Green Energy Proposals Part II: Party Positions
In Part I, I sketched an overview of the consequences of various green energy proposals. Because it is election season in Ontario, let me note the following party observations with…
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Green Energy Proposals Part I: An Overview
With a variety of different green energy proposals floating around, it is worth recalling what the various schemes are and what their advantages and disadvantages are. In Part I, I…
Israel/Palestine Overview
The Israel/Palestine issue is a particularly difficult topic to talk and write about simply because it is such a poignant, polarizing and established issue. Within a few sentences, western commentators…
The Power of Provinces and the Importance of the 2011 Ontario Election
When Stephen Harper won a majority in the federal election he did this first and foremost by attracting a large body of voters who had not voted for him in…
The Concept of Infinity
It is often suggested that the human mind is incapable of conceiving of the concept of infinity. I would submit firstly that in many ways the concept of a finite…
Ontario Election 2011: Candidate Overview for the Riding of Parkdale Highpark
This post is intended to fill a void on Google that does not, as yet, have a non-partisan summary of the basic facts about the candidates running in the Parkdale-Highpark…
On Political Correctness
I am always somewhat bemused that in today's usage the expression 'political correctness' is overwhelmingly considered a pejorative. One might accuse somebody else of being racist or sexist, but one…
Mandatory Sentences Really Mean Mandatory
Canada's top legal group, the Canadian Bar Association, was not exactly kind to Harper's approach to crime in its recent annual conference. It identified many issues from overcrowding to the…
On ‘Ritual Nick’ or ‘Pinprick’ Female Circumcision
Whenever the topic of female genital mutilation or circumcision is brought up, most people experience a poignant and visceral reaction at the mere thought of such atrocity. Almost everything to…
Ontario Election 2011: This is, and must be, a referendum on green energy
In all of North America, Ontario is unique in its approach and scale of tackling the dual problems of declining cheap fossil fuel availability and global warming. It has implemented…
What Global Warming And Abortion Have In Common
When trying to understand the political landscape it is often useful to figure out the various couplings and interdependencies between superficially disparate political positions. Politics divides itself into widespread factions,…
The Debt Deal and Defense Spending
Defense spending factors into the recent deal to avert the entirely political debt "crisis" in a couple of ways. Firstly, amazingly, the deal actually increases defense spending in a certain…
A not so clever move in a broken political game
Previously: A clever move in a broken political game Unlike a couple weeks ago, the Aug 2nd deadline really, really, is approaching fast. There was a time when playing empty…
Religion’s Changing Domain of Knowledge
Religion has long claimed ultimate Truth in two differing domains of knowledge: what is, and what ought to be; descriptive and normative; knowledge about the nature of the universe and…
Oslo vs Tuscan: Asymmetric Reactions
When Jared Loughner shot dead six people in Tuscan in an attempted murder of congresswoman Gabby Giffords, there was several interesting reactions outside of the obviously deserved expressions of sympathy…
My Central Tension in Moral Philosophy
It would be nice to be able to say that my moral leanings followed a consistent system of moral belief and didn't leave central questions such as the source of…
Marriage Equality, Obama, Jurisdiction
Which of these sounds like a true leader, a president one can get behind: the man who strongly and emphatically declares what he thinks is morally right and acts accordingly,…
Hate Speech, Religious Freedoms, and Islamophobia
Competing with the concurrent LGBT Pride parade in Toronto, a local imam took it upon himself to very publicly condemn homosexuality, referencing how Islamic law instructs us to execute those…
On Cultural and Technological Selection
In my previous post, regarding the Hydraulic Thesis's role in history, I referred somewhat vaguely to the idea of competitive pressures selecting for groups that had adopted the more advantageous…
A clever move in a broken political game
The "negotiations" surrounding raising the debt limit in the United States is a particularly poignant example of the oh-too-funny-if-not-so-serious circus of partisan, brinkmanship showboating that dominants so much of American…