This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Naël Shiab charts COVID case rates by province – showing in stark relief how Alberta and Saskatchewan are in a worse position than at any point in the pandemic, with cases still rising sharply. Phil Tank reports on the large number of Saskatchewan daycares now
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Susan on the Soapbox: Another Covid Solution, Another Non-Plan
Nero fiddled while Rome burned; Jason Kenney hid while Albertan’s lives and livelihoods went up in smoke. Last Thursday Health minister Shandro and Drs Hinshaw and Yiu unveiled the government’s latest non-plan to get Alberta through the pandemic. Alberta’s ICUs are at 130% capacity when surge capacity is excluded (87%
Continue readingNorthern Currents –: A battle of ideas surround Covid-19. Vaccine mandates offer hope for us all
Remember that the current vaccine passport system is an alternative to another lockdown situation. It is the opposite of a lockdown – lockdowns shut down society, the vaccine passport is an attempt to reopen society and get back to normal. The tiny minority of anti-vaxxers are the ones keeping this pandemic going;
Continue readingThings Are Good: Philosophers Help Scientists do Better Work
Some empiricists argue that science is a separate discipline from philosophy, and those thinkers may want to rethink their stance. The debate isn’t philosophy or science, the debate is actually how much philosophical rigour should be applied within a certain field of research. In order to effectively advance scientific fields
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Wisdom from the East, Clarified: Paradigm shifts, dying ideologies, and real feng shui vs fast food feng shui
E=MCsquared. Energy = mass x the speed of light squared. What does that mean? Among other things, it means this. Einstein showed matter and energy and interconvertible. In fact, both Einstein’s famous equation and also quantum physics show that matter is in reality condensed energy. Hence, not only does every
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Alberta’s Um, Uh, You Know, Reopening Plan
Alberta is a train slowly emerging from a tunnel, we see the light, the vaccines are coming and most of us will be vaccinated soon. Unfortunately, Alberta is a runaway train and Jason Kenney is the engine driver (also known as the loco pilot in some jurisdictions). Alberta’s loco pilot
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Plague Update: Why WHO Didn’t Clear The Air
There are many examples of leading scientists being shouted down by their peers for daring to propose a new theory, and after presenting evidence, supporting that theory, they’re still shouted down, or worse. The doctor who first realized that the germs on dead people were being spread to pregnant women
Continue readingNorthern Currents –: What if we all get Covid-19? Why vaccines are the cure to contagion
Historically, vaccines have arguably been one of the biggest success stories of the human race – and the story of Covid-19 will be no different. Despite this, there is a relatively small (yet loud) class of people who would like to see us reach herd immunity through “natural infection” which
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Max Fawcett discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the inability of simplistic right-wing populism to respond to any complex problem. And Laura Sciarpelletti reports on one of the consequences of political leaders who are willing to feed into anti-science quackery, as
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Yuval Harari: Bleak Is Back!
Yuval Harari is a shallow thinking dogmatic materialist who swallows whole and uncritically the dominant pseudo-scientific paradigm of mechanistic materialist dualism, which of course is an extremely bleak view of the world, and he is also steeped in an equally uncritical post-modernist nihilism; and he tries to wed that sordid
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Challenging the Despotism Paradigm – Democracy in Animals (T.Roper & L.Conradt)
Neo liberal capitalistic societies tend to promote narratives that reinforce their preferred system of rules and expectations. Examining counter examples and counter-narratives is a necessary task of those who not only want to change society, but also for those who wish to improve the societal conditions in which they exist.
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Question Everything: Metaphysics, Science, Philosophy & Common Sense
Here are thoughts on a short video linked below, but I would frankly assert that the thoughts presented here in this reflection or meditation are more interesting and more useful than the talk that they are commenting on. This seems to me an unnecessarily obscure talk (linked below), even though
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Andrew Nikiforuk writes about Canada’s contributions to the evidence showing how COVID-zero strategies have produced better results in terms of both health and economics – though sadly the Conservative-governed provinces are determined to keep up the harm from allowing the spread of
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Paradigm Shift: A Revolution of the Mind
Below is a high level talk by a theoretical physicist, which I will critique here. Yes, that is audacious, but not unfitting. Here are my thoughts. Really wonderful and lucid talk that is presented here by Michio Kaku, aside from the frankly naïve view of technology as inevitably liberating; however,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Michael Atkinson and Haizhen Mou discuss their new polling showing that Canadians are particularly concerned with climate change and good jobs as part of our recovery from the pandemic – making a Green New Deal an obvious win-win. And Seth Klein writes
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Knowledge vs Opinion, Enlightenment vs Delusion
As Plato said, everyone has opinions, but few have knowledge. It is important that we keep that in the back of our minds, if not the fore. Two levels, there are, in everything: there is the question of how to live, and how to construct a society that is just,
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: What is Enlightenment?
Further Notes On The Dualistic Illusion (This ought to raise the hackles of the fundamentalists – both secular and religious. But I don’t write for the narrow of mind anyway, so I am not concerned about that.) Now here is someone who knows what he is talking about: Rabbi David
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: What Is Buddhism, and What Is Non-Dualism?
And What Are They Not? Open letter to Russell Brand, regarding a video (linked below) titled, Dualism vs Monism EXPLAINED! Russell, who the hell are you interviewing?! The guy is clearly talking out of his ass. (Sorry for my directness and occasional bluntness. I was heavily influenced by Chomsky, Trungpa
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Why Atheism Is A Bag of Hot Air
Atheism is decidedly unscientific, and anti-empirical, because it dogmatically asserts a claim that it cannot possibly prove or even empirically support. If they were truly empirical, or truly scientific, they would at least be agnostic. But they are neither empirical nor scientific. Besides that, and more importantly, atheism is the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Ciara Nugent writes about Amsterdam’s embrace of doughnut economics focused on finding the sweet spot which accounts for human well-being and environmental sustainability. – Ross Belot discusses why the world doesn’t need Keystone XL, while Angus Reid notes that only the prairie
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