Why Canada is the laughing stock of the world.

This is old news, but I was too busy to comment because in mid-February I was in too much pain and discomfort post-surgery to be sitting in front of the computer, but I think more people need to be made aware of this.

Nature Article Slamming Tories and their Science Policies

CBC Article about the Nature Article

In February, Stephen Harper's Conservative Party was slammed by the most prestigious scientific publication in the world, Nature, for destroying scientific progress in Canada. Having worked not only in a University lab but also a Federal Government Lab over the past 2.5 years, I have noticed funding challenges in either settings, more so in the University labs. Immediately after the Tory government came into power in 2006, research funding was frozen and the government run lab I was working at couldn't even afford to buy latex gloves, and as a result some work was stalled for more than a month until they let us buy supplies again.

Not only did Harper close and remove the office of the national science adviser, he also doesn't believe the science behind Global Warming and doesn't believe the scientific evidence supporting InSite. It was despicable that the Tory government tried to sabotage efforts to create new policies on Global Warming and at the Global Warming policy meetings late last year in Bali when countries tried to come up with a successor to Kyoto, Canada was again at the center of attention for trying to stall efforts. At this point, I guess the scientific community in Canada took offense because professors and scientific organizations started distributing emails to rally against this and kudos that they caught Nature's attention. How one government can make science their enemy when Canadian scientists have done so much in the past and could do so much more in the future is disgusting and extremely stupid. Shame on you.

Cheers to the last great PM Canada has known!

Cheers to Jean Chrétien for being made a companion of the Order of Canada!

Link

Maybe this is why Dallas is winning...

It's kinda funny, kinda mean, but it's this kinda stuff that builds teams.

Viva Fidel! Viva la Revolución!

Without surprise, ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro has resigned his position as President and Commander in Chief of Cuba ending 49 years of rule. Some people hate him, some people love him. You should know which side of the fence I'm on.

With this, we may see major changes in Cuba's economy and policies since Raul Castro, Fidel's brother, who is now constitutionally next in line to take over, admires what China has done with its economy after opening up post-Mao.

Anyhow, here's the letter he posted today. You can read the entire letter at the Cuban Communist newspaper's site Granma.

Dear compatriots:

Last Friday, Feb. 15, I promised you that in my next reflection I would deal with an issue of interest to many compatriots. So this reflection comes in the form of a message.

The time has come to nominate and elect the State Council, its president, its vice presidents and its secretary.

For many years I occupied the honorable position of president.

On Feb. 15, 1976, the Socialist Constitution was approved with the free, direct and secret vote of over 95 percent of eligible voters.

The first National Assembly was established on Dec. 2 that same year, and it elected the State Council and its presidency. Before that, I had been a prime minister for almost 18 years. I always had the necessary prerogatives to carry forward the revolutionary work with the support of the overwhelming majority of the people.

There were those overseas who, aware of my critical health condition, thought that my provisional resignation, on July 31, 2006, from the position of President of the State Council, which I left to First Vice President Raul Castro Ruz, was permanent. Raul, who is also minister of the Armed Forces because of his personal merits, and the other comrades of the Party and State leadership were unwilling to consider me out of public life despite my precarious health.

It was an uncomfortable situation for me vis-a-vis an adversary which had done everything possible to get rid of me (referring to the United States), and I felt reluctant to comply.

Later, I was able to recover the full command of my mind and could do much reading and meditation, required by my retreat. I had enough physical strength to write for many hours, which I shared with rehabilitation and recovery programs. Basic common sense indicated to me that such activity was within my reach. On the other hand, when referring to my health I was extremely careful to avoid raising expectations since I felt that an adverse ending would bring traumatic news to our people in the midst of the battle. Thus, my first duty was to prepare our people both politically and psychologically for my absence after so many years of struggle. I kept saying that my recovery "was not without risks."

My wishes have always been to discharge my duties to my last breath. That's what I can offer.

To my dearest compatriots, who have recently honored me so much by electing me a member of the Parliament where so many agreements should be adopted of utmost importance to the destiny of our Revolution, I am saying that I will neither aspire to nor accept -- I repeat, I will neither aspire to nor accept -- the positions of President of the State Council and Commander in Chief.

In short letters addressed to Randy Alonso, Director of the Round Table program on National Television -- letters which at my request were made public -- I discreetly introduced elements of this message I am writing today, when not even the addressee of such letters was aware of my intention. I trusted Randy because I knew him well from his days as a journalism student. In those days I met almost on a nearly weekly basis with the main representatives of the university students from the provinces at the library of the large house in Kohly where they lived. Today, the entire country is an immense university.

Here are selected paragraphs from the letter sent to Randy on Dec. 17, 2007:

"I strongly believe that the answers to the current problems facing Cuban society, which has on average a 12th grade education, almost 1 million university graduates, and real opportunities for its citizens to study without facing discrimination, require more variables for each concrete problem than those contained in a chess game. We cannot ignore a single detail; this is not an easy path to take, if the intelligence of a human being in a revolutionary society is to prevail over instinct.

"My elemental duty is not to cling to positions, much less to stand in the way of younger persons, but rather to contribute experience and ideas whose modest value comes from the exceptional era in which I lived.

"Like (Brazilian architect Oscar) Niemeyer (who turned 100 on Dec. 15), I believe that one has to be consistent right up to the end."

Letter from Jan. 8, 2008:

"... I am a firm supporter of a unified vote (a principle that preserves ignored merits), which allowed us to avoid the tendency to copy what came to us from countries of the former socialist bloc, including the portrait of the one candidate, as singular as his solidarity toward Cuba. I deeply respect that first attempt at building socialism, thanks to which we were able to continue along the path we had chosen."

I reiterated in that letter that "... I never forget that all the world's glory fits in a kernel of corn."

Therefore, it would be a betrayal of my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer. This I say devoid of all drama.

Fortunately, our process can still count on cadres from the old guard and others who were very young in the early days of the Revolution. Some were very young, almost children, when they joined the fight on the mountains and later they filled the country with glory with their heroism and their internationalist missions. They have the authority and the experience to guarantee the replacement. There is also the intermediate generation which learned with us the basics of the complex and almost unattainable art of organizing and leading a revolution.

The path will always be difficult and require everyone's intelligent effort. I distrust the seemingly easy path of apologetics or its antithesis of self-flagellation. We should always be prepared for the worst possibilities. We cannot forget the principle of being as prudent in success as steady in adversity. The adversary to be defeated is extremely strong, but we have been able to keep it at bay for half a century.

This is not my farewell to you. My only wish is to fight as a soldier in the battle of ideas. I shall continue to write under the title, "Reflections of Comrade Fidel." It will be another weapon you can count on. Perhaps my voice will be heard. I shall be careful.

Thank you.

Fidel Castro Ruz
Feb. 18, 2008
5:30 p.m.

Viva la Revolución! Viva Fidel! Viva el Socialismo!

Pictures that Changed the World

Slate's Picks

A blogger's favourites from the Slate album with commentary.

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I think these pictures are all very powerful indeed. But my personal favourite has to be the one of "Tank Man".

Throwing shit in the fire doesn't put it out sir.

What happens when you try to throw shit in a fire? Anyone would agree that the fire burns with a new fiery with its flames expanding in all possible directions... unless you're former PM Mr. Mulroney. In his attempt to cover up whatever the hell he was doing for Karlheinz Schreiber, he took a bigger shit on top of the fire that's become of his dealings with Schreiber. In December when he testified in a federal ethics committee inquiry regarding his dealings with Schreiber, he told the committee that he was paid 225,000 after he had left office and that it was remuneration for lobbying work he had performed for a german armoured vehicle company, Thyssen. According to the CBC, Thyssen has no records of any of this. Ex-spokespersons and executives of the company said that the former PM had no official business with Thyssen. So as it says in the CBC article, they can't find anything to disprove of the former PM's words, but they also can't find anything to support anything he's said.

Maybe you should come clean sir. Don't take another shit on the fire, it only keeps the fire going.

CBC article (February, 11th 2008)

Sustenance and illusions

Today, I saw an article on the CBC about a bakery having to close because of rising wheat costs due to the demand for biofuels. This isn't the first time I've heard of such a story as there are microbreweries that are struggling to turn a profit due to the rising prices of hops and barley. Biofuels are cleaner than traditional fuels, but the way we're getting this fuel is becoming completely stupid. The primary source of these biofuels are from crops that should be used for sustenance (ie. corn, wheat, hops, barley) rather than being used as fuel. Now you end up with morons running countries where most of their corn or wheat is used to generate biofuels because it makes more money as fuel than as food. What makes this disturbing is the fact that there are people starving and these crops could be used to feed people instead of cars.

But the biofuel promoters are also at fault. They should be emphasizing alternative crops that could be grown at higher densities than traditional crops for biofuels. Governments should also limit the production of biofuels to a specific percentage of a particular farm's annual crop output. I just find it disgusting to see people are starving and farmers just ignorantly convert their crops into biofuels instead of using the food to feel starving people.

This probably doesn't make any sense, but I haven't slept for days so this is the best I could do for now... my rant of the day.