Current Events, Climate change
A Just End to Ukraine War
Anywhere, the only people who have a right to determine the future of their land are the people who live there. This is the basis of the principle of “self-determination”.
In the case of Ukraine, this principle implies that only the people living there have the right which parts should be Ukraine and which should go to Russia.
The only way to determine this justly is through a plebiscite.
In a speech, Greta Thunberg stated: “all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth”. Continue reading “Greta Thunberg was Wrong about Economic Growth”
INTRODUCTION
There is currently a public enquiry in Canada examining whether the invocation of the Emergencies Act to end the “Trucker’s Freedom Protest” in Ottawa last year was legally justified. This protest was to force the government to end the vaccination mandate for truckers crossing the border to the U.S. It lasted from Jan. 28 to Feb. 20. The police did not intervene effectively until the Canadian Parliament invoked the Emergencies Act and the protest was dispersed.
This raises general questions about protests in democracies. Continue reading “The Role of Protests in a Democracy”
Christmas is here!
Nowadays, it is seen largely as a consumption holiday, whether it is consuming turkey with all the trimmings or shopping for presents. However, for Christians the world over, it is celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. The essence of Christianity is following the teachings of Christ
I am constantly surprised by how many people in the West do not know what those teachings are.
Christmas provides an opportunity to remind people of some of these: Continue reading “Merry Christmas 2020”
Donald Trump
“Glad you asked me this question. I am a very stable genius and math is one of my specialties. When I was on the Howard Stern show, he asked me a very difficult math question, “What is 17 times 6?”.
Breonna Taylor, a young black woman, was shot and killed by the police in Louisville, Kentucky. Ms. Taylor was a front-line worker at a hospital and had no police record. Street protests started immediately and all pundits claimed this was another case of systemic racism by the police.
However, many aspects of the case raise questions. Many of these have not been answered in the press.
Starting with the facts. This is made difficult since there are conflicting reports and there are indications that there is a lot of genuine fake news (as opposed to Trump’s “fake news”)
Covid-19 has spread throughout the world and people and governments are going to extraordinary lengths to contain it.
Two of the first nations to experience the pandemic are China and South Korea. In both cases, the number of new casualties has dropped ( in China there have been no new cases at all yesterday – 23-March 2020). In other countries, including Canada and the U.S., the number of new cases is still rising.
We can look at the data for Canada and the U.S. and compare it to South Korea and see if there are similarities and if it can suggest how long the outbreak will last. Continue reading “The Covid-19 Pandemic May be Over Sooner Than You Think”
If this were to happen, Canada’s demand for electricity will increase. In this blog, the increase in electricity generation capacity is estimated.
The results show that Canada will require 31 new nuclear plants or 202 new hydro plants or 1413 new wind farms or 15167 solar plants or a combination of the above
First look at current consumption of energy from fossil fuels in Canada:
Continue reading “What will it take for Canada to eliminate its use of fossil fuels?”
There is a lot of fear-mongering in the British press about the disastrous consequences if the Labour Party won a British General Election and Jeremy Corbyn became Prime Minister.
One approach to see how disastrous this would be is to compare it to what happened when the last left-wing government was in power. The closest analogue is the Labour government from 1945 to 1951 under Clement Attlee. Continue reading “What Would a Corbyn–Led British Government Look Like?”
Articles about scientific matters (especially climate change) refer to studies with “peer reviewed” papers. Most readers assume that this means that the findings have been endorsed by qualified scientists and that they can be considered reliable.
The reality is that this is actually a low standard and is not an accurate guide to the reliability of the results. Continue reading “What Does “Peer Reviewed” Mean?”