Thesis evaluation consist of an oral defense that is usually open to the public, this can has caused more than a few problems. Here are some of the worst nightmares that can happen. All are true stories. Here are my top five worst Thesis defense ever!

The first story was told to me by a professor as she was then a student. She wrote her PHD thesis in a year and submitted it to her adviser. The advisor read it and invited her to a nice restaurant for supper and then broke the news. “I am afraid this simply won’t do.” One year of work, flushed. So she went back to the writing table and rewrote it anew.

Another student when told took the opposite road and demanded a hearing of the full thesis defense board as is allowed by university thesis rules. They followed procedure to the letter. When the vote was cast, the student lost by a vote of five to zero. They failed him. And that failed him out of the program. So no Masters as a door prize as he left either.

A female student went to her defence where she had misquoted someone in her text; a very minor error that we all do. But most are caught in time before the defence. In her case, the problem was not the tiny error, it was the readers. Her advisor was hated in the department so they had one outside reader to be impartial and one reader who hated him. Well over this tiny error, the two started to go at each other. The chair asked the audience to leave. Whereas inside the shouting and screaming could be heard across the library as it went on for hours. Thirty minutes for her defence, and three hours of screaming. Degree earned, vote two to one.

When making enemies, do not piss off the vindictive graduate chair when planning to do your thesis defense, for there may be repercussions you have not considered. He first scheduled her defense in the schools largest auditorium, and then proceeded to order all the first year undergrads to attend this mandatory event. Then made sure a sign-in sheet was passed around. Normally you defend in a class room with a few people at most 20-30 people. She had to defend her thesis in front of 500 students who resented her taking up their free time. Talk about hostile environment.

Perhaps the worst thesis defense occurred for an international student who lived in Saudi Arabia. For some unknown reason she had to defend her thesis online and an Islamic religious policeman was to be in the same room as her. Now English was her second language so she struggled with it. The police officer spoke no English, requiring her to stop and explain to him in Arabic. If he got bored or if she took too long in her answer he would interrupt her. What should have been over and done within an hour at most went over near three hours. Where at one point he got up and almost smacked her. Only later would we find out what he was saying to her in the midst of her thesis defense. “Why are you doing this? You are just a stupid girl, you should not be talking to these men, you be fucking your husband so stop whoring yourself out to sound smart then you are stupid girl.” She passed 5 to zero.

Bonus, a thesis on Foucault went seriously off the rails when the professor began to talk of this philosopher’s sexual preferences, using non academic terms like “Fist fucking.” He went off topic and spoke on that subject for near an hour before the chair could take over and call an end to the session.

Montreal is a most beautiful city. You may enjoy it, if you c can get out of the traffic jams. Seems that on every route, every bridge and every highway, there is construction, repairs or just imaginary things forgotten in the minds of engineers, waiting still to be called done, with the left over orange cones scatters about to mark the memories and nightmares of truckers, roadsters and travellers alike, who have to navigate the impossible rubric of a city transport grid run amuck. It is not just how much repair work is being done but how bad the planning of it is. On one particular bridge, they normally allow during rush hour in coming or outgoing traffic. So one day repairs needed to be done. So at 7 pm, when they switched to both ways, they blocked the out bound lane, where all the traffic was in order to repair on the side of the bridge. The inbound lane was opened to let in ten, fifteen cars. The outbound lane still had maybe 500 to a thousand cars wanting to get off island. But repairs come first. And that in bound traffic all ten of them had to be let in. The 1000 cars waiting were simply not important enough to consider. What is worse is that next year is the 375th birthday of Montreal. So the Mayor doubled down on construction and repairs to get in as much as he can this year, so next year will be relatively light on such things as needed in order to let the tourist enjoy the city. For all that, the bad planning, the traffic and the horrible drivers Montreal is known for, we are getting off lucky. Why do I say that? In the United States where they desperately need such infrastructure repairs. Where roads, bridges and highways are literally falling apart, they do not have the tax revenue to afford such things. In truth the bill could be as high as 4 trillion dollars at this point, and surely will go higher. But they have also a lack of will to tax their people in order to get the money to do those repairs. So whereas Montreal has a high rate of tax, as does Quebec, Canada too, the infrastructure is being renewed, repaired and rebuilt. Heavens knows what will happen down south as their cities, roads and bridges start to fall apart.

NASA has declared that August 2016 is the hottest month ever recorded, making it the 11 month in a row where the temperature of the world has increased, breaking old records and setting new records. What more need we say to prove Global Warming. How many more months before you admit the end of times is here, death, dying, gloom and doom. Yet those nasty deniers continue to spew their lies and deny the heat of hell’s doorway, as it flash flames the world.
Or we can try and look at the matter scientifically.
First, let’s make a comparison to each month being one second. So for the last 11 seconds the whole world has been heating up. By what measure do we compare this to? Minutes? Hours? Days, weeks or even months? Let along years decades or centuries. Global weather records perhaps at best go back 150 years or so. Using these comparisons of months in seconds, we are talking about 11 seconds out of the last 30 minutes. But even that is an invalid example. For what NASA is telling us is not the local weather or the weather for whole country or even the average temperature at surface. Using satellites, they have gathered the temperature for the entire planet as best they can observe, from the temperature in the oceans, to the air temperature at all elevations and into the Atmosphere and stratosphere. Record the whole temperature at all these locations to boil down to one single average temperature for the planet. They do not get into the scientific certainty factor of this, or how tiny the number is in the difference. They don’t need to. Any increase is telling. Fine. But now we are comparing apples to oranges. NASA does not even have records of global temperatures much more beyond 40 years ago at the outside. So instead of talking in our comparison about the last half hour, we are talking about the last 4 minutes. And in the last 4 minutes, 11 seconds were the hotest of them. Great. This then proves all things to all scientists so we can thusly deduce global warming is real.
Sadly, no. It just say’s we are heating up over the short term time span of the last few years, beyond which record are meaningless, going beyond the evidence that we actually have on hand and frankly unscientific because we have no basic agreement on what it might mean or any theories to explain it so. There are many things we need to do for the environment. False science of Global warming is not one of them. Fight for reason science, real environmental protection and real battles for our planet. Not this hyperbole of rhetoric. There is an ocean of plastic in the Pacific the size of Texas. Clean that up would make a lot more sense than crying wolf with global warming. No one is buying it any more.

Does the rhetoric of Donald Trump rise to being hate speech? While what he is doing is in fact inciting hatred towards Muslims and Hispanics, he is not breaking any laws. He has just made it acceptable to go mainstream with his racism and not be shamed by the very public surrounding him for utter such garbage and filth. The only good thing about all of is this, with this increased attention upon the Muslim community, it has forced them to be more welcoming and hold outreach session to the community in order to broaden the public knowledge and understanding of who and what they are.
It is very hard to hard someone who happens to also be the doctor you trust… or the pharmacist. While Muslims make up 1% of the American population, they make up 2-10% of the doctors and pharmacist depending on methodology in the count. In any case a great percentage than their share of the population would account for. Thus far, the American Islamic community has been insular, keeping to themselves, Sheltered within its mosques. After 911, they went even further to hide from a very hostile community seeking to cast blame on anyone remotely associated with the terrorists. No matter how far a stretch to do so. Now, due to the political climate from such as Donald Trump, they have no choice but to come out of hiding. They have to branch out and make friends in the community. Make alliances with the people within their own community that they live in and make “Open Door” a policy for all to come, every day, not just by invitation or on special days.
A few things
A woman protesting on anti Muslim rally day… yes there is such a thing… Never underestimate man’s ability to hate fellow man…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to4U-09zkAw
She was outside a mosque and the cops were all in force to prevent trouble. She was out numbers by both cops as she was the only one to show up. And the evil Muslim came out and did what? They offered her what? Hatred for hatred? Evil for evil? No, they offered her tea and cookies, and then invited her inside. Surprisingly… she agreed and went.
Big deal, she is just one person; one heart, and one mind but with one person at a time. Next time someone tells her that Muslims are all evil, she will go… “Yes most of them… not all…” And that is a worthy start. One person at a time.
New York City, two cops sitting in their car, a 4×4 drives up and tosses in a bag, cop 1, Officer Peter Cybulski says “Boss it’s a bomb.” Cop 2, Sgt Hameed Armani, flicks on lights and sirens and gets out of 46th and Broadway (Time Square), so when the bomb goes off it would not kill hundreds of people…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaPV1hDyqcA

Turns out, the bomb was a dud. The suspect, I say with great surprise, (not) turns out to be mentally unstable in need of hospitalization. Cop 2, the driver, Sgt Hameed Armani, is a Muslim American from Afghanistan and a single father of a 12 year old daughter. He had ever reason to run from that bomb. Yet he did the one thing you could expect in the best of all of us. His duty. Nuff said. The two cops, one Christian, one Muslim, both prayed together as they drove like hell out of there. Now that was something more important, more profound and more importantly of all, it was more human than Donald trump will ever be with his hate filled rhetoric.
As well there was a knife attack in the London tube last year (December 6 2015) and the guy filming said clearly, “You aint no Muslim bro.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgNUwrIuihE
David Cameron then repeated that in the House of Commons and in a number of speeches.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5IxFNJNN5I
That one phrase did more to improve the vast perception of who and what is a Muslim then anything that could have done or said. A Muslim man telling a knife wielding psychopath, you are not a Muslim! Short and sweet, yet cutting to the heart of this matter, it sums up what we should understand from this attack and this attacker. As that message passes from hand to hand and mouth to mouth, it resonates within the mind of the haters and those unsure. We knew that this sort of attack is done by the crazed, the insane and the mentally disturbed. Though they may shout some sort of religious slogan, “The devil can quote scriptures for his own end.” They are not representative of any real Muslim group. Just those run of the mill haters of no worth to anyone. Just like Donald Trump is.

In part, white privilege does not exist for whites.
Male privilege does not exist for males either.
However, if you are black and or female, only then you can see it. The white male cannot.
As a white male, I can drive all over and never get stopped by the police. The man, Philando Castile, had been stopped something like 31 times and hit with 63 traffic charges in the last 14 years. Total number of times I have been stopped? (Knock on wood) Zero. See no privilege for me. I will just assume that I am a drive better than any African American… But the absence of gains (not being stopped) does not in any way show up when each stop takes 30 minutes to an hour of their time. Yet unless I see beyond my lofty position, that is only privileged from an outsider prospective, I cannot see imagine having any advantage. Cops look at the skin color of the driver. “Oh he is white, so he may be a lawyer, or a judge or he maybe someone important.” But when they see black, that is all they see. There are reports on this guy’s life, that he was a role model for his students, praised as a local hero to get kids off on the right start. He was always there, always working for his student, his colleges and all that, a stand up guy considered a pillar in his community. Even if only half of that is true, he was more than an asset to his community and the communities at large. He was some needed in every community. All that the cops saw was black. In my case, I doubt very much if I would be so praise, coming anywhere near this guy’s involvement. But I am white and thus giving a road pass. The absence of evidence is the evidence of absences that is the evidence itself need, in this case of showing white privilege. A NY city cop recorded his bosses giving him advice. (Paraphrased) Why did he only stop 2 black men? He replied that he stopped the same number of people as he was supposed to but he was lower in the “pop” rate; those people who are wanted on warrants, wanted or whatever, to be detained, arrested or put back in jail. People stopped are said to “pop” when their name is entered and they have issues with law enforcement. The cop goes on to explain that he stops everyone equally regardless of race, or color. He stops those he has legal probable cause to stop. The boss goes; (paraphrased) “Stop the blacks. They pop more. They commit the crimes. More pops means more arrests which in turn mean better performance reviews.” Of course that means for the rest of the black males who are not going to pop they will be stopped more often. And who cares if that is a violation of their civil liberties? No one cares because they are black… Not like as if they were white… who might be someone… This is the attitude of cops to blacks. In Canada it would be more of cops to aboriginal thing in most of the country and to a lesser extent to minorities in the cities. Same basic perception from aboriginals here as Americans have in their racial problem with African Americans, only it is just a different ethnic minority sub class of society in Canada, with the same role, same function and stereotypical behavior along with the same poor treatment. We, in Quebec, however, have a standard of decency for our police. A level of expected behavior that is enforceable and controlled by a body that does not have to work with police like Crown prosecutors have to on a daily basis. The Police Ethics commission; they don’t judge based on race or familiarity or any other such consideration but on facts as they can ascertain and the ideal of behavior expected of a cop and from police. Should be and where they find fault, the cop is publicly humiliated for having failed to live up to the standard expected of being a police officer. Essentially saying they have been judged wanting of their duties and failed to live to their oath of office. The best part is this; you only have to fill out a paper forum to make a complaint. No need for a lawyer or costs upon the complaint. The Police Ethics Commission take’s over and investigate your complain. Including a follow up visits or calls, so that if your complaint is deemed insufficient they will call you or visit to ask for more information; i.e. you say a cop stopped you? Well, what cop? When did it happen? Where did it happen? Badge number? Name? Car number? Every detail they can find so that they can investigate your complaint. Best of all? It is run by civilians who do this full time. Not cop on cop but civvies on cop, bureaucrats on cops. They also do not have any conflict of interest as the prosecutors have when they need to have the cooperation of police to get their cases convicted in court. The Ethic commissions are fair, honest and they have the grudging respect of both sides. So in part, because we have such a body, and I fear I have never heard of one anywhere in the United States, our cops are better behaved and more respectful if only cause they have big brother watching over them, peering across the blue wall. I should add we have such stops in Canada and in Quebec, where a number of black men were pulled over for the crime of driving while black. The number of stops was in one case like 3-8 times before this citizen filed a complaint and won a judgement against the officers because they, the police, were in the wrong. If American cops where more focused on crime prevention and deterrence rather than lock’em up in corporate prisons and throw away the key they might be better at their job.
American blacks and minorities vote Democrat. Nixon and the Republican’s “South First” strategy was designed to stop blacks from voting, by first criminalizing them, then depriving them of their right to vote. (In Canada the Supreme Court rules that all citizens must be allowed to vote and that the government must allow voting from prisons.)Thus began the war on crime and the war on drugs. Where white American are convicted of powder cocaine use at the same rate as blacks with crack cocaine use, white will get diverted into treatment with no criminal record, whereas blacks will go to jail, losing their right to vote and forever must stigmatise themselves with having to admit to a criminal record. A white male in Stanford, Brock Allen Turner, raped a woman and got 6 month in jail because it will mess up his life. A Latino man, for a similar crime got 3 years. It was the same judge, Aaron Persky.
Ok I could go on and on…
The point is this;
There is no such thing as white privilege so long as you are a white male. That is the bottom line and is absolute fact. If you are black or other minority and or female, you can spot the difference if only in the absence of the same sort of treatment that a white male takes for granted. “What do you mean white males are treated differently?” of course not on they will say. Others see the difference because there is the absence of similar treatment (That blacks are subjected to frequently) does not mean it does not exist. Just they cannot see it. Until they do… things won’t change.
In North Miami, a black man with his hands up in surrender, lying on his back, in the street, is shot three times by a SWAT officer who was trying to hit a stationary man who was a sitting target. There are so many thing wrong here. 1) Three shots is not an accident discharge. 2) SWAT are trained to shot, he hit what he was aiming for. 3) Why was he shooting in the first place? The man was telling the police he was a mental health professional with a client in distress. No gun was involved. No one was in any danger until the police showed up. At the republican Convention, a sheriff, David A. Clarke Jr. of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, boldly asserted that Blue Lives Matter. Well that is true. All lives matter. So why did this man’s life not matter? The main point here for black lives matter is this, One is too many, period. So instead of bemoaning the existence of Black Lives Matter, instead of trying to shift blame on to blacks, black culture or anyone else, assume and accept that the blame rest squarely on the shoulders of law enforcement. And then do something about. The point is not merely to enumerate the problem. The point of leadership is to find lasting, effective solutions to these problems. And when you put a challenge to the leadership, you have to put forward your own solutions. That is a responsibility under taken when one criticise the police, the question is well what is “your” answer. Well here is mine.
Every cop needs a body camera. Ever squad car does too. Police need Federal guidelines and standards that ensure police receive de-escalation training and effective familiarization with minority communities and the mentally handicapped or special needs. Finally, all states need a police Ethics commission run independently of police, having no other association with the police and their behavior or with the courts, other than to adjudicate the actions of police against their own guidelines. With a budget that allows them to investigate and either to exonerate or convict police of wrong doing, imposing penalties of fines, suspensions and termination of employment. That is where we will see that there is no need for protest movements. Efforts to bring cops to heel will be first the recordings, then what is in the cameras in the cars. Then they review of federal Guidelines by an impartial body that will run, yes this was justified or it was not. Period. Final word. Until then we can expect escalation and more violence on the part of protesters who are clearly not getting their message heard and this will continue to inevitable lead to more death and more shooting as police feel even more embattled and even more isolated from the communities they patrol.

In order to understand the trouble that vexes the United States with recent events, it is important to understand elements of their socio-economic class and racial structure: White Privilege and Black lives.

It is very hard to explain what white privilege is to a white person. Just as it is hard to explain to a male what male privilege is from a female perspective. For in both cases, they say what privilege? They do see the problem walking anywhere, at anytime, wearing anything they want. Whites simply do not interact with police, so what privilege is that? Never seeing that based on being white the police will not stop them for any reason other than the colour or lack of colour in their skin. However for someone black, they do interact in absurd amounts with police compared to the whites. Diamond Reynolds calmly recorded her boyfriend dying in the seat next to her after he was brutally shot by one nervous cop. Being that she, as a black female, was so often stopped by police for no reason, getting upset would not change anything, let alone prevent anything from happening. Male privilege means they don’t have to be as weary of the next corner because if preyed upon it would be for their wallet not what was under their clothing. So they too can calmly walk through a storm that would leave other who are not used to such behavior completely affected with fear and dread.

The concept of privilege is one that can only be seen from the perspective of one who does not have it. Just as entitlement is alien to whoever is so privileged and has the rights to be entitled. From the pauper view however, it is very different. They can see up, the privileged must be challenged to see down. There is a national best seller, but clearly 50 or more years old called “Black Like me” by John Howard Griffin (published 1961) where a white man walks in the shoes of being black in the south. Changes his race to cross the colour barrier and see what life is like on the other side of the coin. This book tells the tales from his journey. You can see the way he is treated what privilege is. Or in a more humorist vein Eddie Murphy does a skit on Saturday Night Live about being white; where he dons white makeup to look like a white person. While very funny, it is also very telling too. Clever humour does indeed transcend beyond me laughs into a deep social commentary.

As a white male, I am never suspected of being a criminal just because I am white

As a male I am never looked at as “Asking for it,” no matter what I am wearing.

It is only when I look at the reality of people of colour or of women do I see the privilege of my existence.

It is only when other people begin to look at the world from the eyes of the “other” that they see the charmed existence we who have the privilege have compared to others.

Three dead cops in Baton Rouge and three injured… by a gunman, details are unclear at this time, but I suspect it will soon be linked to black lives matters as well. For all crime against police comes from Black Lives Matter. And if that makes no sense to you, so what? Anything to discredit that movement will be found and used against them. For nothing is more dangerous than a good idea. Only the privileged need not be bothers to look or to see that. Martin Luther King jr was subject to black mail over illegal tapes; such as being ordered to commit suicide and other horrible things. And his crime was? Leading a movement to bring equality to all people.

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

Martin Luther King Jr

As much as the SC shooter, wrapped in the Southern battle flag murdering people in a black church, Dallas and Baton Rouge were both acts of mad men. But armed with military weapons and free access to purchase as many as they can carry or could carry… This is the inevitable result. Where blacks armed themselves and confronted police in the streets of California, Ronald Reagan, as governor signed some of the harshest carry laws in the USA with the full support of the NRA. Carrying guns is a right only to the privilege and being black with a gun is seemingly an executable offense in Minnesota or it was for Philando Castile.

The cause is always the same, injustice, videotaped injustice, which is now finally making its appearance on TV and the internet that will force politicians and police to demand better answers. If all cops had cameras, and all the stops where recorded, then the often heard cry of abuse, racial profiling and racism would be there to be seen and view and best of all, reviewed. Accountability would have to kick in. Most cops are good people. The bad apples are the ones they need to be found and removed from office. Let them work in sanitation and be as hateful as they want to be. They give all police, a bad name. In Dallas, while the crowds were running from the violence. The men and women in blue were running towards it. When Shetamia Taylor was shot by the sniper in Dallas, she and her son that she was shielding, were, in turn, shielded by police officers. There to serve and protect, they served her by protecting her and getting her to a hospital in a vehicle shot up by the sniper. She is black, they were white.  To then look at this issue as only a black and white thing, is to miss the point. It is not colour but of power that is often reflected in a white on black thing. But similar tales are found in all white communities where the white police pick on lower socio-economical privileged whites. It’s not the skin, it’s the power.

Sadly, I do suspect that what has started in Dallas and now Baton Rouge will accelerate and continue as more and more cops will be ambushed in the coming days. But without a resolution, or solution in sight this will be just another story soon forgotten as more and more are killed. Cops are focused on their weapons and military tactics to deal with type of event on average of 180 hours of training and practise. Yet any possible solution would be found in de-escalation and non lethal force. How much training would they get in that on average? Only 24 hours. 180 hours to kill, 24 hours to control and de-escalate… Seems we have one clearly visible, low hanging fruit to pick off with ease.

American cops taken to a target range with a simulated battle field exercise; they walk around an obstacle course only with the chances to shot. They are then faced with various pop ups of either criminals and or civilians and have to decide to shot or hold fire. The fastest time win. Scientists using this for controlled experiments where they are secretly measuring the reaction time in the decision to shot or to hold fire. Studies show that they take half as long to decide to shot a black face than a white face. This is not a training issue. This is cultural issue. If your head is filled with the insulting stereotypes that refer to the “other” as dangerous predators (Ask Hilary Clinton about that one…). You approach the “Other” like wild, dangerous animals. Shoot first out of fear to protect yourself.  26% of all shooting victims by police are black. Yet blacks make up only 15% of the population. The only way to break that barrier down is to familiarize white cops with black families and brown and Asian and everything else until they see those “others,” are not “others” at all but the same as you are, people not predators. Humans with hopes and dreams who also want to go home at the end of their encounter with police.

The Dallas police chief encouraged disenfranchised black youth to join the police force so they can patrol and protect their own communities. To help build a better tomorrow by showing positive role models in their home communities and create sorely needed bridges from the police to the minorities that allow both sides a better tomorrow.

While I applaud that very idea, there is one problem. Who is the one class of people who cannot become police? Criminals. What is the one thing most black males all have in common? They have been arrested, charged and convicted of a crime in some places greater than 50% of the male population over 18 years of age. So just who amongst those new bridge builders can they, the police, reach out to for this help, when they have already been precluded from their helping? Vicious circle. No black community members to help so the white cops are an alien invasion force that act like lord high sheriff to the lowly villagers who are in turn regularly abused by those with their police power in the mere fact they are in the community but not a part of it. White cops in Ferguson don’t live in Ferguson. That’s where the blacks live. They moved out long ago to more white areas. But they surely come back to keep the people in line. Just ask Mike Brown how that worked out for him. I was going to use the word citizens instead of villagers but can that even be said when being treated as a second class citizen would be a step or two up?

For better or for worse, there is a problem. Point fingers at one side of the other will not help. Nor can we be expected to demand from people to be less criminal or get themselves to a position of more power, better income less poverty. What we can do is make sure police are giving the best possible training, and that has to include socio economic field work with minority communities, de-escalation training like they do in Europe where the use of police violence is near unheard of and lastly camera both in car and on cops. When citizen journalists do observe the scene of police interaction, they should be welcome and embraced as being there to keep all sides honest. That won’t cure the problem until gun control comes in to remove some of the 300 million firearms around the country from the hands of unstable people who suffer mental health problems. But it will be a start, whose time is overdue.

I have known about the consultation for the future of Canada Post for a while now. I felt; “Why should I speak, I had nothing to say, the union had said it all: Return to home to home delivery, postal expansion into more areas of delivery like groceries and the much hyped postal banking.” I had nothing to add to that. That is, until now. So the question being, what do you foresee as the future of Canada Post? I reply with my own question; will there even be a future for Canada Post?

To wit, let us exam this issue. The Minister, Judy Foote has asked Canada Post to explore service expansion. The union is more than willing to do that including pushing for the return of postal banking, and yet the corporation does nothing. Thus leaving what could be a large new area for the future and future business left wanting. So I ask why?

The union want to negotiate a new contract. The government wants this matter settled as well! Yet the corporation refuses to come to the negotiation table. Giving one and only one offer then saying they are done. This is not negotiating under anyone definition. “Take it or leave it;” is not an opening gambit for a resolution. The result is for customer business to lose confidence in the corporation, seek other providers and general hurt the business all around by their own action or inaction on senior management. Again I must ask why?

Why would a business deny expansion when it can easily do so.?

Why would it sabotage its already existing business?

Why would it alienate a work force that is nothing but professional?

Why indeed?

When the Conservative Government took over under Brian Mulroney, they expect that the public servants, so long working for the previous liberal governments would hesitate to bring in conservative legislation or fulfill their goals. So to make sure their policies were respected, they created a number of positions staffed by hand pick conservatives to watch over the process and make sure the government will was respected. In the end, it was found they were not needed. The public servants of Canada respected the will of the people and followed through on the government will. Yet the present day, clear government will, to expand postal services and settle this contract, is not being respected? I again ask why? By what right or obligation would public servants disobey in spirit if not in action their role to follow government directives? What outside Ideology or influence is so powerful that it would call them to their higher authority then their oath of office?  And that is where it hit me.

The Neo Conservatives in the USA have their own right wing. The right wing has a right wing making it even more right wing than normal. They call themselves the Tea Party. Their philosophy is that all government is bad, and anything that is good for business interests is good. No matter if it hurts the interest of the working class.

If we put this all together we can begin to see a pattern.

Expanding the government is verboten; opening up postal banking would hurt private banks, and pay day loans, also Forbidden. Having a happy productive work force is not necessary. In fact, the more unhappy, the more likely people are to quit and thus one less person on the government workforce, making government that much smaller. In sum, Canada Post is acting as if under the control of a group of right wing ideologies with Tea Party sympathies, if not outright allegiances. Their goal is to ruin Canada Post for future generation by destroying it from the inside at every step.

The solution, radical for North America perhaps, but also tried and true for Europe is a new direction must be called for and this includes new blood in the executive suit. Many European countries have created corporation laws where the union is not the enemy but on the board itself. Called Codetermination, it is in part the law in such countries as Germany, Austria and Switzerland. By including the workers and their representatives, there is less strife and more harmony. Both sides work together to make the company the best it can be.

If there is to be a future for Canada Post, it needs to enter the 21 century with a new governing body to oversee the place, made up with progressive thinkers and including the union in the same way they do it in Europe. This body would be in charge of oversight on the day to day running of Canada Post. And most importantly, it would be able to explore a growing future for change that includes all stakeholders. Rather than the stagnant, Tea Party, out for destruction, unwilling to change body we have now in upper management. If there is to be a future of Canada post, we need to secure it now, with the right sort of people inside the institution able to foster change but also willing to be a part of change as well.

With the Briexit this week in desperation people are resorting to scare tactics to win over undecided voters. Here is one example trying to get people to vote to leave the EU. In a race baiting video on Facebook, Britain First reported that birth rates were declining across Europe. They showed a number of countries include Germany whose reproduction rate was at 1.38. To reproduce your population you need 2.11. What this means is for every female you need to have at least 2 live births, one birth for replacement of each partner, and a little extra to account for illness and early death. Their claim is than that the western world is in decline by this falling birthrate. The Muslims are going to take over Europe and the Hispanics will take over America simply by out producing the so called “Home Team.” Coming just days after a Britain First supporter, or someone shouting their slogan, was accused of murdering Jo Cox, A British Labor MP, shows extremely poor timing. The simple fact is this; Britain First should stick with comedy because propaganda is not their thing. The only person who killed Jo Cox did not have an Islamic agenda. Britain First most certainly does have an agenda. The killer of Jo Cox was not shouting out “God is Great…” But even within their ramblings we can see this video’s failings most clearly. First, they assume all Muslims, of which there are 1.6 to 1.8 billion of them, will act with one will, one voice or even one thought. This is facile to start with but if it were the case, we would already have been overrun. We also the question of reproduction, the fertility numbers used in this video lie on their face as the average for all people means that all people are included, such that the people who arrived yesterday are lumped in with the people who arrive 200 years ago. When you migrate, you assimilate. Those numbers that Britain First used include Muslim and Hispanics and Africans who are coming but also the ones who have already come in. In other words, all this fear and trembling by racists groups like Britain First for their so-called “invasion” by these so-called “Others” are silly, as If the battle of the birth canal was merely the importation of raw demographic numbers from one country to another. Forgetting that the people involved might have something to say about it. They might have something to do about when they learn they have a choice in these matters. Where even if the first generation are longing for their lost land, the next generation and all who come after, call this new land, home,  Islamophobia merely shows an irrational hatred of Muslims in this case, or any other groups they don’t like. They arrive; they assimilate and disappear into the bed rock of society where they become the newest wave of protectors of the very bedrock they belong to. Think Irish and Italians in the United States, often portrayed as the criminal class such as the Mafia. Yet American law enforcement is filled with both ethnic groups because it is their family tradition. Here are three further examples to show how silly Britain First is; First Germany in the late 1960 and 70s, wave after wave of Turkish Muslims arrived as migrant workers to Germany. They came in with the same high levels of birthing, 8 children per female that BF is using to threaten us with today. And so what happened? By now they should have over run all of Germany. Missed that on the news? What happened is this. They arrived, they assimilated and they became “German.” The women stopped having so many babies, they got jobs and education, the same as German women had done before them. And with that they stopped having kids, because women with choices, i.e. not barefoot and pregnant, do not have as many children. The girls do not identify themselves as Turkish. They speak fluent German. Their children are as foreign to Islam as the blond hair blue eyed friend they are playing soccer within the local field. And ironically of all, the birth rate for all of Germany also includes these Muslim immigrants as well. So if these immigrants had kept up the same proliferation, they should have a marked increase in the birthrate? But they did not. Because that is what happens to people when they move; they adopt the ways of their new world, country or city to feel at home in where they live. Not some other place they do not know. Second example; the mayor of London, a Muslin named Sadiq Khan, born in London and educated in that city; same for the mayor of Calgary, Alberta, Naheed Nenshi. Both men are respectively British or Canadian. They are not Muslim then something else. In a similar vein if slightly different, Donald Trump calling out judge Gonzalo Curiel, the man who is presiding over Trump in his legal dispute regarding Trump University, as being a Mexican. This judge was born in American. His parents as well. We have to go back to his grandparents to see who last lived in Mexico. His family has been American longer then Trump’s own family. Yet he is the Mexican who is biased according to Trump. Our last example; when the offices of Charle Hebdo were attacked, the first police officer on the scene, there to restore order, protect the innocent and arrest the guilty, was brutally slaughtered by the gunmen for the uniform he wore, because he was one of their so called “oppressors”, of their so called “Islamic revolution”. Definition of a hero is someone who runs towards gunfire instead of away from it. This man, this hero, his name was Ahmed Merabet. He was 42 years old and he was a Muslim. Thus in the most ironic twist of fate, a so called Muslim coward killed a real Muslim hero on that day in front of the office of Charlie Hebdo. Isn’t that interesting, the people we are told to fear, are the ones who ran to their death trying to rescue us outside those offices. Remember that the next time you hear the words “Je Suis Charlie”

Just like the successive waves of Eastern Europeans, Irish, and Hispanics to the shores of the USA, just as they have previously done and so too will others continue to do. People will move around this world and will assimilate into the culture of where they live. They will in fact become embodiments of that culture. They will change it and be change by it, making it a living breathing thing that belongs to them as well as to the other people. This lack of live birth shows government needs to produce more female friendly policies such as time off work, family support, day care support and economic incentives to have children. Not foster irrational hatred of other people for having been born different from the present “norm.” Cultural biases against women such as occurred in China, where males vastly outnumber females, due to their one child policy and cultural valuation of male heirs, have created a rapidly aging population that threatens the very survive of the Chinese people into the 21 century. India’s treatment of women, seen in the all too frequent headlines of gang rape and child molestations, all because they were girls and of lesser value in the mind of their attackers, shows the horrors of third world women. When they escape those shores for a haven of hope, while not perfect, we allow women their choices. Including when and where to have children, how many to have and so on. This is the core of western civilization. The British First movement may live in England, they cannot be said to belong to anything other than to their narrow racist bigotry. Vote as you want for Briexit. But vote with a clear head not clouded in racist fears and bad demographics.

Dear Mr Prime Minister

I work for Canada post. Sort of. See, I just got promoted to part time but, well you can read below all about that “but.”

See I started as Christmas helper. But that offered me no real job, just some money to help out at Christmas. Then 5 months later, they offered me a real job, or so I thought, but it was not really a job. It was a position as a temporary employee. Meaning, I got little to no work for long periods of time, only called in as needed. They say in HR to keep your second job, even as the supervisors say “No” you should only work at Canada Post. In fact, many of the people hired when I was, quit to find other jobs that paid them a regular salary or 40 hours of paid work. As I got up the ladder in seniority, three long years to climb it, I was finally appointed, just last month, to a part time position. Can you imagine any job that takes three years to get just to part time? Not yet full time, just part time. To get a full time job, they tell me could take another two years. And what a lofty position this part time job is, I only get 20 hours a week which works out to a little less that 300$ per week. But the co0rperation says even that is too much.

I went to pay my bills today. Sadly, had to cut corners, as I did not make enough money last pay to afford everything I had to pay this time. Can you imagine that? A civil servant, living high off the fatted cow, did not making enough money? I make 300$ or less net per week. My parents were middle class. Now, better educated then they were, I have 5 university degrees, including 2 Master of Arts and with a “good” job the Government of Canada, I have fallen, along with the rest of Canada from such middling aspirations. The middle class no longer exists. Good thing I am used to living off my credit cards because that is how I afford to make ends meet. Those bank card are where the profits from my interest goes to private banks, not the general good or the general public as postal banking might help us all out with. But I guess since the Deepak Chopra is the President and CEO of Canada Post, this idea won’t happen. After all, the private sector banking might not like it if there was a bank in rural communities that did not start with the phrase “Pay Day Loans”. Or if people who want to work, actually earned enough to pay off their bills and get out of debt and could afford to think of themselves as middle class. I guess that sort of middle class Canadian dream died on the order paper in Harper’s government agenda to Americanise Canada to more business friendly country. Tory times are hard times. Don’t worry, they tell me that 23% interest is a fair rate for long term credit card debt.

I checked out my projected retirement income using a projection calculator offered by Canada Post. I cheated on what I filled the form in with. I imputed the amount of a full time employee, as if I were suddenly promoted to full time, as if… (Remember they say another 2 or more years for that.) What I would earn when I retired at the age of 71 after 25 years of service? Almost what I am earning now per week, only per month. They tell me that Canada Post has to cut my luxurious pension even more with this round of contract negotiations. This Cadillac of pension plans is too rich to sustain itself. I would work more and longer than age 71 but they say I cannot. I have to take my pension at 71. Now like Peter Mackay, former Tory Defense Minister, he will get 150 000$ per year starting from age 55 and on for the rest of his life.  It would take me 500 months or near 42 years to earn that much money he will earn per year. Good thing he gets that all free from the Canadian Tax Payers. I guess there are two classes of people. Former Tories and their rich friends and the working poor who’s pension are just too luxurious to afford any longer. Tory times are hard times, unless you are part of the elect of Tory inner circles.

What would I know about paying taxes, since I don’t earn really enough to pay taxes? You would think working for the federal government; I would earn a decent living. Perhaps to dream of being middle class? But since Tory times are hard times, there is no more decent living to be had in Canada, unless you get a bonus. How much does Canada Post pay out in bonuses? I know I am surely not getting any. They only go to rich. Being working poor, you would think after 3 years I would be somewhat better off. But it’s so hard to make any money with so few hours! The corporation does not want to offer too many full time jobs. After all, then people might earn a living. My salary won’t go up either. Wages are too high as it. They have a deficit. Except they earned a profit last year. But none the less wages are too high! They keep cutting jobs, no more full time position to be had, only part time and they want to cut those as well. Part time to be flexible, so flexible they don’t even care about the people doing those jobs. That is their problem, not Canada Post’s problem. In fact, at Canada Post, they want to cut my old wages as a temporary employee to one salary for the length of the contract, to make the poor people who take those jobs even more hard pressed. They also want to reduce vacation from three weeks to two weeks, what would I know about taking a vacation? As a temp, I never took vacation, if I did not work, I did not get paid. That would be where the work part of working poor comes in. But with the contract being negotiated, (sorry Canada Post is not interested in negotiating, they are just waiting to illegally lock us out again then get punitive back to work legislation) Canada Post wants to remove all that and more including my paid lunch. Well, the paid lunch that a full timer gets. I don’t get one being part time. I bring in a muffin. I make it from home. I cannot afford to eat out much. Not like the executive dinning that President Chopra and the 23 executive Vice Presidents get.  This is sad, because my local restaurants are all struggling with the same problem. Too many working poor, not enough people spending money on take out or dinning. No one can afford to eat out any more. Tory times are hard times.

I suppose I should smile but as a temporary employee I don’t qualify for benefits like dental. So I have not seen my dentist in years. Cause any sort of benefit is too good for us. In fact, nothing is too good for us and that is exactly what we get… Nothing. Tory times and all that…

I hear that Canada Post made a profit the last few years. Which is strange because it was not too long ago that a think tank, (ask President Chopra what the name is, since he is a member, I am sure long since forgotten by everyone else) said Canada Post would be losing a billion dollars a year by now. They earned a profit every year since that report came out. With friends like that, publishing a such tripe bias hit piece to start the ball rolling for back to work legislation with the last Tory government. Just like they are trying to do now. Just like they did last time, make a series of impossible demand that force a strike call. When the workers act collectively, the corporation illegally locks them out so said the arbiter in our collective grievance. Then the Tory government passes an illegal back to work law in Parliament (Again as an Ontario Judge has said no less in June of this year) that takes away 1% of wages that the corporation had already agreed to in negotiations just for Tory spite. How nasty is that? The corporation offers an increase that the Tories legislate away from the workers… I wonder if they took away anyone’s bonus like that. Or retirement plan? Took the union many years before a judge ruled that law unconstitutional.  And rightly so! But since we are not part of the elite, the rich or in bed with the Tories, those of us who are working poor, that would be the majority of Canadians, we just don’t count as being important enough to get a fair deal.

See Prime Minister; they are trying to do the same thing now. Force the workers to strike. Lock them out then run to you for back to work legislation. That is unfair. And worse, they tried it before and lost in the courts. How many more times will they use the same play book? When will they start to fairly negotiate a fair deal with the worker that actually improves the lives of so many Canadians?

As you know, North Carolina passed a horrible bill to limit the accessibility to toilets for transgender people. What did we do in Canada? Your government enshrined the rights of transgendered people into our human rights legislation. In Quebec, with the full approval of the opposition parties, yes more than one opposition party all agreed to allow transgender people the right to change their school name and sex in order to allow them a better chance at assimilation in high school. Can you see the difference between Donald Trump’s America and Canada? Where would you put Canada Post and their present administration on that scale? Are they going to do the right thing? The fair thing? The Canadian way? Or will they resort to crushing the working poor with illegal lock out and unconstitutional back to work legislation in Parliament.

Tory times are hard times. You are a liberal. Will you follow the old model of nasty hate? Or is it 2016, and times they are a changing?

In 1949, you father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, covered the strike by mine workers at Thetford Mines. Where Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis sided with the rich mine owners, to send in his goon squads to break the union. Your father stood with the worker and went on to be a force of good for the people Canada, all the people of Canada, not just the wealthy elites but for the working poor. So I ask you Prime Minister, when we strike at Canada Post, will you come to do a shift on the picket line? They last 4 hours, twice a week. We get paid 200$ per week. Where will you stand? With whom will you walk with?

Edit and updated

Word has just reached us that on July 2, 2016, Canada Post will stop all benefits to employees as a pressure tactic. This unilateral action is not covered in the collective agreement, nor is it allowed in the Canadian Labour Code. In other words, just like it was ruled in Ontario that the previous lock out was illegal, Canada Post will once again turn to illegal acts to intimidate its work force. Why won’t it negotiate a contract fairly?

Let’s talk about climate change!

Why screams the hecklers…

Why not.

As in why I am not into the whole climate change thing in the first place.

First, those who do not believe in climate change are called “Deniers”. They take that term from Holocaust deniers. This is a very overt Ad Homonym attack. If we look back upon the beginnings of Quantum Mechanics, today responsible for so many things like GPS and Quantum Computers, The great Albert Einstein would have been called a “Denier”. Yet true scientists of the time, like Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger and his cat, instead of crying foul, took up the challenge presented by such opposition and worked harder to perfect their theory. Never once did they whine, cry or moan. They worked harder to prove their case. Not assume that there mere utterance should be accepted as utterances from the Heavens. So why do they in the climate change camp need to do take such an unscientific stance to begin with? After all, as Al Gore said; “The science is settled!” In fact, science is never settled. Isaac Newton’s Theory of Gravity was published nearly 400 years ago and is known to be wrong. Einstein (such much denial from this man) had to re-write Gravity 100 years ago. Yet for all Newton’s version being wrong, NASA was still able to land men on the moon using it. But at no time was it every considered settled, not by Newton, not by Einstein and certainly not by NASA. So why the rush AL Gore? What’s with the personal attacks on those who disagree? Science is never about either, personal attacks or religious dogma? Yet for some reason Global Warming is about both. In a similar vein, we are told that the majority of scientists believe that Global Warming is to be the true facts in this case. Really? Well, see, at one UN conference, on a Sunday night as delegates rushed to take their planes home, a vote on the matter was called. Of those members who remained, a majority of them voted that way. This sounds to be as biased as you can get to wait to call a vote so late in the conference. Those who stayed until the end can be seen as having a reason to remain, creating a sampling error in the vote. Those that voted having a reason to give a yes vote into a higher percentage. Science is about careful consideration. Not a rush to judgement by people with false agendas. Science is the clash of idea, not name calling. And finally, science is the about unbiased consideration of the evidence, not merely who can rig the vote.

NASA says that this past April was the warmest month of April on record. That sounds scary, but is it? Our record keeping is bad, in fact, very bad. Today we use sophisticated measuring devices. But 140 years ago they looked outside for record keeping and wrote colder today. Not as rigorous as we might like. As well, the places where we measured those temperatures were once outside of the city limits to prevent and protect from micro enviromental factors warming their readings. Now the cities have grown around those same locations and they give out readings that show warmer. There seems to be another explanation here than global warming. The other point to discuss is; what does climate change mean? Yesterday, was warmer then the day before and today is warmer still. See Global warmer is proven! Except, not so fast, that sort of evidence is not considered by any side to be evidence of anything, let alone global warming. The reason is, too small a period to measure and say anything meaningful about. What if this was true from months, then years and then decades? Just what is the period needed to say anything with certainty. Alas, we have no answer. Would we dare call it climate change? Recall to mind that in the 1970tys, climate scientists were saying the world is cooling. Wonder how that theory worked out? But yes they scream we now have better models. In fact, scientists do have better models over the last 40 years. And they have better measuring equipment. What they don’t have is any sort of agreement on the size of sample, should they use; a day, a year, 40 years, 400 years, 4000 years? All unknown and uncertain. And in case you missed this point, they only have data of questionable veracity going back 140 years. Ice Core, Tree samples and other sampling methods are of limited value for the global expression, merely recording the local events over time. Then we can look at the computer models they use. These are based on large dimensions of the atmosphere, usually measured in square miles. They would need to have it at the level of square feet, preferable to the leve3l of square inches. This is like watching a very small bit video on a much large screen. The result is pixilation. Large blocks of square things fill in the picture as the video codex tries to make the picture larger without adequate information. It might work on the tiny level; it won’t work in the big leagues.

The whole Meta notion of climate change and global warming are red flags to a bull in a china shop. It enrages the community and draws out less then useful discussions. People simply do not believe in the whole idea because they have been turned off by the heavy handedness, overzealous, holier than thou approach. Instead of trying to form consensus and educate people, the entire approach by climate change advocates has been to threaten people; “a majority of scientist agree,” insult; “deniers”, or belittle; “The science is settled,” and allow for no meaningful debate when the basic facts are not agreed upon yet.

Now, back to reality. I think we all can agree that when a forest fire burns, you put it out. When a ship spill oil, you clean it up. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean is a mass of plastic, the size of Texas. I suspect that no one has studied what this does to the weather not to mention fish and sea life, but can we not agree that it needs to be cleaned up? How about this, we need to lower car emissions to prevent smog in cities. Not we need to lower car emission because they cause green house gas. Nope, we only need to agree so far on this matter to help keep the air clean in our city. No need to poison the well and go that extra mile to say climate change. For we do not need to involve that sort of speculation, Occam’s razor can be used here and still lower the toxic gas we have to breathe. Another example is the many proposed pipelines stretching from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Many environmental groups oppose this pipeline. As do I. But must I oppose it solely on environmental grounds? Or is this a big tent and we can all work against the idea without having to agree on why it should be stopped? Do I have to convert and drink the cool aid? Or can I say I oppose this idea for economic reasons without commenting on the environmental factors?

For all these reasons and many more, I will not agree with anyone that climate change is occurring. How it has been presented to the public, and whether or not it is even science, let along proven fact or “settled.”

Feel free to call me a denier if you like, but don’t make the mistake of calling yourself a scientist, or that you are doing science. It is all propaganda when you resort to insults proving what a weak argument you have indeed.