Lesson 1 - Deflecting the issue

Q: You think marijuana should be legal? What are you, some kind of pothead?

A: I’ll tell you what I am. I am a firm believer in the philosophical notions of liberty and truth (this might throw off your opponent beyond recovery already). I therefore reject the continuation of a policy that stands in firm contradiction to those notions.

Lesson 2 - Give a little, Take a lot

Q: The truth is that marijuana is a dangerous substance. It causes respiratory illness, psychosis, memory loss, and other problems. How can you possibly call yourself a believer in the truth and deny these facts?

A: I’ll pretend for a moment, that your ‘facts’ are not grossly over-exaggerated and that the scientific support is unquestionable. The truth is that most of these claims are much different than the original reasons for criminalizing marijuana. The lies that it is toxic, creates murderers & heroine addicts, and that it causes permanent psychosis for all users - have long been proven false. If the original reasons for criminalizing it have proven false, there is no longer reason for it to remain criminal.

Lesson 3 - Flipping the Issue; Go on the attack

A: These NEW claims you speak of, pale in comparison to the originals. Should we really ban anything that might increase the risk of common ailments? Should you be put in jail for eating cholesterol?

Lesson 4 - Hardcore logic for weak associations

Q: But marijuana use leads to harder drugs and profits go towards organized crime. How can you possibly support such results?

A: Profits go to organized crime because well, its a crime. If it weren’t a crime, its profits would go elsewhere. Similarly, heroine is a crime. Those people that get heavily involved in marijuana are more likely to get involved with heroine because, the same organized criminals are distributing it. Therefore, marijuana criminalization causes heroine use, not marijuana itself.

Lesson 5 - When all else fails, lie…well

Q: My daughter got into marijuana when she was 16. Today, she’s a crack addict prostituting herself for spare change. Its people like you that allow such things to continue. How do you live with yourself?

A: My grandfather was in the military. He smoked marijuana on a daily basis in order to cope with the stress and trauma, as did many of his fellow soldiers. Without marijuana, the allies would have struggled to defeat the German’s in World War II. I think a world where your daughter is a crack addicted prostitute is more pleasant than a world where each of us is in a slave camp, mutated by genetic experimentation. Don’t you?

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Protest the Church of Scientology? Why not.

Anonymous or not, online oganizers decided to change the news, focus on a powerful organization, and show distaste for it. The nice thing about action: you don’t have to worry about libel or hate speech. It’s curious vocalized criticism of doctors, pharmacists, or homosexuals doesn’t qualify as hatred/discrimination (But thats another issue).

For weeks anonymous videos have been threatening the church and organizing a modern media crusade. Some people went further, sending fake anthrax letters to Churches in Los Angeles .

Why you ask?

It definitely isn’t due to fraudulent and criminal activities, secrecy, destructive beliefs or opportunistic emotional brainwashing. So what then? Why the anger?

Maybe people in their 20’s just have nothing better to do with their time. They need some senseless, random, cause. There just aren’t enough causes for concern to keep us occupied. We crave senseless discrimination. We are legion.

I am what? Babling? No. I am fair and balanced - scientific even. I told you the what, but what about the why?

Why not? Get up off your as this Sunday. Forget about your exams, work, mass?, or hangover nursing for a day. Embrace the opportunity. Save your political passivity for Monday. Drop some acid with your MAOI’s and Ritalin while smoking a joint outside Scientology headquarters; just cause that’s your right . Do what’s right.

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Fetus in a tube

So the age of human cloning has begun… A scientist clones himself.

And, as expected, a moral battle has ensued. Its important to understand exactly what is at issue. We are not dealing with the actual birth of any clones - the idea is to use cloning as a means to obtain stem cells for patients suffering from Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, transplant patients, diabetes sufferers, and many others. It isn’t The 6th Day or The Island people; the embryos only live several days.

But some people panic (surprise!). They think that this akin to breeding for spare parts, playing god, genetic engineering, or a small step towards much more serious experimentation. Richard Doerflinger, a representative of the Catholic Church says,

It does not answer the ethical or social questions about the mass-production of developing human lives in order to destroy them. . . . It only tells us that these questions are more urgent than ever.

Fortunately for Doerflinger, most science does not make ethical arguments. Nonetheless, nobody is ‘developing human lives in order to destroy them’ - except maybe god.

We are attempting to develop pre-human lives, in order to save actual lives and benefit those around them. Where did this ludicrous idea of associating mysticism to the moment of conception come from anyway? If it wasn’t for the sciences of biology and anatomy, Doerflinger might accuse people of ethical malpractice for building mud sculptures. As far as religious texts are concerned, God is ignorant of fetal development.

And yet, there is something odd about this cloning business isn’t there? Though somehow I doubt it has anything to do with ‘killing’ anything worthy of our moral consideration. Maybe Hollywood did it to us; maybe it’s the danger of a black market; or maybe our prehistoric ego’s can’t accept the fact that each one of us is just a natural, duplicable, machine.

Or what do I know? Maybe there is a divine plan behind rape pregnancies, miscarriages, deformed children, and conjoint twins. But if that’s intelligent design, I’m proud to be a moron.

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We begin with the Vancouver Airport Authority attempting to divert any blame towards management or personnel responsibility. Why didn’t anyone offer help, support, or translation? We all know how frustrating the airport can be… imagine 12 hours of delay, confusion, getting lost, and a complete inability to communicate. Think you might get a bit agitated?

Apparently the problem is infrastructure. According to Chief Executive Larry Berg,

“I think that we’ve lost a little bit of the human touch, the ability to reach out to people, individuals who may have different, unique circumstances, such as this individual did.”

No shit. When a foreign visitor gets lost for 12 hours in a major international airport that is preparing for the Olympic Games, I would expect some concerns. But despite the god-awful absence of systemized customer assistance - it is a sickening realization that the airport personnel did not step up to diffuse the situation. Anyhow, the Vancouver Airport Authority, in all its divine wisdom, decided to throw some consumer money on the issue in hopes of concealing this rather ugly scar. I’m sure $1.3 million will give their hollow apologies a voice.

On to the RCMP, who, do indeed have a tough job. Which is exactly why such a job shouldn’t be taken lightly. A few days ago Big Shot Mounties announced new regulations to restrict the use of tasers for individuals who are “combative” or “actively resistant”. Well ummm… do you really need a regulation that says that?

While admitting that tasers have been used inappropriately in the past, no clear indication was given whether the death of Robert Dziekanski was one of those circumstances. Hard to get greedy I suppose; its difficult enough to have the RCMP admit they make mistakes, let alone point one out in particular.

The simple answer to all this hubub is responsibility. Questions about whether tasers should even be used or whether they are torture are ludicrous. If you want a proper police force then they must be equipped to enforce… but if you want them to make sound judgments, you have to equip them with training and responsibility. The attitude of superiority and the mindless reflexes of these officers should be our prime concern.

But nobody wants to talk about that. So let us move on. Let us sweep these grains of infuriating incompetence beneath us. Sweep it away. Now repeat after me “the government and RCMP is only there for my protection.”

Good.

Feel better?

You won’t after watching this:

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• Pickton was found guilty
• Marijuana laws are again found unconstitutional in Canada
• I temporarily converted to Mormonism
• Warren Jeffs found guilty (the reason I joined)
• RCMP Taser a Polish Man to Death
• Rise of Ron Paul
• BitTorrent Crackdown

Good news is I have some time off. But I’m also working to get some freelance clientèle so if you need some web work either let me know or fill out my quote form. In the mean time I will be finishing up some drafts that I’ve put off for months and also looking for new material. Not sure about my yearly Christmas article as yet, but we’ll see; otherwise I’ll post an oldie.

That’s it for now.

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Now I will not get into the finer details about this story because quite frankly, I don’t have time. What I would like everyone to keep in mind, is that this story is based on the testimony of individuals who claim to have seen this event or who heard about it (nevermind the delicate controversy about whether or not first-person testimony actually exists). It is on the basis of this testimony, coupled with some very loose ‘logic’, that one third of the human race currently believes this story is true.

Michael Persinger, a Canadian neuroscientist, has conducted experiments which ’simulate’ religious experiences using electro-magnetic waves. He also notes, that a substance called reserpine will elicit a “death-like” state in animals when they are restrained, only to seemingly “resurrect” after about 3 days. The Celts performed similar ceremonies, citing the experience as proof of an afterlife.

Did a Jesus truly rise from the dead and destroy every shred of evidence suggesting its impossibility? Or was it just a performance, acted out by a jewish sect, in hopes of attracting members in a religiously competitive culture? Do you ever wonder why there is not a single eyewitness testimony or historical reference near the date Jesus’ death was supposed to have occurred?

Do you wonder why the earliest gospel was written a minimum of 40 years after the fact? Could this be the most successful Hoax in human history? “No!” you say, “I have experienced the power of Jesus’ resurrection personally”. A visit to your local faith healer will demonstrate the power of suggestion. What happens when an entire culture proposes a particular idea? Did you experience Jesus before you knew about him?

But maybe people are too honest to do such things.

Here’s the relevant clip from Michael’s lecture:

Download ipod version

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After finally getting around to the report on his desk, revealing the inconvenient truth that plastic may take thousands of years to decompose, Bush did what he does best: pledged money to a cause.

The cause was Africa. George also learned that Africa was suffering from a terrible outbreak of something called AIDS, a sexually transmitted disease. George is no dummy, he knew that the best method of preventing AIDS was through the use of condoms. That disturbing fact, coupled with an estimate of 25 million people living with AIDS or HIV in Africa, spawned a series of nightmares for Mr. Bush. Nightmares, he claims, where Africa is submerged in a landfill of used condoms for thousands of years.

“We must do something,” boasted a brave George W. Bush during his latest press conference, “Our landfills are filling up, our resources are being drained, and the African people may lose their country to a torrent of used condoms!”

The President was eager to reveal a bold new solution: Foreskin. “Instead of using plastic condoms, a commodity not broken down over thousands of years and restrictive of the penis’ freedom, we will free the penis from totalitarianism! We will sever the skin of every African penis so that it may have same freedoms that we American’s enjoy.”

Human flesh is, after all, biodegradable.

The President was like a polished Greenpeace soldier; shooting out scientific research and moral duty in singular sentences. He silenced his critics with relevant fart jokes and brilliant metaphor. The speech may very well come to be known as the monument of the birth… the birth of American Environmentalism.

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