Marshall McLuhan was wrong.

I should probably make clear at the outset that I'm against censorship of any kind.

I'm against censoring what we watch on TV, I'm against censoring the use of some specific words, I'm against censoring what is available to be viewed or heard.

I'm against censorship; especially in an era where if you don't like what you see or hear, you can change the channel or walk away.

But free expression means, practically by definition, sooner or later, someone is going to say something, or do something, or express themselves in some way that offends you. You can't have it both ways. You can either have free expression, or you can expect never to be offended. You cannot, in a free society, expect to have both. To do so is naive and, frankly, silly.

George Carlin did a famous comedy routine where he spoke about the seven words which were specifically prohibited on television. Seven, he said, out of approximately 400,000 words in the English language. "What a ratio that is," he said in his famous routine, "399,993 to seven. They must really be bad. They'd have to be outrageous to be separated from a group that large." He then went on to list the seven dirty words; shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits; on national television.

But seriously, what is it about some words, one specific sequence of sounds that we find so utterly offensive? "Truck" is an utterly inoffensive word, but somehow, when we replace the "TR" with "F," that word suddenly becomes vile?

And what makes a word offensive anyway? How do we decide that one specific sequence of sounds is horrendous and vile? What makes that switch turn on in our brains that says "oh, no, that's a bad word?" It would be trivial for me to offend you or spew the most vile of sentiments using the "cleanest" of words. Conversely, I could express the most gentle and noble of sentiments using the most vulgar profanity.

The point is that if you're not offended by the message I'm sending, it seems to me that it's ridiculous that you'd be offended by the words I use to send it. Kinda like recieving the present you always wanted for Christmas, then complaining about the gift-wrap. It's as if they don't care if you speak with hate, as long as you use appropriate wording to do so. As if the words you use are what make the discourse hateful or distasteful.

Marshall McLuhan was wrong. The message is the message.

Have Food Dehydrator, Will Travel

So I bought myself a food dehydrator, which, interestingly enough, costs less than half the cost of the food April and I bought for the West Coast trail.

Suffice it to say that I think April and I are both sick of our insta-meals in the backcountry, and would like to have something that is a wee bit more edible. So I bought a dehydrator so that we can make something a little more gourmet, that doesn't require us to carry a huge amount of stuff, or require a lot of preparation on the trail.

I'll let you know how that turns out.

Flag Desecration

So, my other country came within a hair's bredth of a constitutional ban of flag burning.

The last time this was brought up was in 2004. Also, incidentally, an election year.

Coincidence? Um, no.

But let's talk about this ban for a second. The United States of America wanted to ban the burning of the flag.

Here's the catch tho: the Flag Code of the United States of America specifically requires a flag to be ceremonially burned if it becomes soiled or damaged or has otherwise outlived its useful life.

Apparently, that kind of burning is okay, but burning it in protest is not.

In other words, the current administration is not trying to regulate the behaviour of burning the flag, so much as the sentiment voiced by said burning.

Seems to me that there was something in that whole constitution thing about some "free expression" somethingorother, wasn't there?

Now, I understand that some people are offended by the idea of flag burning. Freedom of speech, by definition, means that you're going to be offended. It means that you're going to hear things that you don't like, and don't want to hear. It means that a Neonazi can stand in the center of the village square proclaiming his hatred of all non-aryan races without fear of reprisal from the government. Freedom means acknowledging someone who stands at center stage proclaiming at the top of his lungs what you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.

In short, the first amendment of the constitution is meant to protect all speech, not just the speech you agree with.

"Liberal" Science

So, I've been unwilling to jump on the Anne Coulter Hate-a-thon, largely because I figure that's exactly what the woman wants. But I was bought a copy of her latest book "Godless." Believe me, I wouldn't buy one of her books if I had a choice in the matter; but since someone had been nice enough to buy it for me, I figure it would be just impolite not to read it.

Unlike just about everybody else, I'm going to say absolutely nothing about her comments on the 9/11 widows. She's perfectly entitled to defame or abuse the memory of anybody she sees fit. That's the definition of freedom of speech. Likewise, I'm perfectly in my rights to point out that she's full of crap.

I'd like to take a moment to talk about Coulter's stance on so-called "liberal science."

There are basically two different areas that Coulter uses as evidence that liberals hate science: stem-cell research, and the theory of evolution.

Let's start with the former. Ms. Coulter claims that because liberals support stem-cell research, they obviously hate science.

First and foremost, it should be noted that a number of political conservatives also support stem-cell research. Guvernator Aaaaah-Nuld, for one; Nancy Reagan, for another.

Coulter goes on to write that "[l]iberals just want to kill humans."

Um, what?

The potential for stem-cell research to save lives is, in a word, enormous. The number of diseases which could be cured, the number of injuries which could be repaired, and the number of lives which could be saved by this one branch of scientific research is potentially numbered in the billions.

And I'm not overestimating the potential benefits of this technology in the least. If anything, I'm vastly underestimating its potential.

And yet, apparently, liberals hate science and want to kill humans.

If you can explain the logic behind that one, you're smarter than I am.

Coulter's thesis statement on evolution seems pretty damning, if you happen to be completely and utterly ignorant of the facts: "[l]iberals' creation myth is Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which is about one notch above Scientology in scientific rigor. It's a make-believe story, based on a theory that is a tautology, with no proof in the scientists laboratory or the fossil record - and that's after 150 years of very determined looking. We wouldn't still be talking about it but for the fact that liberals think evolution disproves God." Note her subtle implication that one must necessarily be a libral (and in the US, there can be no greater insult) to accept the theory of evolution.

It should first be noted that a number of political conservatives subscribe to the theory of evolution; ergo, it cannot, by any definition of the term, be described as a "liberal creation myth." It's not liberal, it's not about creation, and it's not a myth.

Now, as for her claim that Evolution is a "make-believe story," with "no proof," there's really only one possible way to describe that claim: a lie. Either that, or she's completely ignorant of the, literally, thousands of fossil finds which support the theory of evolution. She's also completely ignorant of the thousands of lab experiments which have been performed which clearly support evolution.

In other words: she's either lying or stupid. There are really no other options; and I don't think that she's stupid. She writes too skillfully to be a complete moron.

I'd also like to talk about her claim that "liberals think evolution disproves God." There's really only one way to describe this claim, too: a lie. The late Pope John Paul II spoke in favor of the theory of evolution, offering an official papal concession that the theory is more than a wild and wacky idea, but actually a fact. As much a fact as the earth orbiting the sun, or that masses generate a gravitational pull.

Call me crazy, but I think it's a reasonably safe bet that Pope John Paul II believed in God. If he didn't, I think he probably would have sought out a different carreer. I also think it's fair to say that it's a bit of a stretch to claim that Pope John Paul II was a liberal by any conventionally-accepted definition of the term.

On the Dover, Pennsylvania trial, she goes on to say: "They didn't win on science, persuasion, or the evidence. They won the way liberals always win: by finding a court to hand them everything they want on a silver platter."

I know I'm having to say this a lot, but there's really no other way to describe this claim than to say that it is a lie.

Let's start with her claims on the court itself: Judge John Jones III, the judge presiding over the case, is a Bush Appointee, chosen specifically for his very conservative credentials. In fact, at the outset, the former members of the school board thought they had a slam-dunk case specifically for that reason. He is demonstratably not a judge with proclivities towards judicial activism, and upon reading his 139-page judgement, it is equally self-evident that his judgement is not a case of judicial activism. In fact, for him to have ruled differently than he did would have required a level of judicial activism which would have made a mockery of the American judicial system.

Actually, if one actually takes the time to read Judge Jones' judgment, it is very clear that he went to enormous lengths to understand the science which supports the theory of evolution, and to understand the history of the so called "Intelligent Design" theory. It's extremely difficult for me to imagine a judgment which is more diametrically opposed to any rational human being's definition of "Judicial Activism." Then again, though, the judgement is 139 pages long. Maybe Coulter just couldn't be bothered to read the whole thing. Or any of it for that matter.

No, the "liberals" didn't win because they had a court to hand them everything they want on a silver platter, they won because they had science, persuasion, and evidence on their side. Of course, it certainly didn't hurt that the righteous members of the school board lied repeatedly during the trial (also stated in the 139-page judgment; had Ms. Coulter read it). Details that Ms. Coulter studiously ignores. Instead, she lies about it and hopes nobody noticed. It's not like she couldn't access the trial transcripts or the judgement. I've offered a link to the judgement, and the trial transcripts are public record. A 30-second google search of "Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School Board" produced them. And if I'm smart enough to find them, it stands to reason that Coulter is.

Now, Ms. Coulter has every right to make all of these claims; as ignorant, misinformed, dishonest and ridiculous as they are. Lying, to the best of my knowledge, is not in itself against the law, except in specific instances: libel, slander, perjury; to name a few, however writing and publishing a book which tells lies is not in itself illegal. Morally reprehensible, to be sure, but not illegal.

Ms. Coulter is certainly skilled in rhetoric, and I wouldn't like to face her in a debate, even if I had the facts on my side (which, in the instances described above, I would); and apart from being rather heavy on the dishonesty, her book is quite well-written. It is clearly written by an intelligent woman, which is why I am very specific about my claims that she is being deliberately dishonest. I don't believe she's actually dumb enough to be that ignorant.

But you never know, I could be wrong. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

But in this particular instance, I don't think I am.

On Constitutional Amendments

I'm trying hard to decide whether these people are completely devoid of any capacity for logical thought, or simply stupid. Heck, the idea of actually having facts to back up their blind assertions is apparently completely foreign to them.

Take, for example, this couple described in this article. They spend their vacation money to go to DC to hold up signs that say: Stop Same Sex Marriage: It Endorses Masturbation.

I think I speak for the rest of America when I say: WHAT!? Frankly, I seriously doubt any Amercan who has ever masturbated (which, I imagine, is pretty much all of 'em who ever passed the age of 12), has ever said "damn, if only gay Marriage were legal, I could do this without feeling guilty."

If you follow what the far-right has been saying in the US, gay marriage is somehow responsible for everything from drug abuse to decline in air quality.

Now, granted, it's a little hard to study this, since exactly one state in the US has been forward-thinking enough to legalize Gay marriage we don't have much in the way of sample size, but let's see what's happening in that hellhole they call Massachusetts, why don't we? Massachusetts is a pathetic dead-last in illiteracy, a pitiful 48th in per-capita poverty, and an abysmal 49th in the number of divorces. Those poor sods in Massachusetts, how can they live in such horrid conditions?

The reason I bring this up is that our esteemed president has again tried, and failed miserably, to push a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage through congress. It fell massively short of the required 2/3 majority to create a constitutional amendment. No surprise there. Frankly, I wasn't the least bit worried that the bill might pass. But frankly, the idea that the Constitution of the United States; a document I happen to take very seriously, a document which has been perverted more by the Bush Administration than just about any other; is being used as a blatant political ploy frankly turned my stomach.

Bush desperately needs to learn that the constitution is not just a piece of paper. It's not a set of loose guidelines that you can simply ignore whenever you feel like it. And it's certainly not a document meant to be used to score political points. The constitution is the document that makes America America. It's the collection of the founding principles of the nation. It's not a symbol to be perverted whenever the current party in power is lagging in the polls.

The constitution, to those who have actually read it, is a piece of history which presents everything that the US of A is supposed to represent. Freedom from tyrrany of all kinds, freedom to express onesself in whatever manner they choose, regardless of how offensive some may find it.

Freedom to be onesself, provided that they do no harm to anyone else.

By adding an amendment to the constitution which specifically limits one freedom to one group of people, the American government not only would have perverted the very freedom that the constitution enshrines and symbolizes, but they would have sent the message to the American people that they can no longer be assured of the protection the constitution guarantees. If they can deny marriage to one group of people constitutionally, then logically they can deny freedom of speech, or religion, or belief, or any of the rights assured by the constitution. A second set of McCarthy trials could, in principle, be constitutionally assured. In short, the government would be telling the American people that they could no longer look to the one document designed to protect them from the government.

The American government is founded on a very simple principle: the Constitution doesn't trust them. The power doesn't lie in the government, it lies in the document on which that government is founded. And that document places the power in the people's hands. The people have the power to choose one government over another, to hold opinions which are in the minority, to stand at center stage proclaiming at the top of their lungs what others would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of theirs. The American government was founded on the principle that it is far, far better to have a man wrap himself in the constitution so that he can burn the flag, than one who wraps himself in the flag so that he can burn the constitution.

There is a word for all of this: freedom. And we cannot promote freedom abroad by demolishing it at home.

The innocent have nothing to hide.

A friend of mine, and long-time republican voter recently said in response to the recent wiretapping scandal in the US: "why are people really upset about this whole wiretapping thing? I mean, if they're innocent, they have nothing to hide."

The most terrifying thing about this is that he actually thought that this was a reasonable argument.

But let's address that for a second. If the innocent really have nothing to hide, then maybe it's time for the Bush administration to release their information on Dick Chaney's Energy task force, as well as the documents they've the pre-9/11 and Katrina preparedness.

And while we're on the subject, maybe it's time that they come clean on that whole Guantanimo torture scandal.

Maybe we should start talking candidly about the whole Jack Abramoff thing.

Or for that matter, maybe we should talk about the Downing Street Memo; or the no-bid contracts with Halliburton.

Perhaps they'll finally come clean about who's idea it was to release Valerie Plame's name to the media, and why it was done.

Or maybe they could release the documents from Bush Sr.'s time in office, which Bush II had sealed (without any explanation whatsoever) on his first day in office.

After all, if the innocent have nothing to hide....

No real surprises here.

Well, a little bit. I always thought of myself a little closer to the political center. Turns out I'm reasonably far to the left (which for some reason is the right on these diagrams). 'course this is pretty much by American standards, where the political spectrum has been shifted so far to the right it's ridiculous.

By Canadian standards, I suppose I'm closer to the middle.

In fairness, I did vote for Kerry in the last US federal election; but on the other hand, I voted McCain for senate. Back then, he was reasonably close to what I thought was the political center. He's been shifting rightward as the mid-term elections approach.

You are a Social Liberal (83% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (31% permissive) You are best described as a: Strong Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

The Gap between Science and Faith

I had a bit of an epiphany the other night. As those of you who read this page on a relatively-regular basis know, I have a rather deep interest in the recent debate between the theory of evolution and creationism (or its more politically-correct cousin: Intelligent Design), and for the most part, my position has been pretty consistent: teach science in science class. Intelligent design "theory" has no more place in a science class than evolution has in church.

All throughout this time, the one question I never asked, largely because I couldn't see any way of answering it was "why?" Why would people who are otherwise relatively intelligent either deny or ignore the very plain evidence for biological evolution? How can they claim that what they provide is science when just about every claim they make is directly contradicted by scientific data? To take the extreme position of Young-Earth Creationism; namely that the earth (not to mention, the universe as a whole) is actually thousands, rather than billions of years old, one has to completely ignore just about every scientific finding that has been made in just about every branch of the sciences in the last three hundred years. How can they claim to be acting on behalf of a benevolent God, then completely ignore that whole "not bearing false witness" thing She laid out in the book of Exodus?

And more importantly, what on earth makes people dumb enough to listen to them?

Anyhow the realization I came to was remarkable only in its simplicity. People like absolutes. They like for the world to be divided into black and white; up and down; good and evil; us and them. They paint the world in black and white, ignoring in the process that the entire world is a gray area.

So coming back to the intelligent design debate. Basically, what you have is a group of religious fundamentalists whose faith is so weak that they simply cannot accept that a given passage of the bible is not literally true. From their perspective, the Bible is either absolutely 100% correct, or it's 100% wrong. Apart from being a demonstration of unfathomably weak faith, in my opinion; this is also the type of very dangerous thinking that leads to things like crusades, Holocausts and 9/11s.

Once they have people on the hook, though, they start applying the same logic to science. Evolution, they posit, is either 100% right, or 100% wrong. They nitpick little flaws in the theory (real or perceived); with the (oft unverbalized) assumption that unless a scientific theory is 100% right on every single point, then it's completely wrong.

It should be mentioned, critically, that these people claim to be scientists; or at the absolute least, they claim that their approach is scientific; and yet this approach belies a complete lack of understanding of how science works.

The difference between faith and science is that any scientific theory carries with it the implicit assumption that it is wrong. In fact, as soon as a theory is concocted, the first thing you do is start looking for ways in which it is wrong. You design new experiments, you put together new systems, you try new models. In short, the first thing you do once you have a theory worked out is try to prove yourself wrong.

No scientist, to the best of my knowledge, has ever made the claim that the theory of evolution; or any scientific theory, for that matter; is absolutely correct (Although I suppose one might (and I emphasize: might) be able to argue that by calling his theories "laws," Newton was claiming that he was working with immutable truth, but he was a bit of a pretentious asshole; he was a brilliant scientist, make no mistake, but that doesn't make him immune from being a prick). Even as Einstein crafted his theory of relativity, he knew there were parts of the theory which wouldn't be absolutely correct. Even as Darwin put together his theory of evolution, he knew there were some points for which he didn't have evidence. When Hodgkin and Huxley developed the ionic theory of membrane excitability, they knew that the science they were founding would be very different than it was now; and when Frank and Starling came up with the so-called "law of the heart," they knew that it would be added to and changed as time passed. In short, science, by its very nature, changes. It is a living, changing approach to the universe where the assumption is always made that anything we know today may be seen as absurd tomorrow. To try to approach science with the assumption that it deals in a black-and-white world is ludicrous.

And the beautiful irony of the whole situation is this: let's suppose that tomorrow, the theory of evolution is completely disproven. This would pretty much be the ID proponents' greatest fantasy: to see the evil theory of evolution proven incorrect. The irony of the ID position is that if evolution is disproven, that doesn't make intelligent design right. It just makes evolution wrong.

A friend of mine said that trying to mix faith and science was like mixing vanilla ice cream with a spoonful of manure. It won't hurt the manure much; but it'll ruin the ice cream. It's worth noting that he didn't specify which of the two represented which. And he was right. When you mix science and faith; neither one gets the one thing that they both want: answers.

It's official

I just want to point out that when the most exciting moment of your day occurs when you go online to order a textbook entitled Ion Channels of Excitable Membranes, you officially have no life.

The heroism of DubYa.

You know, you hear it from a lot of people; hell, I said it myself: "Bush really did do a great job right after 9/11;" and I think it's probably fair to say that I probably have as great a loathing of dub-YA as just about anyone out there. You hear it in the media, you hear it from people of both political extremes about Bush's supposed heroism just after the terrorist attacks. And, like I said, I've heard it from me.

But let's really think about this. I mean, let's go back to a few months before the 9/11 attacks and really, seriously ask ourselves what made Bush so heroic after that fateful day.

January, 2001: Clinton is just leaving office, and the outgoing national security team warns Bush's incoming National Security advisor, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, that she will probably spend most of her time dealing with terrorism in general, and Osama bin Laden in specific. To the best of anyone's knowledge, she did nothing to act upon this advice.

March, 2001. The bipartisan Hart-Rudman study was issued. I'm not going to go over the specifics of the study, but suffice to say that the study argued that the US was likely to face a large-scale terrorist attack in the not-too-distant future, and recommended steps to protect against such an attack. While we obviously cannot say for sure, it is certainly possible that some of the recommended measures stood at least a chance of preventing or at least mitigating the 9/11 attacks.

The report was largely ignored, and Bush had Chaney convene an antiterror task force to come up with its own set of recommendations.

As of 9/11, the task force had never met. That's six months after the issuing of the study, and they hadn't met once. It's worth mentioning that his energy task force met several times in the same six months. Apparently, energy was a more pressing issue than terrorism.

Somehow, even the August 6th security briefing with the rather ominous title: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the United States" failed to raise any red flags with the administration.

Now, I want to stop here and say that people smarter than me don't even know if 9/11 could have been prevented or not, so I'm not for a minute saying that it could've. But how it can be argued with a straight face that Bush did everything he could, or even everything that a reasonably intelligent 10-year-old would have done, is completely beyond me.

9/11. Now, in fairness, for about 48 hours, nobody had the faintest clue what the hell was going on; and it fell to the Mayor of New York City to hold the country together. And while I generally don't think too highly of Rudy, I have to admit, I put credit where it's due: he handled the crisis well.

So, now we're well into September of 2001; and in the week following 9/11, Bush had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cultivate international goodwill. We had countries which, a year ago, would just as soon have pissed on the american flag pledging their support. Iran offered their support, France, England, just about all of Europe and Asia, most of Africa. For the first time in history, we had a whole world offering their contolences and asking what help we needed.

Now, maybe I'm old fashioned, but it seems like it's just good manners to respond: "Thank you. We appreciate your offers. If we need anything, we will let you know." Instead, Bush snarled "you're either with us, or you're against us." Dirty Harry is not a guide to international diplomacy. Basically, he threatened half the world into do exactly what they'd promised to do anyway. Effectively, he squandered the tragic events' one silver lining: an opportunity to cultivate international goodwill, something which would have proven useful in a time when the major enemies are international terrorist organizations.

So Bush invades Afghanistan. And he had a lot of help doing it. Everyone in the US, and several other countries supported that invasion. Incidentally, contrary to any conservative nut that tells you otherwise, Gore was a full supporter of the invasion of Afghanistan. How can one legitimately call Bush a hero for doing exactly what absolutely anyone else would have done in his position?

And in a time of national unity unparallelled since the second world war, Bush squandered the one opportunity he had to ask us for sacrifice, and make significant changes to domestic policy. Presidents during wartime have a long history of asking for, and getting, shared sacrifice from citizens willing to give it, proudly united in the service of a common cause.

He could have called for energy conservation. He could have called for us to get off Middle East oil entirely, or called for an Apollo-caliber project for total energy independence. He could have used the tragedy of 9/11 to change the course of history for the better. I truly believe that the nation would have risen to it.

Instead, he suspends whatever liberties he wanted to, and subsequently let bin Laden escape from Tora Bora. He then went on to further abuse the memory of the thousands who died on September 11th to justify an invasion of Iraq, and furhter trashed international relations and national security.

In short, a real hero would have pretty much done exactly the opposite of what Bush did at every step of the way.