For shame Barry Wilson, for shame

For shame Barry Wilson, for shame.

With a cry of “None is too many,” Barry Wilson in his best, “let me be the reasonable xenophobic” voice to channel his inner American Republican Presidential candidate in an ill-informed, clearly insulting and absolutely a disservice to his viewership. The Trudeau plan to bring in so many refuges is a humanitarian gesture, long overdue for those suffering, first from the ISIL terrorist establishment, then the long journey to freedom into mainland Europe, and now the long cold winter. Speed is of the urgency. Get those people here, where they too can be safe from terrorists, establish a new home and be warm from the winter, where they too can be forced to listen to Barry Wilson’s poorly thought out excuses for editorials.

Mr. Wilson, should stick to his regular insult to the intelligence of the audience and not try to surpass himself with this latest editorial. None is too many is reference to the same sort of self assured xenophobic rants aimed at the Jews as they fled the NAZI’s of Germany seek to find a new home;  “What’s the rush? You are exaggerating, things are not that bad,” as they were lead, in file, to the death camps.  In the ensuing 80 years, have we learned nothing? For shame, Barry Wilson, for shame!

When we forget our humanity and duty towards suffering souls, we have not merely allowed the terrorism of extremists to win, we have invited them to take control of our agenda.

 

 

Privacy, The NSA and the internet

The NSA (National Security Agency) is reading your emails, and listening to your online Skype calls. In fact, they are searching and following you wherever you go online, to which ever site you are watching, reading or even playing on, right now. Even this one… Yikes! Invasion of my privacy scream the people. Conventional wisdom, screams this is a violation of the American Bill of Rights, the Canadian Charter of Rights, my U.N. Charter of rights and every other rights guaranteed by various governments. Specifically the right privacy and unlawful search and seizure. The think is this a dastardly plan for world control! The logic of it goes like this; I send you a letter. So long as it has a proper address, postage and is sealed. It cannot be open or intercepted except by a legal court order, legally obtained. Otherwise, it is not lawfully held and people doping it can be arrested for acting outside the law in violation of so many statues that is it not funny. Serious jail time and financial penalties. Similarly, if you plant outside my house, a video and audio surveillance camera, or CCTV type recording device that can film into my residence, in the absences of that magic protection, a court order, anything obtained is unusable and just plain creepy. And there is again all that notion of illegality, jail time and even lawsuits. A man or a woman’s home, is their castle and as such in inviolable except with the valid court order where then anything is permissible with the blessing of a judge. Ok with various nuances of jurisdictions, this is basically the way law works in a democratic country. Certainly in the United States and in Canada.
Following this logic, we turn to the Internet. When I send an electronic mail, email, it should be considered the same way as a snail mail letter. When I go online in the privacy of my own home, you need a warrant to see where i go, or listen to who I speaking with, just like as if you were planting a camera to spy inside my room. Ergo, the matter is solve, case law solves the mater for us and as such this is a closed book. They cannot do this except with a court order. Since there is no such thing as a global court order, all such activities by the NSA is illegal. And must cease and desist immediately. So why is it still going on?
Sadly the logic presented is incorrect. The fact that the law grind slowly but grinds finely is missing. They have yet to enter legal definition of modern technology for the most part. They are not sure if I sign a paper and fax it to you if that is the same force of law as if I signed it in front of you? Who uses faxes today anyways? they are so passe! When was the last time someone used a fax machine? Technology having outstripped the speed of law.
However, the law is not the problem in this case. In fact, the problem is our understanding of the internet. When i send an email it is not like a letter at all. A letter is a singular event. Going from one person hands to another. In the case of an email. it goes to all parts of the internet to ask each one, “Is this for you?” when it gets a no, it moves on. Your email stops when it gets to the right location. The government is able to read it and record it as it comes by without stopping it. Only someone with the resources of a government like the United States can do that, or rather can afford all the equipment to record it all to do that.
So one last thought, that super secret highly encrypted bank account information that was behind so many billion firewalls that it is not funny leading to your bank account? Oh yes that one? Well just as you are reading this on a web page, so too is your bank account. With the right guess you can land on that same bank account. While they code such pages not to be index by site like Google, those pages are as open as google is, if you know the URL. So whatever you thought was private is not on the internet. Welcome to the modern world. Privacy does not exist. It is all in the area where you have no expectation of privacy. So to the NSA who are reading this, carry on. It is perfectly legal to do so. Just as you are allowed to read my emails and listen in on Skype. I am not saying this is right, moral or even needed. However, it is legal.

Diabetes and Dehydration

A single study show that there is a link between diet soft drinks and Diabetes.
(http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/32/4/688.full)
One explanation offered for this is a rather convoluted one that the gut bacteria is mutated by the soft drinks using artificial sweetener, aspartame as its means into rejecting sugar. Hence causing diabetes.
While I think the link is correct, the user or abusers of diet soft drinks do tend to get type 2 diabetes, the cause is far simpler then that.
When you drink a diet soda you think you are hydrating yourself as it is liquid.
In fact, diet drinks tend to dehydrate you. It is a diuretic, which means you need the bathroom more causing a net loss in water.
Studies show that people think that as it is “Diet”” you can take more and more because it is healthy. (This happens to all foods and drink labeled diet.)
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3137553/How-called-healthy-snacks-harm-good-People-eat-likely-overindulge-avoid-exercise.html)
So when you drink many diet drinks, you dehydrate yourself. And over the long term of excess use of diet drinks you create inside of yourself a long term state of dehydration.
Last link, dehydration causes an increase in blood sugar. Long term increases in blood sugar lead to Diabetes
Conclusion, long term dehydration cause damage to the body such as… Type 2 Diabetes. There Diet drinks as the cause of dehydration can help cause Type 2 Diabetes even if there is no direct link top diet soda, but a link to the life style around it.

Flag Flap

Recently the American South has had to do some serious soul searching. A white man entered a black church killing nine men and women. The reaction was swift with the usual clamour for gun control, a dead issue, literally and figuratively in the U.S. But what did come of it was the flag, called the “Stars and Bars” that can be found on state flags and flying over the capital building. To some thinking, it is like the NAZI flag, a symbol of hate and slavery. The white oppression continues to this day and as such, it is time to come down. To others is means no such thing, but a symbol of the undying southern spirit of America. Historically, this flag was never the flag of the South, it was the battle standard. This distinction, while real, is of no matter, no real value is shown by this difference. It was flown in the Civil War. It is, as such, a part of the history of the South and can thus be claimed as such. After the war, all but forgotten, its use was revived by the Dixiecrats, a racist offshoot of the Democratic Party in 1948 with stated policy of non desegregation and opposition to granting the Afro-American full citizenship and equal rights. It was adopted on state flags as their battle flag, to say we are at war with the federal government, war with the blacks and at war with any attempt to allow people still living as little more than slaves to have the chance of becoming better off than they have been.

No one plays the villain in their own story. So father to son, mother to daughter, they never said we fly that flag so that Afro-Americans will know their place under the white man’s boot, living in poverty and shame, without a chance to have their own part of the American dream. No, that sort of talk would make them the bad guys. Instead they retreated from history and reality into talking about patriotism, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” said Samuel Johnson. And here it comes. The flag was about Southern Pride, and Southern Liberty and being of the South! It had nothing to do with Blacks, Afro-Americans, de-segregation, slavery or such like. Nope, the Stars and Bars is part of Southern heritage.

It has been almost 60 years since the days of the Dixiecrats. Now they are a boring subject best left and forgotten in the past for truly they are not who the South is, proclaims to be or even who they want to be. Over the last three or four generations, the people having been told this lie have come to accept is as if it were true. This flag is their symbol of their heritage of being from the South. Having become their symbol of Southern Pride and of their true Southern Heritage they see nothing derogatory of flying it proudly. The South was never defined by the slavery issue and racism. No matter how people try to box them in to that narrow definition. The Civil War was about states’ rights, one of the important of said rights was slavery, but when 90% of your population did not own slaves, only the very rich did, you would never get them to rally to an issue that did not affect them. So the Civil War was framed to be about state’s rights. Just as today, there are still racists running around the South and the ever haunting KKK, they are on the fringe of society. As one of the friends of the accused in the church shooting said, paraphrasing, “We knew he was a racist and we knew he was crazy, what we did not know was that he was that racist and that crazy.”

Today, removing the Stars and Bars is not about losing a part of their heritage, it is about reclaiming their true heritage. The South has always been an open, welcoming, friendly place. That flag has turned from the symbol of hate to the heritage of the south and Southern Pride.

So when you hear people supporting the flag Stars and Bars, they may not be racists at all. So don’t hate, instead explain and relate. It is for this very reason that the flag must come down. Because of its history of hatred, it blocks the true South heritage of neighbourly people trying to get along with everyone. While the flag is a small part of the heritage, it is blocking the Sunlight shining on the even more important and more welcoming, true spirit of Southern Heritage; their pride in being tolerant and open to new people, new ideas and accepting them for who and what they are. Judging by the content of their character, not the colour of their skin, or the flag they fly.

Je Suis Charlie

Dateline early January 2015

“But whoever earns an offense or a sin and then blames it on an innocent [person] has taken upon himself a slander and manifest sin.”

Surat An-Nisa’ 4:112

“Have you killed an innocent person who had killed none? Verily, you have committed a thing “Nukra” (a great Munkar – prohibited, evil, dreadful thing)!”

Surat Al-Kahf 18:74

In the late morning, Paris time, Gunfire broke out in the offices of Charlie Hebdo. Two armed attackers had killed so many people inside while claiming to have avenged the Prophet Mohammed in this act. In the past, this satirical magazine had poked fun at the Prophet and at Islam. The ongoing further events need not concern us here. Who and why are not for us to judge.  We have in two short sentences enough information to reach our goal of a better understanding of Islam and the enemies of God, Allah and the Prophet Mohammed. First, let us assume that the editors had in fact insulted the Prophet and thus was deserving of punishment. Allah is a just God but he is patient and it is his right to reward his followers as well to punish the wicked. It is for him and him alone, when to exact his just punishment from them for their wickedness. So then with their untimely death at the hand of the gunmen, they became the victim. Allah being just cannot punish the innocent, as he would like, Allah is a just God, thus he must offer them succour for their wickedness done onto them. Thus instead of the punishment they had earned with their cartoons, he would have to offer them comfort for having been unjustly murdered. Thus Allah, has had his will thwarted and his justice denied by those gunmen.

Who then could have dared do this to Allah? While in Paris, CSI comb for every clue, picking up all evidence, Allah is all knowing. He knew who has committed this wickedness. He knows why they have done so, for he knows all that is in their heart.  They were not trying to be the true followers of Allah. They were usurping the right of this jealous God to punish the wickedness of men with divine justice. Not mortal vengeance, but absolute eternal justice, that only Allah can meet out.

As such, those two misguided fools have cast themselves into the burning fires of hell. They have not served Allah; they have taken upon themselves to meet out the divine justice of Allah as if this God was not a God but a mere name, a word, a boogie man to scare little children with. So who is the disbeliever deserving of punishment? Who are the innocent, cut down before it was Allah’s will to do so?

In the Holy Book of the Jews, Christians and Muslims, they tell a story of Abraham and his son Isaac. The Jews and Christians say that Abraham was ordered by God to take his son and kill him for God. The age of the child is never mentioned from that of a baby to an adult male, while it is easy to kill a baby in diaper, the obedience to God is better seen if he, the son, is a man. As Abraham drove the blade at the chest of the son, the angel of the Lord stopped him and saved the child’s life. The Qur’an says this is a wicked deed and the dream telling Abraham to kill his son was sent by the devil to trick him. This is why the angel of the lord had to stop him.

The next time, a true follower of Allah is told to kill anyone in the name of Allah for some crime against Allah, remember this story of Charlie Hebdo, and the Qur’an. For in them you will have your answer. It was wicked to kill those people. It is wicked to take the place of Allah. And by doing this wickedness, you are taking upon yourself the sin of others and must pay for their crimes with your eternal life.

In Baghdad, Iraq, in order to fool security forces, two retarded children, aged 11 and 13, were kidnapped and put in a car bomb. No one would ever think to look in such a car with two very innocent little girls in it. As the driver fled on foot, the bomb exploded killing many in the market place including those intellectually challenged little girls. When faced with such a thing, can we all agree, Jew, Christine and Muslim, that this is an evil act? For if we cannot, then this world is already in a hell, no God would be cruel enough to make themselves.

Jian, What Buzz, What Bang

A Sadomasochism abusive relationship where a bully tortures the submissive in a constant stream of physical suffering, belittling their intelligence, ability and any source of pride they may have ever had, but enough of CBC’s programming cutbacks, I am here to talk about the Jian Ghomeshi being fired from the same CBC. When I first heard of he was on a break from his job, I was puzzled. First, I had to remember who he was, then to care a fig about his show, his programming or CBC. But then he was fired and while I was almost moved to care, almost. It turned out to be gas. But then, then! Jian posted his misses defending himself because he was fired for having sex. Which considering the prudish, puritanical behaviour of that corporation made so much more sense. Except, I still did not give a fig, fart or fluff. Even noted Green party Commandant Elizabeth May chimed in to support him. Could someone, anyone else have cared? With the sole exception of ex-Green Party deputy leader Georges Laraque whose very serious legal troubles actually registered on the who cares scale above both May and Ghomeshi for the briefest of seconds. This would be including his entire NHL hockey career such as it was. The whole drama it seems to me, aside from being purely Canadian and purely boring, was that anyone having sex at the CBC was to be fired. For the first clause of their contract to work there, is that anyone thinking of having fun was to be sufficient grounds for termination. Noting that they in fact had stolen the line from Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary about Puritans “The haunting feeling that someone, somewhere, might be happy.”

But then a miracle occurred. When the dark puritanical empire strikes back and release the kind of sex Ghomeshi was having. Not simply into spanking and light D&D. No this was outright brutality. Punches in faces were a turn on? Oh, ok then… Nothing even remotely hot about that. Or interesting. But the door was opened. And a producer was fast to tell her tale of how when she yawned in Ghomeshi’s meeting once, rude much? He said some crudity that hurt her feelings. She alleged that he wanted to “hate f–k” her to wake her up,” she says. I merely thought she had misheard being half asleep that would “Hate like f–k for her to wake up. Either or does not amount to much. I remember once, where a vice president in serious need of anger management lost it in a meeting and when on a yelling rant for 20 minutes. When he was done, he, himself, realised just how badly he had lost it and checked himself into anger management classes. (Come to think of it, he works at the CBC now. No sex please but screaming is allowed. Or is it?)Linden MacIntyre claims that being a bully is the norm at CBC indicating both Peter Mansbridge, CBC new anchor and the late Peter Gzowski are and were also bullies. As if being the final word was being a bully. It was their name on the show, so toughen up already.
The last note sounded in the sadly Canadian story of silliness when Toronto police arrested Ghomeshi for various criminal offences. And at least, it seemed that this story was indeed real. It was no longer merely the stuff of late night talk show host comedies. It had left from being the joke after Rob Ford to now being a legitimate news story and a criminal prosecution. Except for the massive media coverage. The mere fact, this was about sex and a legitimate Canadian superstar albeit on CBC and the media went all a flutter. Not nearly as much as Ford’s own media circus but this was a legitimate news story no longer fit for the tabloids but real journalist could report on it now. Oh wait, after all this, I still don’t care, So much to do about nothing
To be sure, criminal behaviour is illegal, Sexual assault should be reported to police immediately and being a jerk seems to be the norm at CBC along with its Puritanical over moralistic better than thou Goody Prynne behaviour. All of which is nothing new or even remotely interesting. Except in Canada, where the news media starved for anything to ever report is forced to report this as hard news. When at best fit only for the back pages of some low down, back alley scandal rag.

Update March 24, 2016: Jian was found not guilty on all criminal charges.