Privacy Policy Immutability

• SDAP Privacy Will Only Improve Your Protection And Never Become More Lax The Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party takes seriously the privacy of all Saskatchewan people. We are currently working with the Saskatchewan Elections Office to improve the privacy of Saskatchewan political contributors.

I should be taking screen shots of this stuff.  Honestly.

I would definitely like to know how an unregistered political party is working with Elections Saskatchewan on anything.  I mean, perhaps some one involved with the SDAP is working with them but an organization that doesn’t exist can’t do much as an organization can it?

Man, and I thought delays on a coming contract would result in boredom.

Ok, so I have to add to this post because I can’t stop the laughter.  I decided to take a screen shot.  Any idea how a political party that’s not registered, has never fielded a candidate (I forgot that in fact they did field a candidate in a by-election once under the SK Heritage Party banner) or even tells you who the leadership consists of could have pulled this off?  I wonder where they got the picture.  I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that the picture in the screen shot isn’t an SDAP convention of any sort.

Oh and since I’m holding down the couch today, a quick phone call to Elections Saskatchewan results in “Democratic Action Party?  I’ve never actually heard of them.”

Prairie politics are by tradition, fascinating with the possible exception of Manitoba.  I mean yeah sure, they had Gary Filmon who by all accounts is considered by many to have been a part of vote rigging in the mid 90s but he wasn’t found guilty in that scandal.  Shucks, even if he was, it wouldn’t have amounted to much more than dirty pool in politics which is par for the course.  So yeah, Manitoba doesn’t really get a spot in this discussion but Alberta and Saskatchewan have an interesting history of various political groups causing changes in the landscape here.

As with any colourful land scape, you might end up seeing something that just doesn’t seem quite in place or perhaps something that just catches your eye as seemingly different and fascinating.  Heck, since we’re talking prairie politics, you might just see a ten car pile up hovering above a herd of antelope crossing the golden gate bridge in the oil patch.  Yes, it can be damned odd and this brings us to the Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party.

The SDAP was registered as an official political party in Saskatchewan some time ago and was voluntarily deregistered later on, losing its party status.  From what I remember, I believe that took place before they even had a chance to participate in a provincial election.  Somewhere around 2007 I think.  Anyhoo, while they were in existence, they had some incredible claims.  At Giant Political Mouse, the claims came to be known that they had over 36,000 members.  Heck, so powerful were they that they even had a thriving legal department which at one point, the person posting on behalf of the SDAP started signing at the end of their posts and e-mails.  Just check out the GPM post, it’s hilarious.

But yeah, anyhow, digging back in my memory, I can recall having contacted the guy behind this thing myself.  I never actually managed to figure out his name I don’t think but the exchange was priceless.  All about how the SDAP was leaving Elections Saskatchewan behind, forming their own electoral authority and changing the face of the province as we knew it.  I was further invited to their sprawling office (supposedly thousands of square feet) to be served with some kind of legal notice or some such thing.  It really was funny.

So the reason I blog about the SDAP today is because I noticed that they still have a website hosted on a Shaw account.  It can be found here.  It’s interesting of course that they would maintain a web presence as a political party even though they aren’t a political party in the province.  Also on youtube, there’s an “SDAP 2011″ channel with a place holder video of sorts so who knows what the future holds.

I really hope that the SDAP comes back for the next provincial election.  In a world of political horse hockey, it’s nice to have a few chuckles at the expense of people who have obviously lost their sanity trying to cope with politicians.

Oh and about their website, just a word of warning as I stifle my laughter long enough to type.  This is from their legal disclaimer.

YOU MUST BE A SASKATCHEWAN RESIDENT & CITIZEN: TO ACCESS THIS WEBSITE. All communication (specially including all information of any kind contained in this web site) between the Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party and Citizens of Saskatchewan is Private Communication protected under the Criminal Laws of Canada; accessing it constitutes a criminal trespass.

Read that?  You’re not allowed to even look at the website if you’re not a “citizen” of Saskatchewan.  Never mind that the province doesn’t dole out citizenship but…aww heck.  If that language wasn’t clear enough for you,

All Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party Web pages and all information, symbols, formats, graphics and everything else including the physical web space on the servers is Private and is Private Communication between the Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party and the Citizens of Saskatchewan who support the SDAP. It is a Criminal Act under the Criminal Code of Canada to violate private communications as determined solely by the Chief Official Agent of the SDAP or to view, download, save or otherwise use information on SDAP web pages or other formats in any manner by the Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party except for the sole purpose of supporting the Saskatchewan Democratic Action Party.

Oh my…I really can’t stop myself from busting a gut.

EDIT:
OOH OOH OOH!  OH THEY HAVE A TWITTER PAGE TOO!

http://twitter.com/SDAP2011

That does it.  I’m a follower!  I wonder if they’ll prosecute me for looking at their twitter feed since I’m not a supporter of the unregistered party that wants my vote.

Tip o’ the hat.

Basically, Google wasn’t happy with video material that was critical of U.S. President Obama.  As hyperbolic as I think it is, I’ve watched The Obama Deception and I can’t for the life of me think of it as hate speech.  It’s exceptionally critical of government and is very hyperbolic as it draws amazing conclusions from evidence that is incidental in most cases but attacking a protected group?  Not unless government is a protected group I don’t think.

Google has really disappointed here and the attitude they have taken toward the free flow of information on the web is frightening.  Google started out as an academic tool and the founders of Google even presented a paper in which they objected to advertising dollars monetizing Google saying that it would rob it of it’s credit as an academic tool.  I think perhaps the power and domination of Google has indeed robbed it of impartiality and credibility as it seems to take this odd attitude that Google can build the web according to its own vision.

Like I said, I’m not a fan of Alex Jones but I can’t imagine feeling justified in calling for his material on the Internet being banned, blocked or otherwise censored.  Google understands its influence on the web and to abuse that influence in silencing dissenting viewpoints that the corporation finds objectionable is just simply wrong.

Political organizations are great and important but I think social homes for like minded people are much more so. So in that spirit, I decided to leave the libertarian political side alone for a while and offer a social circle instead. Heck, I know for me myself, I do miss the opportunity to socialize with libertarians myself anyway.

So check out http://www.meetup.com/saskatoon-libertarians/ and see what you think if you’re the type that happens to like the idea of personal liberty and freedom.

The video authors are right; we do live in exponential times.  It’s extraordinarily wonderful to think that perhaps in just a few short decades, we could have the computational power to figure out how to de-construct the solar system.

I view this video with wide eyes hope and appreciation for the progress that is coming as well as that which has already passed us by.  It is, without a doubt, absolutely beautiful.

UPDATE:

The following is an update to the video above.  Watch them both as they’re different in the statistics they give.  This one is just as beautiful as the last.

Now, I know this is really bad but if you’ve ever gone to sit in the public galleries at the provincial parliament in Ontario, the National Assembly in Quebec or any of the other provincial legislative bodies in Canada or in the House of Commons in Ottawa, you would understand that this kind of attitude is common place.

The fact that the CBC article details a conservative politician’s exclamation of some kind of horrified realization that LeBlanc just gave the finger is flatly hilarious because the finger is just a gesture.  heckling is so common place that I doubt any semblance of intellectually honest debate in these assemblies is something that ever even existed.

Read more about clowns dressing in suits and ties here.

In your Jan’ 27th article, “judge cracks down on dope dealers” Judge Bernadette Schmaltz said in sentencing two people convicted of trafficking in marijuana, that she had to render a serious sentence that would discourage others from taking part in the drug trade.  As common as this fallacious reasoning is, it becomes no more sensical today than it was during the time of alchohol prohibition in the 20s or in the Ottoman Turkey when coffee was prohibited.  There has always been a ready supply of any consumer product that is made illegal by a government willing to give a moral judgment the force of law.

If prohibitionists could point to just a single country where prohibition did not result in a dangerous and thriving black market made more bloody and profitable by increasingly punishing laws, perhaps their argument would begin to appear sane.  Currently, harsh sentences do nothing but drive up prices and profit and should these policies deter some from entering the trade, there will always be others willing to risk a loss of freedom or even death for the right price to a market that always manages to demonstrate a demand for an illicit product.

Judge Schmaltz has done nothing to deter the drug trade and has only made her community more dangerous than it was before.

The drug war has continued on unabated for decades and decades around the world.  It has in many forms been fought for as long as history may remember and it has always failed in every single instance.  It is for this reason that I know prohibition is the wrong way of approaching drug policy but also gives me pause.  For if it has continued this long, how much longer will it continue before those who benefit from it will finally end it?

Really, it’s just because I wanted some kind of vent for a simple exclamation of anger, shock and horror after seeing some of that Psychic Kids show.

So yeah.  Follow me or something and I’ll follow you back.  I have no idea where we’ll end up but what an adventure we’ll have!  Honest!

Now, I look back to our recent history when A&E had quality productions and The Learning Channel was actually about learning rather than home decorating.  I actually used to like TV a lot because there was genuinely fascinating content on there.  The snippet of what I paid attention to tonight on A&E however was so incredibly despicable that I can’t help but even feel terribly sad and heart broken looking back on how these networks used to approach content development.

Psychic Kids focuses on a subject and goes on to feed that subject’s delusions.  Often, a kid is either convinced of seeing dead creatures and or people and that claim then seems to be bolstered by a parent, other familiar person and of course, some one from the show.  In this case, it was a couple of psychic “professors” I think who were dedicated to helping kids with paranormal psychic abilities.

Imagine the adolescent standing there, being filmed by a film crew, realizing he’s going to be broadcast to millions and the super-intuitive psychic says to him “I can sense that you’re a little nervous” or something to that effect.  Well no way!

Of course stories are told of the prejudices suffered by those with paranormal abilities and so on and the subject of the show (always an adolescent of course in this show) and they’re encouraged to stave off any ideas that perhaps if they are truly seeing things, it could be an illness.  No, never mind treating an illness!  It’s a psychic ability and pumping a kid full of drugs would just be child abuse!!!

Of course, drug treatments should actually be a next to last resort for mental illnesses but certainly going the other way and making out as though seeing a ghostly white wolf in a field was a vision is perhaps even worse.

I was absolutely sickened by what I saw for just 10 minutes or so on A&E.  It was a despicable show created by despicable human beings taking advantage of very vulnerable youth.  I can’t believe I saw what I saw and that it was internationally syndicated!

“You must have a vested interest in this issue” is seemingly a standard for debate.  It’s aggravating and beyond frustrating to hear this time and time again.  I’m pro-choice but guess what, I have never had an abortion seeing as I seem to be a guy.  Should I try to get an abortion to make sure I’m really pro-choice and then have a vested connection to the issue?  Should I start smoking pot so I can justify my stand on repealing drug prohibition?  Maybe I should take up snorting coke and injecting heroin too?

For the life of me, I can’t understand this need to be intrinsically connected to an issue if you’re debating it or discussing it.

One of the things that have set me off recently is the laws which would expose homosexuals to the death penalty in Uganda.  In response to something I said about it being so terrible, some one postulated that “group think” was behind this issue and that homosexuality shouldn’t be accepted by the nations of the world.

Well you know, I’ve had a pretty good run for a couple of years now in maintaining my composure and not flipping out in response to ignorance.  I think I’m losing it though, have been for a little while now.  Of course the issue is not this idea that homosexuality should be promoted, the issue is of those in Uganda being put to death for what is nothing more than a moral judgment being given the most terrible force of law and how human beings are being treated with no respect as to their rights.

I’m really sick and tired of this idea that people shouldn’t just simply argue for something that’s right.  fight for what you think is just and reasonable.  Don’t fight because it’s of direct benefit to you, just do something because it’s right to do it!

I think a care package is certainly in order.

Seriously though, is anyone else as pissed off as I am that police can charge some one with assaulting a police officer by simply walking by them and making minimal contact?  Is anyone as pissed as I am that the most innocent movement when police have you under three sets of knees and a few elbows can result in a charge of resisting arrest even if you are not?

I guess I’m asking, does anything else think police are thugs deserving of little or no respect?  ‘Cause…I certainly do.  Might be different if they stuck to protecting victims from crime but as it is now, the occasional good deed by a police officer does not vindicate them in abusing their power no?

Here’s the deal.

I’m spending time away from home for work (as I normally do) and since work has had it’s share of hiccups, I’ve yet to actually log any hours doing anything yet this week.  I’ve been sitting about going just a little crazy cooped up in a rental room doing a lot of nothing for the past couple of days.  I’ll admit that beyond using stumbleupon to find random websites of interest and harassing teenagers on omegle, I peruse the personal ads from a number of localities on kijiji.  What can I say?  It’s good for a chuckle at the very least.

Checking out the “men seeking women” category for a particular region, I came across a very unexpected personals ad.  Among the boring, mundane, interesting and outlandish, I managed to spot the potentially disturbing.  Read below for yourself.

So, here’s my problem.  I don’t think polygamy is a bad thing.  I do however think that polygamy as justified by religious movements is typically, very badly abused.  It seems to me that using God and religious practice to keep multiple wives (why is it almost never multiple husbands?) is a cop out to those who are acting in a selfish manner.  I can’t honestly speak to the motivation of polygamous husbands acting as the head of a large family but from what we have seen of religious polygamy in Canada and the United States, it is far from liberating for women involved.

Polygamists must face facts that polygamy does not exactly have a friendly face.

Personally, I can’t imagine that most people are emotionally equipped to handle the stresses of sharing a life partner with some one else.  I very dearly love my partner and I can’t imagine sharing her with some one that would also claim to love her as I do.  It would be equally difficult I think, to claim in earnest that I could love two or more women at the same time.

So, what kind of thing does this make you think of?  If this were an ad posted for your local area, would you be wondering who the family is?  Would you care?  Would you be worried for the family members or would you give the benefit of the doubt and assume a large family with strong values as stated in the ad?

I’m not entirely sure what to think.  I am of the mind that people should do as they please but the problem with religious polygamous families is that women in particular are often coerced in some fashion.

It would seem, that Hawaii never legally became a state.  Oh sure, the vote was taken and Hawaiians voted overwhelmingly for statehood over being a territory but looking at and accepting the result as a simple truism is to ignore the cause.  How did Hawaii actually become a territory in the first place and was it traded away from the indigenous people that lived there?  The answer is a fairly complex story that I’ll try and simplify here.

Hawaii actually used to be an independent nation overseen by a Monarchy.  Going even further back to see how the monarchy was established, you could read on how local chieftains were warred upon and their lands claimed by a central power.  Bloody but legitimate in a way.  The manner in which the monarchy was put down in the late 1800’s however is a different sort of tale.

The Monarchy was styled after British governance in 1795 and successive constitutions over the years limited the power of the Monarch in phases, placing it in the hands of an elected legislature.  American and European influences on the island nation ensured that these groups enjoyed more rights as elected law makers under each successive constitution.  What remained clear however was that the Monarchy and constitutional government that existed was independent of any other nation.

Hawaii was undoubtedly its own independent state.

As the United States did its thing, American plantation owners shipped sugar to the main land in boat loads.  Unfortunately, despite the sugar being grown in large part by American land owners, it was subject to tariffs as Hawaii was an independent nation.  It was a terrible sight for Americans to look on as their own government made more money off their sugar crops than they did.

Speculation seems to indicate that the solution thought of by American and European landowners was to have Hawaii cede its sovereignty to the United States and become a dependant territory under American rule.  Among the over 40,000 Hawaiians at the time, a group that advanced this idea made up almost entirely of American and European land owners (and numbering about 400 members) pushed this agenda with incredible vigour.

We’re skipping over a lot but unless I want to make this post as long as a short novel, we’ll forge ahead to the Hawaiian constitution of 1887.  It was nicknamed by its opponents as the “bayonet constitution” because King David Kalakaua was threatened with his death should he not sign it.  The new constitution stripped the Monarch of almost all of what remained of his personal powers and established cabinet government.  It also empowered the people to elect members of the House of Nobels who had previously been appointed by the Monarch.  generally speaking, this doesn’t sound so bad but the constitution did a few other things which we would probably look back on as questionable.

Firstly, it increased the value of property required by eligible voters.  This further disenfranchised a number of native Hawaiians.  The constitution also denied voting rights to Asians, some of which had become naturalized subjects of the Hawaiian monarchy.  Americans and Europeans were also given voting rights on the island Nation without requiring citizenship.

After King David’s death, his sister Lili?uokalani ascended the throne and received petitions from 2/3rds of her native Hawaiian subjects in support of drafting a new constitution restoring some power to the Monarchy and stripping American and European residents of the suffrage they had obtained after the signing of the bayonet constitution.  When it was found that she intended to draft and declare the new constitution unilaterally, a group of American and European residents formed a “committee of safety” which would shortly after, seek to remove the Queen from her office and annex Hawaii to the United States.

Rebellion could be felt in the air and a quick and bloodless coup was sought by the American and Europeans on the Island.  To force the issue, they approached the Queen with a threat of force and backed that up with a sympathetic United States Government Diplomat, John L. Stevens.  Stevens ordered the landing of 162 uniformed marines from the USS Boston.  The marines marched to Arion Hall directly across the road from the Queen’s Iolani Palace.  This show of force and demands by the Committee of Safety resulted in the Queen surrendering to “superior forces of the United States of America” in an effort to avoid any bloodshed on the Island.

Not only is it important to note that Stevens did not have the authority to order such a landing as the basis for landing troops was spurious at best, but also that Queen Lili?uokalani surrendered not to annexationists on the Island, but to “superior forces of the United States of America” that had landed.  In her statement, she not only protested the action carried out against the constitutional government but made clear that it was not possible without the actions of Stevens who she said declared support for those claiming to have established a provisional government on the Island.

In short, Queen Lili?uokalani never yielded her sovereignty to Americans and Europeans on the Island, but had surrendered to American forces who had landed under an authority that did not Exist.  Presumptively, Stevens recognized the provisional government’s legitimacy on behalf of the US and established Hawaii as a protectorate.  Immediately afterwards, the provisional government sent a delegation to Washington with a treaty of annexation in hand.  No delegation of behalf of the queen was allowed to travel on the steamer they had chartered.  Then American President Benjamin Harrison immediately sent the treaty to the senate for further discussion and ratification.

After President Grover Cleveland was elected, he immediately informed the Senate that talk of annexation was to be halted and he sent a commissioner to the island nation to determine the events that had lead up to the establishment of the Provisional government and the overthrow of the Monarchy.  This resulted in the Blount report.

In his report, James Blount wrote that he could not find a single person in favour of annexation that was eager or even willing to have the issue bought to a popular vote and that U.S. Minister to Hawaii Stevens had landed troops under a false or exaggerated pretext to support anti-royalists.  He had participated in forbidden partisan activities in the capacity of his office which were instrumental in the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarch.  The report resulted in Stevens being recalled to the United States in disgrace followed by his nearly immediate forced retirement.

After much investigation, Cleveland sent a message to Congress calling the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy an act of war made on the presumed authority of an American diplomat and without any authority of Congress, the only political body in the United States with the authority to do so.

Lili?uokalani was offered restoration by President Cleveland in exchange for amnesty being granted to the Americans who had been responsible for her overthrow.  She refused outright but the new American Minister to Hawaii eventually persuaded her to accept the terms.  President Cleveland then sent a message to the Hawaiian provisional government’s president, Sanford Dole, ordering him to dissolve the provisional government and restore Queen Lili?uokalani to her throne.  Dole vehemently refused and president Cleveland sent the matter to congress which then authorized the Morgan report.

The Blount report was countered by the Morgan report which found no fault with anyone involved in the overthrow aside from the Queen.  It in fact gave the United States a completely blameless slate and vilified Queen Lili?uokalani.  Morgan was an annexationist and though he was a democrat, sympathized publicly with the republican expansionists at the time.  The Morgan report was so controversial even in its own committee that none of the U.S. Senators who authorized it would sign it for differing reasons.  Indeed, the only signature appearing on the executive summary of the report is that of Morgan himself.

To bring us back to an important legal issue, despite all that had happened, the Queen still had not surrendered her sovereignty to the revolutionaries.  Indeed, the provisional government that had been established had neither the majority support of Hawaiians, nor a legitimate claim to sovereignty over that of the Hawaiian monarchy.

Amid Queen Lili?uokalani’s delay in accepting the terms of her restoration, Cleveland was replaced by pro-annexation President William McKinley in 1897.  Hawaii was annexed to the United States the following year.

When the chance to become a state came up, Hawaiians voted overwhelmingly in favour of becoming a state.  The only other choice offered on the ballot was to remain an American Territory.  A great deal of criticism was levelled at the ballot issue as the question did not include an option of independence.  Even if it had however, there still remains the criticism of no one having properly claimed sovereignty from the Hawaiian monarchy.

The final blow in the case for Hawaii’s illegal overthrow is U.S. Public Law 103-150 signed by President Bill Clinton in 1992.  It is a clear admission that the overthrow was illegal and that the Queen indeed never surrendered her authority to the island nation’s revolutionaries.

You know what though…in the end, it doesn’t seem to matter.  Despite all the evidence of an illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian government aided by the United States and the admission of the American government to such a fact, I guess the sentiment seems to be “Hawaii is ours now and that’s that.  We’re not giving it back.”

Practically, Hawaii is the 50th U.S. state.  Legally, I think it’s still an independent nation.

Doctors require a great deal of education and know more about diagnosing and treating illnesses than I likely ever will.  Doctors must be able to achieve incredible academic feats to become a doctor.  Doctors do require brain power.

That being said, a lot of them are pricks and I am constantly reminded why I have so very little patience for them.

The thing I have heard a couple of times now is that a doctor requires a special license to sign a medical marijuana access regulations form granting a patient exemption from the controlled drugs and substances act in possessing marijuana for medical reasons.  No such license to sign said forms exists and any doctor who has been told it is required is either misinformed or enough of an absolute god damned prick to mislead their patients just so they don’t have to deal with them on a controversial topic any more.

Let’s be clear here.

ANY GENERAL PRACTITIONER OF MEDICINE IN CANADA CAN SIGN A MEDICAL MARIJUANA FORM!

Some ailments for which medical marijuana may be obtained (not prescribed.  An MMAR card is not a prescription)  do also require the endorsement of a specialist but again, no special license is required of a GP to sign a medical marijuana application.

Doctors are generally a close minded bunch who deal with us, the uninformed and unwashed masses of course; but I just wish that every so often they would come off their damned pedestals or even be honest with their patients.

omegle is a service that costs nothing and when engaged in it, doesn’t even have any advertisements.  Click on a random chat and you might end upw ith something like the following.

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!

You: I just started a chat with you.

Stranger: oh really

You: Well I think so. how do I verify?

Stranger: probably by looking at your scren!

You: Well, this has been fun Thanks.

You have disconnected.

I have made no loans as of yet but I’m just about to do so to figure out where this money should go to helping third world entrepreneurs realize their dreams and needs.  I strongly encourage you to do the same by opening a KIVA lender’s account to fund micro loans to those in the third world.

Though KIVA does work with some micro lenders in North America, I have decided that my KIVA money will not be lent to any North American entrepreneurs.  This is a personal matter of principle in not defeating the purpose that I see behind KIVA as assisting economic progress in the third world.

Recently, I managed to mix myself up in some one’s religious views on a blog comment under a post linking to a debate about whether or not Atheism could be considered a new kind of fundamentalism.  What I had to say as a short comment managed to offend some one, another sask’ blogger.  Actually, his blog ain’t so bad for a pastor’s blog.  I mean, he does call the senate  “a festering pustule on the arse-end of Canada’s democracy” in one of his recent postrs so it’s not like he’s an idiot.  Anything but.

Anyhoo, he seemed to take offence at my comments as posted on Enormous Thriving Plants…which I think I’ll need to add my my links on the left hand side there.  This should drive down yet again the frightening percentage of homosexual blog authors on my blog roll thus comforting some truckers who may associate with me from time to time though not enthusiastically.

The rest of this blog post is actually a blog comment that was too long to be posted on Audrey’s blog and so I offer it here to Malcolm, the fellow I offended and anyone else who wants to read it.

People! It’s blog drama.  This is the good stuff!  Malcolm’s commentary is italicized.  My response is plain except near the end where I quote myself because I’m such a grand and awesome fellah!  So, without further ado, this is the comment I respond to below.

Neither the existence nor the non-existence of God (regardless of the understanding of God) can be proven, therefore your claim that there is no God has no more intellectual merit than my belief that there is one.

You then commit the logical error of conflating all religious believers into one gang of authoritarians, imposing their own religious view. I think that, were you to think on this issue instead of merely flinging insults, you might notice that there are a range of religious views on such matters as the use of secular authority to enforce religious belief. In fact, if you approached the issue with any honesty at all, you might notice that most religious folk (at least in the last 100 years or so) would actually have issues with the broad imposition of religious dogma by the secular authority.

I don’t ask you to respect my beliefs, Zach. I do, however, expect you to respect my right to hold them. You claim to do so, but your deliberately offensive comments rather put the lie to that.

It’s some times an amazing wonder to me that so many religious folk can take so much offence to even so simple a concept as mentioning that unicorns don’t exist as a comparison for faith related arguments. I mean heck, one of my best friends from Manitoba is such a fanatical Christian that he was kicked out of a baptist congregation for challenging the authority of the pastor almost causing a split in the church. Kind of entertaining actually but I wonder why it is he can talk unapologetically to me about his religion and not throw a snit every time I make an unapologetic argument that compares his belief system to fairy tales. Perhaps he’s more secure in said system of belief than Malcolm is.

As for snide and belittling comments, please point them out. I’m certainly not going to try and be diplomatic but I think that you’ve taken offence to any of this (especially anything in my first post) is much more an indicator of how you feel rather than how I do. Hell, you actually ignored Audry’s entire post which she seemed to put some effort in to and chose to zero in on me because you were offended. If my post was so terrible, why not just ignore it and engage in the pleasant and diplomatic conversation that Audry offered?

Is your problem here the fact that I’m so completely ready to admit openly and readily that I have no respect for religion? Would you rather have me pretend to respect you? Frankly, wouldn’t that be an unforgivable insult to pretend you respect an argument when you in fact do not? Would you rather I lie to you?

Actually, when I re-read my own posts, I can’t for the life of me see where I called you a name. I can’t even see any demeaning insults on my part. I really think you’re just insecure and oversensitive perhaps though I can’t claim to know that for sure.

Let me make this clear again Malcolm; (codsarn it, I’m being draw in like a fruit fly!) giving a religious book any intellectual weight is no different than giving a garden variety fairy tale the same type of intellectual weight. This is as ridiculous an argument as you insisting that because I can’t prove that mother goose does not exist, we should seriously consider that she does and has an impact on our lives somehow beyond the consideration of fictional works. There is intellectual merit perhaps in wanting to develop a scientific process of examination to prove absolutely that mother goose does not exist, but the authority is exceptionally insignificant isn’t it?

There’s no problem in trying to find an answer but there’s every problem in creating ridiculous institutions like marriage all because you’ve started believing in mother goose…err…God without proof. Do I believe in the nonexistence of mother goose? I do indeed. If mother goose was proven to exist would I adjust my world view to include the existence of a mother goose? Sure, why wouldn’t I? Does this mean I have faith that mother goose does not exist? Absolutely not. It just means that mother goose isn’t a part of my life and is absolutely insignificant to me. That people like you insist on making it significant is where some consternation can be realized. It’s like a five year old insisting that I play a simplistic video game when I have no interest in it.

This actually makes me think of a theist who, upon finding out that I’m a non-theist asked me how I could be against God. She seemed to think that god was a part of my life and that since I professed no belief in the being, that I was somehow in opposition to God. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am no more against God than I am against Puff the Magic Dragon.

Now, I’ll bet you’re getting offended again so I should be clear that my comparisons to fairly tales and those too young to drink spirits are not an attempt to upset you. you seem to think they are but they’re not. I’m telling you clearly, on what type of plane I see this issue. It doesn’t mean I think that you’re childish or stupid because generally, people aren’t these things despite it being so tempting sometimes to project these qualities onto another.

I’ve seen no indication that you are anything but a sensible and considerate fellow who is convinced of certain things. I just happen to think that those things you are convinced of are silly and that you’re wrong. Again, I’m not going to hide that opinion for the sake of appearing to be something I’m not.

You know an anti-blasphemy law was passed just a short while ago in Ireland? Given half the chance, there are a very alarming number of religious folks who would enact laws that force their religion on others. This is not a logical fallacy, (though it is the way you took it) it is simply what happens in government when people arrive with an agenda. This is one reason that I am an anarcho-capitalist of sorts; because I don’t believe that government power can ever escape the entirely fallible human condition that puts us in so great a mess all of the time. While I think you should live one way, you likely think I would be better of living another way and it’s because of this type of thing that government as a one size fits all authority is so terribly illegitimate…but again I wander into a different topic.

Not all Christians are authoritarian scumbags…in fact, the vast majority of them are not. You’re right on that count, but then I never said otherwise. I said that in the past, religion has been given the force of law and that’s true. I also said that such a thing is offensive and to me, that is certainly also true.

If I’m conflating, let me ask you, have you condemned the Irish state’s recent passage of a law that calls for penalties inflicted upon those who would blaspheme against God? It’s not too late for you to do so if you have not done so yet.

But again, this is not to say that religious folk are authoritarian. In fact, in my own example there, you can find a great number of religious groups being kind of baffled. No one was really asking (aside from a very small group of extremists) for this law. No one notable really wanted it and every one was fairly surprised when it was revealed that it was quietly shuffled through the government halls of power into the law books. This is however a danger of religion in that it certainly can be very very easily used to coercively impact the population at large.

Does that mean religion should be banned? No! As an avid gun rights fellow myself, to me, this simply means that it should be discouraged, much like general gun use. Aside from hunting…and I guess in the case of religion, aside from play acting and such.

I’m aware of a number of views on the topic. I also have my own view which I’m giving to you with no request for anything in return.

Lemme ask you, do you think marriage licenses should be distributed by the state? Why or why not? Please be honest in your approach to the question.

I have very little respect for your belief system though all the respect in the world for your right to engage in it.

If I was calling for religion to be banned or billed as child abuse under the law as some seem to think it should be, then perhaps I would have a little bit of trouble defending myself here but again, I think you’re falling victim to your own sensitivity.  Respect does not necessarily carry with it, particular mannerisms and tactful pussy footing around an issue of contention among parties involved.  Very often, respect is demonstrated by engaged parties casting off the feeling for a need to hide their intentions and feelings from one another.

I, in general, respect that people are better served by discussions which do not omit points of view or facts of contention for the sake of giving some one an inflated sense of ego.  If you should take this as an attempt to insult you, you have misinterpreted and I ask that you reevaluate why I may express myself to you as I do.

I guess I do have some desire to engage in this argument. Disappointing actually because frankly, I don’t know how I’m going to find the time as I go back to the grind tomorrow but I promise that I will certainly try if you desire it Malcolm.

Peace out Bruthah!

CIBC was unable to successfully demonstrate to the Tribunal that it had not discriminated on the basis of age.

Isn’t that just a lovely standard of justice?

From the San Diego Tribune, we can find the following.

A study of Canadian teenagers, among the largest consumers of cannabis worldwide, found that smoking the illicit drug is harder on young brains than originally thought. Writing in the journal Neurobiology of Disease, researchers at McGill University in Montreal said daily consumption of cannabis in teens can cause significant depression and anxiety and have an irreversible long-term effect on the brain.

Among a myriad of problems with the usual shoddy reporting, the very first line of the Tribune’s article spews forth some major disinformation.  Not a single Canadian teenager participated in this study.  No teenager at all participated in this study but hey, why let facts stand in the way of good ol’ sensationalist reporting?

As I briefly mentioned in a recent post to this blog, the study mentioned tested a powerful chemical’s effects on the brain of some rats.  Aside from the chemical compound used having an entirely different pharmacological profile than other cannabanoids, the study also actually failed to record any concrete evidence of permanent brain damage.

You know, I understand the need to sell ad space but I don’t think that can be balanced by unethical behaviour.

Dead tree media indeed.