The Making of Mediocrity

How else are we going to manufacture a generation of mediocre citizens, lazy, ineffective thinkers, obedient worker bees, citizens who opt not to vote than by penalizing teachers who hand out zeroes to students who don't hand in assignments?

Threat To Israel Is Threat To Canada, Defence Minister Peter MacKay Tells Israeli Military Commander

To my Member of Parliament after reading Threat To Israel Is Threat To Canada, Defence Minister Peter MacKay Tells Israeli Military Commander:

So, the transformation of Canada into a Franksteined version of George W. Bush's America continues.

Who are the Conservatives trying to impress with such rhetoric, with Peter MacKay saying "A threat to Israel is a threat to Canada"?

Are you trying to impress the US?  I thought that was covered by the Harper Government handing Canadian sovereignty over to the Yanks piecemeal.

Message to Kerry Cassidy of Project Camelot

At the 12:38 minute mark of this 2009 interview with Dr. Stephen Greer, Kerry Cassidy says that a "secret witness" told her that the world would run out of food in 10 months and that we had 4 years of air left in the world.

Clearly, the first prediction about the food was completely wrong.  It's now 2012 and I've been overeating with abandon right through the deadline Kerry stated.

As for the world running out of air, I'm going to bet that prediction will prove as accurate as the food prediction.

My question is -- why repeat such obviously asinine testimony such as this?  All it does is hurt your credibility, makes you look like wingnuts, and actually sabotages everything else you have to say because the casual, uninformed viewer sits back and thinks, "Well, everything else they're talking about is probably just as loopy as the food and air predictions."

For people who present themselves as "researchers" who are digging for the truth, where's the research?  Actually, where's the educated skepticism?

Art Bell torpedoed himself in much the same way.  He explored many interesting topics on his show, had many interesting guests, but the fact that he believed and gave credence to some of the most laughable and easily disproven theories hurt him -- not the least of which was his ridiculously serious introduction to the "screams from hell" as recorded from a deep hole in Siberia.  Really?  Hell is in the center of the earth?  The Russians dug a 9 km hole and then went and found a microphone with a 9 km cord, lowered it into the center of the earth without it melting, and were able to record these sounds, which everyone instantly deduces are the screams of hell?  Really?  That's school-yard apocryphal-tale-telling, not anything approaching responsible research.

In a time when secret operations need exposure.  In a time when so many conspiracies are active, and are damaging our democracy and our planet.  In a time when we could be using the Internet to disseminate actual true information about these conspiracies, why in the world would you torpedo your interview with Dr. Greer by sharing such an outlandishly foolish prediction as the world running out of food in 10 months and running out of air in 4 years?

Why would you negate everything else you've done with statement such as this?

Before I'm viewed as merely a crank raining on your parade, I wanted to share a quick anecdote about how misinformation sinks the whole ship.

When I was a kid, I was home sick one day in November 1983 and was watching Donahue or one of those talk shows.  They were discussing the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  At that time in my life, all I knew was that Lee Harvey Oswald killed him, and that was that.  Obviously, I know better now.

So, with that scant knowledge, I watched a panel of researchers, which I believe included Mark Lane and Robert Groden, both of whose work I have come to respect.

Among the panel was one man who said, "If you watch the Zapruder film closely, you'll see the Secret Service driver of the limousine turn around and fire the fatal shot at JFK."

Even as a child, I thought this was ridiculous and I've always remembered that statement and the effect it had on the studio audience: After that man put forth his ridiculous theory, the rest of the panel was painted with the same brush by the audience.  Everyone on the panel was taken down with the ship, as it were.  Suddenly, everyone's theories seemed silly.  No doubt, the man who put forth the limo-driver-as-assassin idea was a misinformation agent whose job was to do precisely that -- torpedo the entire panel.  Mission accomplished, at least on that day.

And so, I find similarly silly, ridiculous, easily disproven theories have the same effect on conversations.  Pardon the indelicate image, but such theories are like a turd in the swimming pool -- they contaminate everything within their reach.

So, ideas that we're going to run out of food in 10 months and run out of air in 4 years are turds in the swimming pool.

Responsible researchers should eshew such statements and people who put forth such ideas without voluminous evidence.  The emphasis should be on the evidence not the theories.  The Internet is chockful of whacky theories.  I can get my fill on there all day.  I want evidence.

Big week in Canadian law & order

Alberta mom who drowned sons to serve 15 more months.

Eaton Centre suspect under house arrest at time of shooting.

Bus beheader seeks passes from hospital.

I understand the Canadian "justice" system isn't about vengeance and I'm glad for that.  I cannot, however,  abide the attitude in our courts that looks upon a person who has committed murder and looks to see, "How can we get this poor soul back on his/her feet?"

Where is the recognition of injury done to the victim and/or the victims family in Canadian courts?  Isn't that a part of justice?  Not in Canada, of course, but isn't it part of most people's sense of what justice is all about?

I'm all too familiar with the hand-wringing do-gooders of Canada who will lament, for instance, about the Alberta mom/muderer, "Sentencing her to 40 years in jail isn't going to bring back the children she murdered."

No, it won't, but I would posit, a lengthy prison sentence is merited, just the same.  The woman cold-bloodedly murdered two children.  What's worse -- they were her own children.  That's not a mitigating factor, it's an exacerbating factor!

Of all the crime stories I've ever read about -- and I've read thousands -- never have I heard of a family member of a murder victim say, imply, infer or otherwise communicate: "If only the murderer got a life sentence, my loved one would come back."

I've never heard such a thing said because I'm sure it's never been said.  Nobody believes it.  So, the hand-wringing criminal-embracing bleeding hearts ought to stop using that as a point of argument.

For some reason, human life has little meaning or value to Canadian courts.

Murder someone and Canadian courts act like American retailers on double coupon day: "OK, are you a member of CARP?  That will get you a few years off.  Any mental illness?  That'll save you a few years.  Are you of aboriginal ancestry?  There's a few more years shaved off.  How about extenuating circumstances, like, you just didn't mean it?  That'll save you a few years.  How about, you're sorry?  Right -- good -- that'll get you a few more years shaved off . . ."

This bizarre, macabre bargaining goes on until the convicted murderer is sentenced to mere months in prison and then given two-for-one credit for time served.

Why?  Because the only thing that matters in Canadian courts is the accused.  Murder someone in Canada and you become Special Person on the next installment of This Is Your Life.  And then all the guilt-ridden do-gooders who think the world just needs more hugs and sweaters have their chance to perform a personality make-over on murderers, rapists, child molesters, what have you.  Like these wretches are the do-gooders ragamuffin Barbie dolls.

This is no more in evidence than the case of Vincent Li, Canadian's beloved cannibal, for whom so many people are pulling, cheering the coming of his day passes.

I've been told my views are outmoded, unsophisticated and not inline with Canadian justice.  That may be so, but I believe that when the act is heinous enough, the reasons behind the act become irrelevant and the perpetrator of the heinous act must simply be locked up forever.

In these isolated cases -- the mother/murderer, the alleged Eaton Centre shooter, the Canadian cannibal -- yes, when found guilty of such crimes, these people should be locked up until they die.