Desi In Toronto

Everyone knows that Rockstar energy drinks are loaded with sugar and are, overall, not good for you. Here is another reason to stay away from the drinks :

A few facts about Rockstar Energy Drink.  It was co-founded by conservative radio host Michael Savage.  It’s current CEO is Russell Weiner, Michael Savage’s son and a co-founder of the “Paul Revere Society” here in the States.

A few facts about Michael Savage.  Better yet, here are a few comments directly from the mouth of Michael Savage:

“You want me to tell you what makes me sick? When I see two puffy white males kissing each other, I want to puke.  When I see two women kissing each other, on the lips, as lovers, I want to vomit.”

“When you hear “human rights,” think only one thing: someone who wants to rape your son. And you’ll get it just right. OK, you got it, right? When you hear “human rights,” think only someone who wants to molest your son, and send you to jail if you defend him. Write that down, make a note of it.”

“…children’s minds are being raped by the homosexual mafia, that’s my position. They’re raping our children’s minds.”

“You know what autism is? I’ll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. That’s what autism is.”

So folks, if you have an iota of social consciousness in you, please stay away from Rockstar. You are only deepening the pockets of racists and homophobes.

(via CC)

Why I hate wingnuts. This is a comment by one of Canada’s premier wingnuts.

[pre-emptive note... to the usual anonymous trolls]

this is, indisputably… a terrible loss for the family & friends of these brave soldiers… but let’s also try to keep a little perspective.

before you go all “taliban jack” here… try to remember that, statistically, we have lost less than 20 soldiers per year since 2001.

in contrast…

“nineteen snowmobilers have died in avalanches in B.C. and Alberta just this winter.”and if you want a real wakeup call… read a book about world war one… or snakes.

Here’s my comment :

“we have lost less than 20 soldiers per year since 2001.”

Neo. How many of them were your kids/relatives/uncles/aunts/neighbours/people you know?

..dumbest comments EVAH!! Keep digging that hole, Neo, keep digging that hole…….

…..aaaand the response from Neo.

oh, look… agsharma… another empty blogger profile set up exclusively for drive-by trolling.

hey mr troll… let’s go with the complete quote, shall we?

begin quote…

[pre-emptive note... to the usual anonymous trolls]

this is, indisputably… a terrible loss for the family & friends of these brave soldiers… but let’s also try to keep a little perspective.

before you go all “taliban jack” here… try to remember that, statistically, we have lost less than 20 soldiers per year since 2001.

in contrast…

“nineteen snowmobilers have died in avalanches in B.C. and Alberta just this winter.”and if you want a real wakeup call… read a book about world war one… or snakes.end quote…

which of the facts here are you disputing? you’re suggesting i don’t support the troops?

oh, that’s right… you’re not disputing anything factually. you’re just using the infamous, leftbot… “you’re a big poopyhead”… gambit.

you guys are just so pathetic.

It never ceases to amaze me how the right wing thinks.

My point was how could this blogger say “just” 20 deaths per year? It almost seems like this blogger says, because there were a few deaths, we should continue letting soldiers die out there even if it means that the probability of a soldier dying each year is 0.571% ((20/3500)*100). This is precisely why I hate politicians (and idiotic bloggers) who think this probability is low enough to continue a war that has lost it’s meaning. And that’s why I do not support this war. The soldiers, yes. But not the war.

And what the hell is the meaning of comparing deaths on the battlefield with accidental deaths in BC?

I have been warned not to engage the wingnuts because their screams and moans do wake up the dead. I usually do not leave comments on their sites. But I could not resist this time.  My excuse is that I had not finished my morning coffee yet!!

Crusader of privatisation of health care : GP Dr Jacques Chaoulli

You went on a four week hunger strike to protest restrictions on private healthcare. What’s the first thing you ate when it was over? Orange juice and tomatoes I think.
You’ve publicly compared yourself to Mahatma Gandhi. Aside from a willingness to starve, what do the two of you have in common? When Gandhi was practising law in South Africa, he noticed the infringement on human rights against blacks. He felt that wasn’t fair and he wanted to defend them. Everyone thought he was crazy but he continued his fight alone. I wanted to fight for the human rights of my patients and, like Gandhi, everybody thought I was crazy and that I could never prevail over the government.

…….and then there is this, the actual cost of going to a Private emergency clinic.

In a scene that combined tragedy with Monty Python farce, a 77-year-old man in acute respiratory failure turned up at a private medical clinic in Montreal only to be told to wait his turn.

Jean-Jacques Sauvageau waited until his heart stopped and his dentures fell out onto the floor. Even then, the famous doctor who came to tend to him did a cursory exam and didn’t try to revive him, leaving him instead before the horrified eyes of fellow patients. The events were depicted in a report issued yesterday by Quebec coroner Catherine Rudel-Tessier. And the doctor taken to task for his failure to try to resuscitate the patient is private-care crusader Jacques Chaoulli.

That’s the same Jacques Chaoulli who “fights for human rights”. Here is a comparison of the care that the good doctor was providing against the care that the dreaded “public health system” wanted to provide

He (Jacques Chaoulli) left him sitting in the chair, and told the nurse to phone 911 to report the death. But the 911 operator pleaded with the nurse to try to revive Mr. Sauvageau. Dr. Chaoulli got on the phone and tried to argue the patient was dead; however, the 911 operator insisted. Meanwhile, the other patients grew increasingly alarmed, seeing the apparently dead man, his mouth and eyes wide open. Sarah Twain-Lagarde, in the clinic with her feverish toddler, called 911 herself and tried to resuscitate Mr. Sauvageau, but nurses told her to stop.

And this is the problem I have with the fucking idiots who insist we need more privatisation in the health system because public health system “infringes human rights”. If this fuckers would say right out “we want to make more money which is why we want privatisation”, I would hate them but at least I would respect their honesty. Instead, they cloak there greed in “human rights” and then  go about ignoring the very rights that they have been championing.

I know I am making a mountain out of a molehill here. I mean this is just a one of case and it could have happened in a Public Health Care system (come to think of it, it has happened in a public hospital). But this guy is THE CHAMPION OF PRIVATE HEALTH CARE in Canada. He should have known better to act the way he did and yet he did not care about the patient.

<HT: CathieFromCanada>

Ever since I became a Canadian one thing that has been consistent, when I go out of the country and sometime within Canada itself, I come across people from all walks of life who perpetuate the belief that Canadians have the most regressive and oppressive tax system in the world.

Unfortunately, having to contribute 39% of my salary as taxes to the various branches of the government, I cound never really counter the argument. I knew that my taxes were going towards the health services, schools, roads, etc but there was no hard data to support my belief that the taxes we give in Canada give us unprecedented services.

Well, today that changes. For all you whiners and cry babies who moan and groan about paying taxes, read this the next time you have to pay taxes.

<Link>

The majority of Canadian households enjoy a higher quality of life because the public services their taxes fund come at a solid bargain, according to a new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

Canada’s Quiet Bargain: The Benefits of Public Spending responds to incessant calls for tax cuts and concludes public services make a significant contribution to the majority of Canadians’ standard of living – worth at least 50% of their income.

“What passes for a tax cut debate in Canada is really only half a debate,” says economist Hugh Mackenzie, the study’s co-author and CCPA research associate.

“Our taxes pay for services that are extremely valuable to Canadians. The suggestion we often hear, that taxes are a burden, hides the reality that our taxes fund public services that make Canada’s standard of living among the very best.”

The study shows middle-income Canadian families enjoy public services worth about $41,000 – or 63% of their income. Even households earning $80,000-$90,000 a year enjoy public services benefits equivalent to about half of their income.

The study also shows 80% of Canadians would be better off if the federal government hadn’t cut the GST; 75% would be better off if their provincial governments invested in public services instead of broad-based income tax cuts; and 88% would be better off without federal cuts to capital gains taxes.

“Tax cuts are always made to sound like they’re free money to middle-income Canadians – they are anything but,” says Mackenzie. “We’re far better off with the public services our taxes fund than we are with tax cuts.”

Isn’t a beauty pageant under enough strain to keep itself away from “bimbo”esque image that now they have to make sure that the image does not become “homophobic bimbo” esque?

During the televised event, Carrie Prejean – Miss California – said she believed that “a marriage should be between a man and a woman”.

“We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage,” said Ms Prejean, in a section of the show that has become a popular clip on YouTube.

“I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman,” she continued.

“No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.”

The remarks drew a mixture of booing and applause from the audience.

Speaking after the show, which was broadcast on Sunday evening in the US, Ms Prejean said: “I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I said what I feel. I stated an opinion that was true to myself and that’s all I can do.”

Hilton said he had been “floored” by Ms Prejean’s answer, which, he said, “alienated millions of gay and lesbian Americans, their families and their supporters”.

He told ABC News: “She lost it because of that question. She was definitely the front-runner before that.”

One of the issues that lights me up is the issue of file sharing. I am one of those who believes that file sharing is essential to the music business and it should be incorporated in the business models of today’s music businesses. I know that quite a few bands have tried file sharing with varying degrees of success. Here is a perspective from an insider :

My observation is based on a lot of trying and failing, as well as being a moderate user of filesharing myself — mainly to check out stuff I read about but cannot get my hands on in the local store back here in Norway.

My concern is about this argument, which has been seen in most any debate about this subject for the last 10 years, usually formulated roughly as below:

“Filesharing will provide massive marketing to new artists, and drive forward a new and more dynamic music market.”

I beg to differ.

Well, I think he gets it wrong right away.

Filesharing is not an outlet to massively increase the sales of a new artist at all. Filesharing is conduit for the new artist to introduce themselves to the world who would, normally, ignore the new artist because of prohibitive initial costs. Why in the world would I spend money on downloading songs from a new artist only to find out that it was money wasted? I would rather (and I often do) download songs, give them a listen and then pay a subscription fee. Not only that but the next time the artist releases their new album, I do not go to the filesharing sites at all and download their music right away.

I think the authour of the post is disappointed for some other reason :

But if one starts thinking about it, it has the ironic effect that TPB is a driving force of consolidating the market power of the major labels rather than driving forward any new music. The conclusion has to be that “pirates” are just as little resistant to the major label marketing as any other person. Even though there are thousands and thousands of artists out there that want their music to be shared and listened to, they are widely and effectively ignored by the masses

Well, of course the popular artists will get a larger share of the downloads. The popular music is heavily promoted by major labels and get more airplay than a small upcoming artist. It almost seems like that the authour of the post has assumed that the downloaders should download only new artists’ music, else they are “pirating” the music promoted by the major labels. That is just plain nonsense.  Here is an enlightening article on why the music industry is in the crapper. In other words, don’t agree to whatever the music/movie industry says. Quite a lot that they say is absolute shit.

The fact of the matter is that the business model that has worked so successfully for the labels/artists over the years is now in disarray because of the power of the end user. The future of music, as illustrated here, is “get to know the consumers needs and then make money out of it”…..and not shove the product down their throats whether they like it or not.

Those days are over and done with.

Update (21st April 2009) : Yup. Music piracy is a REALLY bad thing.

A part of my growing and hopefully, maturing :) is the realisation that we humans are really not the lord and master of this planet. We are not the pinnacle of evolution. We are not what “the universe intended”. We are basically a byproduct of the real masters of Earth, bacteria.

<Link>

As soon as we are born, bacteria move in. They stake claims in our digestive and respiratory tracts, our teeth, our skin. They establish increasingly complex communities, like a forest that gradually takes over a clearing. By the time we’re a few years old, these communities have matured, and we carry them with us, more or less, for our entire lives. Our bodies harbor 100 trillion bacterial cells, outnumbering our human cells 10 to one. It’s easy to ignore this astonishing fact.

………….

Researchers have largely concerned themselves with bacteria’s negative role as pathogens: The devastating effects of a handful of infectious organisms have always seemed more urgent than what has been considered a benign and relatively unimportant relationship with “good” bacteria. In the intestine, the bacterial hub of the body that teems with trillions of microbes, they have traditionally been called “commensal” organisms — literally, eating at the same table. The moniker suggests that while we’ve known for decades that gut bacteria help digestion and prevent infections, they are little more than ever-present dinner guests.

…………..

But there’s a growing consensus among scientists that the relationship between us and our microbes is much more of a two-way street.

……………

They are not simply random squatters, but organized communities that evolve with us and are passed down from generation to generation. Through research that has blurred the boundary between medical and environmental microbiology, we’re beginning to understand that because the human body constitutes their environment, these microbial communities have been forced to adapt to changes in our diets, health, and lifestyle choices. Yet they, in turn, are also part of our environments, and our bodies have adapted to them. Our dinner guests, it seems, have shaped the very path of human evolution.

Read the entire article. Very enlightening.

I am proud to say that I contributed to naming of the node as Colbert!!

<Link>

They said it had all gone wrong for Nasa when nearly a quarter of a million people voted to name the Space Station’s new node “Colbert”, following an appeal to viewers on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report.

But has it? Nasa officials received more than a million votes in total, and the contest to name the module has surely raised awareness of the orbiting outpost.

Nasa put forward “Serenity” as its favoured choice of name, but it came in a distant second after being backed by only 40,000 votes.

The new node is due to be taken up to the space station later this year. It will provide room for astronauts’ life support systems. Attached is a unique work area with six windows around the side and one on top.

Nasa isn’t saying much yet, but agency astronaut Sunita Williams is appearing on Stephen Colbert’s show tonight to announce the new name. Some have speculated that the new ISS module’s toilet might be named after Colbert.

Update: well, all that effort went to waste. The node was not named after Colbert after all :(

In NewYork and Washington until the end of this week. Will start posting regularly again

Looks like it’s the season of dumb commentaries.

<Link>

There are two major obstacles to a rich public discussion on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and what it means to all of us.

The most obvious obstacle is religious literalism, which leads to Creationism. It’s the belief the Bible or other ancient sacred texts offer the first and last word on how humans came into existence.

The second major barrier to a rewarding public conversation about the impact of evolution on the way we understand the world is not named nearly as much.

It is “scientism.”

Scientism is the belief that the sciences have no boundaries and will, in the end, be able to explain everything in the universe. Scientism can, like religious literalism, become its own ideology.

The Encyclopedia of Science, Technology and Ethics defines scientism as “an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of natural science to be applied to all areas of investigation (as in philosophy, the social sciences and the humanities).”

Okaaaaay, to be honest I have never really come across the term “scientism” but I will grant this guy the argument. But then I would ask the question, so what? Science (and consequently, the scientists) has always tackled whatever issues that come forth. I mean scientists have (kinda) solved the itch issue. So, yes, there are no boundaries for science be it a test space mission to Mars or why we fall in love.

Then this douchbag falls off the rails.

Those who unknowingly fall into the trap of scientism act as if hard science is the only way of knowing reality. If something can’t be “proved” through the scientific method, through observable and measurable evidence, they say it’s irrelevant.

Scientism is terribly limiting of human understanding. It leaves little or no place for the insights of the arts, philosophy, psychology, literature, mythology, dreams, music, the emotions or spirituality.

This has got to be dumbest thing I have heard. Read the highlighted part again. And mull over what this idiot just said. As far as I can tell, he says that if a scientist says “I can explain, through science, why when you look at the Mona Lisa, you admire the painting”, you will actually STOP admiring the painting. So if a scientist can explain to us why we fall in love, we will actually stop falling in love. The authour is basically saying : leave the “mysteries” alone.

In general, scientism leaves little or no place for the imagination, which Albert Einstein, after all, said is “everything.”

And then of course his creationism comes pouring forth :

While I am not at all persuaded by Creationists who believe the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, I also have trouble with those who claim science can only support the atheistic proposal that evolution is a result of pure chance.

Such people maintain orthodox science cannot contemplate the possibility that the evolutionary process may include elements of purpose. This is an example of scientism.

Holy crap….dude, you ARE A CREATIONIST. Just because you say you don’t agree with die hard creationists does not make you any less of a creationist. “Element of purpose”? What the fuck does that even mean? It really irritates me to hear sanctimonious assholes like this guy to pooh pah the creationists and then say exactly what they are saying.

I think the proposal that humans evolved over billions of years from simpler life forms is a no-brainer.

However, I don’t believe either Darwin or neo-Darwinists have yet devised a complete picture of how evolution happens, or what drives it.

Of course it isn’t, it’s called scientific discovery. And what the scientists have so far is pretty accurate.To argue otherwise is to fly in the face of facts, in the face of reason and in the face of every innocent child looking at you for an honest explaination.

Here is the icing on the cake :

In other words…..(in the)….. viewpoint (that) represents that of many scientists, appears to believe that any discussion of evolution that does not uphold chance as the only driving force is ridiculous.

This is blinkered.

It defaults to atheism. And it assumes incorrectly that what we believe, and the way we live, is always based on provable “facts,” which do not include conjecture, speculation or imagination.

And there you have it. The whole fucking point of this opinion piece was to fault atheism….like I said – Barking Mad. And the rest of the post deginarates into a whiny, crybaby piece about how science is ruining spirituality and philosophy and it is worth reading if only to see how lunatic the authour sounds.

Update (via CanadianCynic): Wow!! Canada’s dumbest blogger likes this column. What a fucking surprise!!

<Link>

By RICK BELL

……

According to the Mounties, voices can be heard outside Knights’ house and three males are spotted. Two jump in a truck and take off.

One starts up a quad he finds just outside the house. The farmer gets in his vehicle and chases the man on the quad. About 2 km from the house, the car rams the quad off the road.

The farmer pulls out a shotgun and fires at the individual who is skedaddling away, but it isn’t a case of the buckshot stops here.

The guy is hit but keeps running. The farmer calls friends and relations to help find the man on the run, according to the police.

He is found and is brought back to where the farmer’s wheels met the fleeing quad. Police say the man sits in the passenger side of an idling truck, but when the driver steps out for a minute the guy moves behind the wheel and puts it in drive.

The suspect loses control of the truck a short way down the road, is caught again and is held until police arrive.

Brian Knight now faces a list of beefs, including assault and criminal negligence causing bodily harm and dangerous driving.

The other person is up for allegedly stealing the quad and the truck.

Naturally, to top it all off, the Mounties do the usual finger wagging. Don’t take the law into your own hands. Call us and we’ll handle it.

You have to ask. Do these officers believe any of the bunkum they burp or is it just the drill they repeat because it’s the set script and this is their part to parrot?

What are you supposed to do, far from a cop shop, all alone, call the police and wait until pretty close to when hell freezes over?

Then they come, write a report and what? Do we see an arrest? And, if there is an arrest, do we see a vigorous prosecution or does it become some chickenpoop file to get off someone’s desk?

And, if there is a vigorous prosecution, will we see a conviction? And if there is a conviction, what sentence will the guilty receive? Don’t tell me. We all know the answer.

The criminal justice system is itself an injustice and if you have the intestines to say it publicly you’ll be slimed as a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal by the people who screwed the thing up in the first place.

Well, I will start by saying that Rick Bell is an idiot. No….make that a fucking idiot.

So, if I get this straight, the guy chases the thief, is able to get his property back and instead of being, rightfully, proud that he was able to get his Quad back, FIRES TWICE at the fleeing thief and then, just as a typical vigilante, calls his friends and goes on a hunt.

In what world is this guy justified in shooting a fleeing person AFTER he gains his property back? Hope they convict this guy and take his guns away. And Rick, please stop being a chest beating neanderthal. The guy has a right to defended his property, a right to defend himself. But not a right to attack once he has gained his property back. That is criminal.

Oh Lars, see? How easy it was to download something you created and payed for? I have all the first 5 albums on CDs of your band but ever since my daughter was born, I have had to move all my guy stuff to the basement. So, to avoid digging up the albums for some project (new iPod, making a collection of songs for my car), I do what’s easiest. I download your music using torrents. I know you think it’s illeagal but if you come knocking on my door and try and arrest me, I will produce the copies I already paid you for…….so please join us common folk. We really do not steal.

We borrow and propogate your music.

BTW, I am glad you have moved you concert in Toronto into ACC. The last time you were here you and you band members performed in the Roger’s Centre, I could barely see you and had to stick to watching you drum on monitors which I could have easily done at my home. See you in October!!

<Link>

The man who built insurance giant American International Group Inc. from a startup to a global behemoth said he didn’t mismanage the company — but the government did.

In his first testimony since the government stepped in with the first of four bailouts for AIG, Greenberg told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Thursday that his leadership team had “nothing to do” with failures that so far have cost taxpayers more than $182 billion.

Yup, he had nothing whatsoever to do with the crisis that AIG faced. No matter that he ran the company from 1962 to 2005 and was instrumental in starting the company AIGFP which bought down AIG as a whole by giving the CEO Joseph Cassano complete backing of the AIG brand, financially and philosophically and now he says he had nothing to with the whole thing.

E.g., in his testimony he claims that AIGFP should have been “walled off” (whatever the hell that means), despite the fact that it was Greenberg himself who negotiated the profit sharing deal and along with the full AIG backing with Cassano.

This is basically a repeat of  the episode of Enron and Kenneth Lay. I am not a psychologist or an academic who would understand why lust for money generates immoral bastards but the line between greed and the need for power/money is now erased in the financial sector.

Here is a very interesting article on the financial collapse.

Also, there are innocents who are now facing the brunt of public opinion even though they had nothing to do with the mess that has been created by the “financial wizards”.

I have been following the Robert Dziekanski saga for a while now.

Right from the start, RCMP has been on the back foot and tried to play defense until a few days ago. It’s quite obvious what the lawyers of the RCMP officers are doing, painting the victim as a person of dubious character.

My question is not if this guy was of dubious character? Or he was drunk? Or what if he was mentally unstable? My question is why the fuck did 4 police officers have to taser a guy armed with a stapler?

If the best defense that the officers have to offer is to attack the victim’s “character”, then they have already lost.

Updated and pointed analysis can be found at Dr. Dawg’s.

1. Only in India can convicted crooks become politicians. <Link>
2. An excellent book blog. <Link>
3. I usually do not agree with most of what’s on nationalinterest.in as I think they are far too obsessed with blasting Pakistan from the face of the Earth, but this is actually a good analysis on BJP and their politicking. <Link>. What I like about the post is how the authour nails the sad truth about politics in India
   

   …….a riot or two has never affected the political fortunes of Indian politicians.

4. Holy cow!!! If this article is true, India-Pakistan were a hair’s depth away from attaining permanent solution to the Kashmir issue. Although why the authour went from high level politics to what the Mumbai terrorists were saying to their Pakistani handlers, I really don’t know. <Link>.
5. Life after Battlestar Galactica’s stars.<Link>
6. Man, the Chinese government sure is really serious about censorship!! <Link>
7. Here are some effective ways of using Wikipedia. <Link>