There’s not much going on here these days but if you’re still following this feed, make sure to check out my new project: PolitiCoast – a Canadian politics podcast. Our marketing’s so good we’ve already been accused of hiding our funding. Is this new podcast funded by someone? Its timing
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Terahertz: Budget 2016: Charities, consultations and clarifications
The Trudeau Liberals first budget was released yesterday. While most coverage was over the size of the deficits and who gets what money, my attention was on a single bullet on page 206. Pertaining to rules governing charities and their political activities, the CRA, in consultation with the Department of Finance, will engage with charities … Continue reading Budget 2016: Charities, consultations and clarifications
Continue readingTerahertz: Joyce Murray on physician assisted dying
Just over a week ago, I commented on a post on Joyce Murray’s page (the Liberal MP and candidate in Vancouver Quadra) asking her position on physician assisted dying. She had just attended a panel on the issue and I was curious what her take was. What I didn’t expect
Continue readingTerahertz: Will the real Marc Boyer please stand up?
My Storify of figuring out who’s actually running for the Marijuana Party in Vancouver Quadra. [View the story “Will the real Marc Boyer please stand up? [Solved]” on Storify]
Continue readingTerahertz: The Big Bang Theory is ruining science
When The Big Bang Theory first premiered, I watched it with a lot of hope. It had science script checkers and sought to bring the nerdy culture of physics into the mainstream. My wife (then girlfriend) and I started watching it while we were both undergrads – me in engineering
Continue readingTerahertz: A full response to Humanist Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation statement
Two weeks ago I began Tweeting my reactions to Humanist Canada’s response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Report. I heavily criticized the organization for it’s response, which in my view used the opportunity to make an easy attack on religion while doing nothing on promoting reconciliation with Canada’s aboriginal
Continue readingTerahertz: Multiculturalism, interculturalism and secularism
I want to promise this won’t become a habit but sometimes it seems easier to just Tweet a bunch of random thoughts about an issue that I can collate and publish as a Storify. So here’s my latest. [View the story "Multiculturalism, interculturalism and Secularism" on Storify]
Continue readingTerahertz: Humanists must engage with the Truth and Reconciliation Report
Earlier today I finally had some time to sit down and read parts of the Truth and Reconciliation report and set out why Humanist Canada’s response was woefully inadequate (at best). I Tweeted my responses and then built my first Storify. Hopefully this works. [View the story “Humanist Canada’s “response”
Continue readingTerahertz: Libertarian activist puts politics before reality to argue the left puts politics before reality
On the libertarian blog Reason, John Stossel trots out the tired cliche that the left are just as anti-science as the right, and in this case potentially even more damaging. Because non-evidence based views about climate change have no real world consequences right? He cites the usual tropes as the
Continue readingTerahertz: “I’m glad it’s over”
Canadian Atheist blogger Veronica Abbass emailed me a couple days ago to say: More than three years ago, I wrote a post on Canadian Atheist about prayer in Peterborough municipal council meetings. In the comments you suggested I contact CFI Canada. I did and CFI connected me with Dan Mayo
Continue readingTerahertz: Fringe party crashes election debate in Hornsey
I can safely say I just got home from one of the most bizarre electoral hustings I’ve ever been to. Tonight’s debate, hosted by Horsney Parish Church and moderated by Father Bruce Batstone, invited candidates from the five largest parties running in my constituency, Hornsey and Wood Green: Suhail Rahuja
Continue readingTerahertz: How to lose an election
Alberta’s election continues to be far more entertaining than the one here in the UK. Amid his party’s plummeting polling numbers, Progressive Conservative Premier Jim Prentice needed to re-connect with voters and rebuild trust for his party during the leaders debate last night. Instead, he told the only woman on
Continue readingTerahertz: 10 reasons the Saguenay ruling establishes Canada as a secular country
It’s been only 5 days since the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously that the prayers said by the City of Saguenay discriminated against atheists, and already cities across Canada are reviewing their own practices. But I suspect (although caveated with the standard, I am not a lawyer) this ruling
Continue readingTerahertz: On PZ Myers and Atheist Ireland – what she said
I can’t add much to this statement from Secular Woman on the recent “public dissociation” controversy. I will admit that this blog was briefly listed as one of the Secular Policy Institute’s affiliates though (because they literally asked everyone they could google). But after they issued their bizarre statement about “shock
Continue readingTerahertz: Lunney unleashed
Citing media “intolerance and bigotry”, anti-science Canadian MP James Lunney has quit the government caucus to sit as an independent. Among Lunney’s claim to the crown as Canada’s least scientifically literate MP are: He doesn’t believe in evolution He’s a chiropractor He’s claimed there’s a link between vaccines and autism
Continue readingTerahertz: Got DNA evidence of Bigfoot? Don’t peer review, write a book!
Science Editor Jonathan Leake skewered Bryan Sykes in The Sunday Times today [paywalled] over bigfoot claims. Sykes is publishing a new book in which he’ll present the DNA evidence he claims to have for the existence of yetis and bigfoot. This claim comes despite the lack of any good photographic evidence in the
Continue readingTerahertz: Edmonton Journal grants space to debunked anti-WiFi conspiracies
Some parents in Alberta are trying to get schools to ban wi-fi on baseless fears and scare-mongering. The kicker: these same parents are fine with wifi in their house. It’s not so much the parents who bother me in this story as the Canadian Teachers Federation, the local school councils,
Continue readingTerahertz: It’s all been done
The current UK election cycle seems like much of the past 20 years of Canadian politics is just being played over again. In no particular order, here’s the similarities I can already see, please add your own in the comments. The rise of regional separtist parties The Bloc Quebecois swept
Continue readingTerahertz: E-petitions come to Canada
Congrats to Burnaby MP Kennedy Stewart on getting enough support to make his dream of e-peitions in Parliament a reality. After the next election, Canadians will be able to submit petitions online, forcing a response to every petition over 500 signatures. In the grand scheme of things, it’s probably a
Continue readingTerahertz: Support an amended Bill C-264 in Canada
In February, Bill C-624 an Act to Amend the National Anthem Act (gender) received second reading in Canada’s House of Commons. This bill, put forward by Liberal MP for Ottawa—Vanier Mauril Bélanger, would replace the words “thy sons” with “of us” in Canada’s national anthem. This would correct the gender imbalance in the
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