Cashing in on the audacity of hype

No matter what you think of the United Nations whenever it functioned as a way to defuse world tensions and prevent or delay conflict it served a purpose for that moment. Late in October of 1956 Israel, France and Britain invaded Egyptian territory when Egypt announced it would nationalize and blockade the Suez Canal. Egypt was reacting to the withdrawal of funding to build the Aswan Dam when it recognized the new Communist regime in China at the expense of the Taiwanese. A Canadian diplomat, Lester B. Pearson, defused a potentially volatile situation by negotiating a withdrawal of the invading force replaced by a UN force (UNEF) led by "neutral" Canadian Troops. So began the "tradition" of Canadian Peacekeepers and because the Egyptians objected to the Union Jack on the Canadian Red Ensign Pearson eventually proposed a distinctive new Canadian Flag while he was Prime Minister of Canada in 1965. For his efforts in brokering a peace that reopened the Suez Canal during a dangerous time in the Cold War, Lester Pearson received the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize.
Today it was announced in Oslo that US President Barak Obama will be given the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. So how do his accomplishments compare to Lester Pearson? Well, Obama doesn't like nukes, but hasn't removed any from the American arsenal. Obama doesn't like war, but America has two wars going on with little chance of either ending any time soon. Obama doesn't like torture but Guantanamo Bay is still in business with no closure imminent. Obama doesn't like climate change because..........it's bad. Obama provides us with hope for a better future.......that's starting to get lame. What's he done exactly? Well Obama isn't Bush......maybe that warrants a prize.

eHealth - What is a Billion Dollars?

Just over a week ago I helped organize an information booth for the Ontario Libertarian Party at a large book fair in downtown Toronto. Our purpose was to publicise the party and solicit new members. We used a technique developed by The Advocates for Self-Government called Operation Politically Homeless where we asked passersby if they thought government was doing a good job. Depending on their answer we followed up with a short quiz to determine if the participant had libertarian leanings or not. From the few that did, we asked if they would like us to contact them. For us it was a productive day that gave us insights to the mood of a small select portion of the electorate. Of those people that consented to be interviewed roughly half were satisfied with government (typically we did not specify what level of government but we are Ontario-centric), the other half not so much. I think this degree of satisfaction (troubling to me) is likely a function of general apathy, ignorance and complacency. Most people don't really pay attention to government except during elections and then usually to the promises on the table rather than the record of the past. Of course that is part of the reason that governments grow larger, the promises invariably include new programs that allegedly benefit the taxpayer, spending increases and so must taxes. So when governments set out to save tax dollars by instituting efficiencies it sounds good but too often that's not what happens.
Ontario joined the other provinces and territories to create an Electronic Health Record (EHR) 10 years ago to streamline patient care across the country and save the Canadian health-care system $6 billion a year, a worthy goal. In Ontario the project was started by the Harris Tories and continued by the McGuinty Liberals and to this day Ontario lags most of the country in developing and implementing these EHRs. In a report released today, Auditor-General Jim McCarter concludes that "Ontario taxpayers have not received value for money for this $1-billion investment." The money was squandered. I find it hard to get my head around a billion dollars, that of course is to the advantage of the government, its just a number. In the current Great Recession it doesn't even sound like much considering all the bailouts that have occurred. But look at it this way, a billion dollars pays 10 000 people a $100 000 salary for one year - good salary. Or it pays 286 people a salary of $100 000 each for their entire 35 year working career. Or if you had a billion dollars in the bank at the current pitiful 1.05% interest rate (the daily rate today at the most popular Internet bank) you would make $10.5 million in interest a year, $875 000 a month! Oh, to dream! So now imagine this money frittered away by the Ontario government, just one of the many levels of government under whose jurisdiction your pockets are picked. Is it possible that the other levels of government are frittering away money? Do bears poop in the woods? Does the government do a good job?

Scientist duplicates Shroud of Turin "effect"

An Italian scientist financed by a group of atheists and agnostics claims to have reproduced the photographic effect seen on the Shroud of Turin the alleged burial cloth of Jesus. The Shroud was shown to be a fake 20 years ago when it was carbon-dated to the 13th century, but no one until now has reproduced the effect using techniques available back then. The controversy continues, but only in the minds of theists.

Yet another missing link in Human evolution

Tomorrow in the journal Science eleven papers by 47 authors from 10 countries will describe the analysis of a discovery made in 1992. That discovery may help solve the problem of how the ancestral line that led to humans split from the the line that led to chimpanzees for which there has been virtually no evidence until now. It may be that the newest creature, Ardipithecus ramidus (Ardi), which predates the widely know "Lucy" (Australopithecus afarensis) by over one million years is in our lineage from the common ancestor between chimps and humans. The discovery made near where Lucy was found suggests that continued research in that part of Ethiopia could lead to that last common ancestor of humans and chimps. This also shows the deliberate slowness of scientific discovery, 17 years of research, peer review and debate before a joint announcement is made. Another missing link in the long list of missing links that creationists claim don't exist.