Jonathan Brun

Désolé, cet article est seulement disponible en English.

Désolé, cet article est seulement disponible en English.

Désolé, cet article est seulement disponible en English.

Désolé, cet article est seulement disponible en English.

Recently two friends have repeated the idea that nations go to war over water. It is not true.

An article in Foreign Policy claiming there will be more conflict

Good summary of Wendy Barnaby’s article

Interview with a geologist about water wars

Wendy Burnaby in Nature (paid – ridiculour 32 $)

Two nights ago, I switched to Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. The show is labelled as a political commentary, but too often resorts to sensationalism, and partiality. While Fox News is certainly the Republican party mouth piece and MSNBC its alter-ego, both are very bad for the United States.

When I tuned in, Olbermann was not at his desk; instead, Howard Dean filled Keith’s shoes. While I may be sympathetic to Obermann’s general political opinions, having Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic Party, fill in for Keith seems like a bit of a stretch. Can you imagine Stephane Dion filling in on CTV or Stockwell Day taking the anchor chair on Global?

Not only was Dean hosting the show, he was interviewing Arianna Huffington of the liberal Huffington Post – both working together to attack the « bonus bankers » and advocate a higher tax or cap on their incomes. When I think of the word « opinion » I think of objective, researched views on the benefits and pitfalls of a given stratey. Not some gut feeling you label as gospel.

At the end of the day, Dean and Arianna were making what I like to call « liberal white noise » to offset the « republican white noise » on Fox. But as anyone with an old TV knows, white noise plus white noise just makes noise – not a signal.

This mindless partisan banter only furthers the impasse in American politics. The best summary of this charade is Jon Stewart’s infamous tirade on the now defunct CNN show Crossfire.

Earlier this year, I had to service my bike. Tire was crooked and I had not done a tune up in two years of intensive use. Not knowing better, I went to Vélo Villeneuve on Villeneuve and St. Urbain. The team there is very nice and quite knowledgeable, but very expensive.

They overcharge for both parts and labour. An inner tube change = 20 $, 7 $ at McWinnie’s; brake cable = 10$, 4$ at Yeti; 65 $ Tune-Up, 30 $ at Yeti; the list goes on.

I do not recommend these guys, unless, of course, you have money to burn.

Désolé, cet article est seulement disponible en English.

For a long time, I have been meaning to invite a Jehova’s witness in for coffee – they come by every Saturday. Today, I did. A nice man from the Okanagan valley named Dan. We spoke for 1 hour about various elements of his beliefs, my issues with religion and some crazy theories about Jesus I have been researching.

One thing that stood out was how little he knew of the bible. I am no expert, but I could certainly remember parts. Jehova’s witnesses are fundamentalists and crazier than I originally thought. They believe that the bible is the word of god and that it should be followed literally. From Wikipedia:

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that after the current world order is destroyed, righteous survivors and resurrected dead individuals will have the opportunity to live forever on a paradisaical earth, ruled by Christ and 144,000 people raised to heaven.

Despite this, we both agreed that parts of the bible are no longer relevant (stoning adulterers for example). Aditionally, Dan claims that since Jesus came to being, Mosaic law not longer needs to be followed in its entirerity. Instead, they extract a series of « principals » from the old testament that they follow in addition to rules set out in the new testament. I tried to get him to specify what they were or how they are chosen, he waffled like a professional politician. My guess, is these principals are determined by their « Elders Council » (see wikipedia). Slowly, and surely I tried to get him to contradict himself and poke a few cracks in his world view. As you might imagine, not much luck.

What is difficult to comprehend is how an apparently normal, fit person living in a modern liberal society can convince themselves of all this nonsense. When you abandon rational thinking, it is amazing what you can rationalize.

At the end of our discussion, I tried to give him a conflicting book (The God Delusion by Dawkins), which he refused. I don’t think I got through to him, but hopefully I planted a tiny little seed of doubt in his mind. He said he would stop by another weekend, so we shall see – only god knows.

Here is a recent ted talk from a former cult member who broke free and turned de-programmed: