Manufactured Terror: Bill C51

Canadian Politics / Politics / Social Order & Disorder3 Comments

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1IliGODznk] Stephen Harper wants you to be afraid. VERY afraid. If you’re frightened, you likely won’t question his and his party’s destruction of the country, the decaying economy, job losses, homelessness, the ignored murder of aboriginal women, the muffled and cowed bureaucracy, hobbling the CBC, undermining Canadian science and scientists, and our waning credibility on the world stage. And if you’re scared, you certainly won’t challenge him or his party over the introduction of Bill C51 – ostensibly an “anti-terrorism” bill but one that threatens to take away your rights and advance Harper’s private agenda. And, of course, it’s his tactic ……… click below for more ↓

Lucy and the 10% Brain Myth

Critical Thinking / Culture / Film & Reviews / New Age CodswallopOne Comment

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We watched the film Lucy on iTunes last night and, while reasonably entertaining, its plot is founded on a persistent bit of pseudoscience: that people only use 10% of their brain capacity. It’s so widespread a myth that Wikipedia has a page on it that opens: The 10 percent of the brain myth is the widely perpetuated urban myth that most or all humans only make use of 10 percent (or some other small percentage) of their brains. It has been misattributed to many people, including Albert Einstein. By extrapolation, it is suggested that a person may harness this unused potential and ……… click below for more ↓

Email and Confidentiality

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviourOne Comment

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A story in this week’s Connection titled “Private talk with CAO leads to Collingwood integrity commissioner complaint” sparked the following comment. No, this is not about what strikes me as the unethical and secretive behaviour of the councillor in question and his defending that behaviour in the media as if the town’s Code of Conduct did not state at its outset that all members of council (emphasis added): …are held to a high standard as leaders of the community and they are expected to become well informed on all aspects of municipal governance, administration, planning and operations. They are also expected to carry out ……… click below for more ↓

Revised Chord Wheel

Culture / Learning & Education / Musical Instruments / Ukulele: instruments & music3 Comments

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I have revised my transposing chord wheel/circle of fifths tool this week. It is now a three-ring version for use by all musicians (ukulele players who want to learn music theory or work on arranging songs especially). You can click on the image on the right to download the PDF. The outer ring shows the Roman numerals for the key. This lets you see the chords by number – uppercase is major; lowercase is minor. Turn this wheel to the I identifier (capital “i”) above the key on the middle ring. The names in dark blue are some of the ……… click below for more ↓

It’s Official: Homeopathy is Bunk

Balderdash & Hoaxes / Critical Thinking / Health & Medicine / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & Quackery / Science & Technology4 Comments

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“Homeopathy not effective for treating any condition, Australian report finds,” reads a headline in The Guardian this week. Well, that’s hardly news. But it repeats saying anyway. It’s a story about the latest in a series of studies that again and again debunk homeopathy as a treatment and conclude it is useless. Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) “…thoroughly reviewed 225 research papers on homeopathy to come up with its position statement,” the paper reported. And on Gizmodo they said: An analysis of over 225 medical studies and 1,800 scientific papers has found that homeopathy is ineffective as a ……… click below for more ↓

Ukulele Festival Coming in May!

Culture / Ukulele: instruments & musicLeave a comment

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It’s official: the Canada Ukes ukulele festival will be held right around the corner from Collingwood: in Midland at the Midland Cultural Centre, May 22-24. Three days of ukuleleness, featuring Ralph Shaw, Stevie McNie (leader of Toronto’s Corktown Ukulele), The Skinnydippers and others. Performances, jams and workshops galore! Vendors, too. Early bird tickets for the entire weekend of activities are $148 adults and $128 student under 21; after March 31 they go up to $188 adults and $148 student. Check the official website for more and the full schedule of events. Most of the events have limits for participation, so be sure to pick ……… click below for more ↓

Why Elvis Matters to Collingwood

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Planning & Policies / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

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There are some things that are pointless to argue, it seems. Creationism with a fundamentalist. Anti-vaccination with a New Age wingnut. Reason and logic with local  bloggers. The value of the Elvis Festival to Collingwood with a closed-minded resident. I recently heard complaints about the cost of the 2014 festival: $74,000. More than double what the Integrity Commissioner cost taxpayers to investigate bogus, politically-motivated claims last year. And what did we get for that $74,000? International recognition and widespread media coverage, more than 30,000 visitors, increased revenue for our hospitality sector, a full downtown, busy restaurants and hotels, people shopping ……… click below for more ↓

Ukulele Workshop Today

Culture / Learning & Education / Music & Reviews / Musical Instruments / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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I just returned from Orangeville where Broadway Music hosted a two-and-a-half hour musical workshop this Saturday by Manitoba Hal today (which will be followed by his concert tonight from 8-11 p.m. – try to attend, if you can: he’s very talented). Very informative and well worth attending. Interestingly, at least half the participants were my age, and I didn’t see anyone in the classroom under 40. Perhaps you have to be mature in order to really appreciate music this way, not simply as the soundtrack in the background. Hal spoke to the group about a basic approach to understanding music ……… click below for more ↓

Councils and Their CAO

Collingwood / Council / Municipal PoliticsLeave a comment

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A good relationship between a municipal council and their town’s CAO is crucial to smooth, effective and efficient governance. The CAO is the liaison between council and staff, responsible for directing staff to implement council’s direction and overseeing internal personnel issues. If the relationship is rocky, then governance and Council’s interactions with staff – and therefore the entire public’s interests – all suffer. To fill this role well, a CAO has to be scrupulously objective and neutral, calm and wise – not push any one person’s or side’s agenda, and certainly not promote his or her own, act Solomon-like with both council ……… click below for more ↓

Bad News For Balderdash

Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Creationism / Critical Thinking / Memes; Internet & Social / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & Quackery / Social media & cyberbullying / Social Order & DisorderOne Comment

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A recent story on New Scientist gives a glimmer of hope for those of us who bemoan the swelling tsunami of claptrap and codswallop that fills the internet: THE internet is stuffed with garbage. Anti-vaccination websites make the front page of Google, and fact-free “news” stories spread like wildfire. Google has devised a fix – rank websites according to their truthfulness. What a relief that will be. Of course it may spell doom for the popularity of pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, fad diets, racist, anti-vaccination fearmongers, yellow journalism, Fox News, celebrity wingnuts, psychics and some local bloggers – all of whose ……… click below for more ↓

How Marx Presaged Today’s Canada

Canadian Politics / Critical Thinking / International politics / Philosophy / Politics / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

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“The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country,” wrote Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels, in 1848, in the Communist Manifesto. I came across this paragraph in Prof. David Harvey‘s book, A Companion to Marx’s Capital, recently and the quote from the Communist Manifesto struck me as very modern; one that presaged our current internationalism and the changes affecting Canada today. No one on this continent has been unaffected by the rampant, unchecked, corporate globalism that has seen thousands of North American factories closed, jobs discarded, and production ……… click below for more ↓

Collingwood council’s committee system is broken

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Last term, council approved a recommendation from the CAO to dump its traditional structure of council and public committees, to an internal system of standing committees filled only with politicians. The structure is used in several other – mostly larger – communities. It sounded intriguing, bold and exciting, so council said yes, let’s try it. Let’s be innovative. But, despite recommendations to the contrary, it wasn’t implemented until this new council took office. And that implementation isn’t working. In fact, it’s created a worse-than-ever disconnect between politicians the the public. Instead of engaging the public more, instead of creating more openness ……… click below for more ↓

The tail wags the dog again

Collingwood / Council / Municipal PoliticsOne Comment

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In January, the CAO coupled a ‘sky-is-falling’ presentation about the town’s debt with a proposed 5.11 percent tax increase. * Councillor Kevin Lloyd made a motion to have staff bring back two options for council to consider: a one and two percent increase to the general tax levy, with comments on how these would affect services. Council approved the motion and directed staff to prepare them. Instead, what council got at its Feb. 24 budget meeting was a wish list from staff for additional spending. The direction from council for a report on 1% and 2% increases was totally ignored ……… click below for more ↓

What’s Wrong with Municipal Bonusing?

Collingwood / Development & Growth / Municipal Politics / Politics / Provincial PoliticsLeave a comment

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Until the early 1970s, municipalities in Ontario were involved in a free-for-all competition to attract business and industry. They offered tax breaks, free land, free infrastructure, utilities or services, housing — whatever it took to get a plant or office to open within their boundaries. A lot of small Ontario communities were able to attract businesses that way, and many got major industries. Of course, the local taxpayers paid for these benefits, but the towns subscribed to the theory that eventually the extra jobs and tax revenues coming into the municipality would pay for the up-front largesse through increased revenue ……… click below for more ↓

Marx, Darwin and Machiavelli

Critical Thinking / Culture / Social Order & Disorder / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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What do these three men – three of the world’s greatest thinkers – have in common? Science? Economics? Politics? Their impact on culture and society? Their foresight or insight? Their importance to the development of modern thought? Their continued relevance today? The depth and breadth of their wisdom? The quality of their writing? Yes, they are or have all those things, but the answer is simpler: they are among the least read authors that people attempt to speak knowingly about. All three of these authors are frequently demonized or misquoted by people who have never read their works, nor do they intend ……… click below for more ↓

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