that a race needs to be redeemed, and Christians already believe that demons led by Satan will not escape their punishment. The true could apply to another race of beings from space, which is why evangelists should be cautioned against falling into the trap of how the Church would handle alien beings.

Any which way though, I’m again puzzled as to how any Bible scholar would find conflict between the Bible and the mere existence of aliens. Their appearance on Earth wouldn’t necessarily surprise this author, although much like the V series, I don’t know if I would be too trusting at first either. Let’s get the facts on what we do know, namely the Christian faith, right first though before we start pondering the implications of things that only might be true!

What Jarome Iginla and Gay Marriage Have in Common

They both get people fired*.

Alberta’s health board sacked one staffer Wednesday and said more punishment may be on the way for those who let Calgary Flames players, management and family members jump the H1N1 vaccine queue.

We’ve had our own little debate here at ThePolitic regarding the H1N1 vaccine, but opinions matter not a whit compared to hard science.  So, can’t we just agree that if the Flames win the cup, the vaccine worked and saved us from the rapture, but if they get bounced in the first round, the whole thing was a giant scam cooked up by the CIA and Jenny McCarthy to sell DVDs of Things to do in Denver When You’re Dead?

(*.)

Presenting Election Target: A Fun New Site For Political Junkies & Regular Folks Too!

As many regulars around here know, I’ve been fairly quiet lately and for good reason! Since the spring, I’ve been working on a new project with some talented friends called Election Target, which aims to track democratic elections around the world and allow folks who register with the site to predict the individual district results, as well as the overall result.

While we’re still polishing off the site, I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome everyone of all political stripes to visit the site, and our maiden election coverage page — the next Canadian federal election!

For those who like prizes, we’re also giving away a $100 Amazon.ca gift card to the lucky individual who wins the draw Election Target will be holding at the end of the election (whenever our leaders decide that is!). Ballots can be earned by making correct predictions so the more ridings you predict the outcome for, the better your chances!

That’s one small step for man…

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” The immortal words that were broadcast over the air when mankind first laid foot on the moon.

Problem is, we just stood there.

Oh sure, there was the occasional foray by others to the moon to either follow up, or say that “they did too”, but beyond that point, we stood still. It’s almost as if landing on the moon became passe, or “Been There, Done That”.

Arguably, it was an action that clearly shouted the possibilities of mankind. What it was capable of as a species; and everyone cheered loudly (whether due to the accomplishment or because they beat the Russians to it), then promptly went back to sleep. More’s the pity.

Granted, the continuing Cold War monopolized the attention of nations and the hubris of those in charge of the Apollo missions refused to extend the olive branch to other nations (especially the Commies) and invite them into what could have become a new hope for the world in a vision of what could be instead of what was. The future of those missions became merely orbital experiments and inverted planet gazing instead of continuing to push the boundaries of our little blue marble in a massive expanse of black.

These days, we as a species are largely content to concern ourselves with terrestrial affairs and the social issues and distractions that accompany them with nary a thought to what could have been. A line from a movie (which I can’t recall the name of, or even the premise) has stuck out in my mind in which a character lamented the cold, narrow view and inability to accept the inexplicable and said “Have you discovered and learned everything there is to know? Is there no wonder left in your world?”

Which leads me to ask, is there no wonder left in OUR world? Have we become resigned to the mentality that by and large, we understand most things, and any new discovery is only mildly interesting? If this is the case, it’s no wonder (no pun intended) that we as a species have a difficult time stirring up hope for the future. We’ve become so trapped in keeping our feet on the ground, that we’ve forgotten the joys to be had when we put our heads in the clouds and dream of what may be.

Leave Facebook alone; forget about your privacy

The typically lazy Canadian practice of demanding the iron fists of bureaucrats to settle our inter-personal problems is being passed on from one generation to the next. These absurd demands of the federal privacy commission to protect personal information from being mined by third-party applications are nonsense. We may as well blame Microsoft for every single phishing attack that occurs on the internet.

Oh, well. Poor Facebook. I guess they have to learn old adages the hard way. If you play with fire, you get burned and what goes around, comes around.

AFTERTHOUGHTS:

Commonly, we hear the refrain that with freedom comes more responsibility. In a pragmatic sense, that has to be true. Being free today is nothing like what it meant a generation ago. The information age is exploding rapidly and we are in an extra-ordinary transition where young people are learning a new concept of freedom. Occasionally, they learn this the hard way. It is impossible to police all of this nonsense.

It is sad that these University of Ottawa Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic students look at the internet — a technological advance that offers more freedom, educational opportunities and excitement that no other generation has ever imagined — as a media that must be controlled, limited or regulated by the police.

Limitations upon Facebook or any other entertainment media are unnecessary and it is most certainly unfair to expect the tax-payer to fund the arbitration of these frivolous disputes. If you do not like Facebook do not use it. If you want privacy, do not publish your personal information to the entire world.

It is impossible to police all of the nonsense on the internet. If we set a precedent of doing so, the work for the Privacy Commissioner will soon become endless and overwhelming to the point where we will need more bureaucrats than tax-paying income earners. I wonder whether anybody with clout will pass judgement upon this new development. This is most definitely a step backwards in civilization.

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