Jonathan Brun

Just put up some photos from my trip – Russia and Mongolia, click here to see them. More to come.

Just a quick note to say I am now in Beijing, no Facebook here so send me an email if you need to reach me.

This was by far, the hardest Visa I ever got. We got our Visas on French passports, though these requirments apply to all EU passports. Real embassy website here (beware of fakes).

Items required:

• Forms from the embassy
• Proof on insurance (expatriation and 30 000$ coverage). I bought it for my brother from L’Europeene Assurance for 32 Euros. I was covered under my apartment insurance.
• Photo of you – make sure to glue it to the forms before you go to the embassy.
• An invitation letter, we got this via our hotel in St. Petersbourg at a cost of 25 EUROS for 3 people, payable upon arrival.

Once you have all these items, you should be ok.

Good luck.

In Canada, the government has copyright over its publications, paid for with your money. The copyright extends to laws, regulations, and other documents. A copyright makes it difficult for companies and non-profit organizations to reproduce government information without their explicit permission. This slows innovation, reduces transparency and adds bureaucracy.

As part of the ongoing copyright, intellectual property and information technology consultations in Ottawa, Crown Copyright is being discussed. It is very, very important for the future of Canadians and their government that the Federal government change the existing structure. Please take 1 minute of your time to sign the petition found here at Visible Government, a non-profit organization for the transparency of government.

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

Over-consumption of natural resources is the topic du jour. The current popularity of environmental sustainability has birthed the notion that countries go to war for water. This is simply not true. While we do fight wars over resources, we do not fight over water – principally because water is not a resource.

In nearly all cases, water has led to peaceful agreements, even amongst warring nations. Nations fight over resources; including, but certainly not limited to, natural resources (oil, metals, coal), human resources (slaves, religious disciples) and land. Water is fundamentally not a resource, it is a requirement. The dictionary defines resource as:

resource |ˈrēˌsôrs; ˈrēˈzôrs; riˈsôrs; riˈzôrs|
noun
1 (usu. resources) a stock or supply of money, materials, staff, and other assets that can be drawn on by a person or organization in order to function effectively

However, water is not something that can be drawn upon, water must be drawn upon to survive – this is a fundamental difference that too many people overlook. We do not require oil, metal, religion or (much) land, yet we must have water.

The Trojans fought for Helen, the Romans for salt, the Europeans for gold, spices, and cotton, and the Americans for oil. However, no one fights for water. In large part, this is because humans around the world commonly recognize water as an essential ingredient for life; cruel as we might be, we seem to have the fundamental dignity to not desiccate our fellow man.

There is no need to take my non-expert word for this, Wendy Barnaby, a science journalist set out to prove that we fight over water and came back with just the opposite conclusion. She was tasked with writing a book about water conflict, but when she could not find the evidence, the book was cancelled (who wants to read about peace?) and she turned her work into an article for Nature. Here a few examples of existing conflicts and the role water might play in them.

Sudan is often cited as an example of conflict over water. It is claimed that the northern Arab Sudanese attacked Darfur for the fertile land and water supply. In some respects this is true, but the conflict over the fertile land is primarily due to the West. During the colonial period, the Brits redistributed the land according to tribal roots – trying to emulate our property system by creating definite borders and ownership systems. The nomadic tribes were excluded from the land allocation and these new borders constricted their mouvement between regions.

The droughts of the 1970s pushed the Sahara desert 40km into the fertile land, displacing people who now had fewer places to go. Neighbouring conflicts in Chad and elsewhere – often proxy wars of our cold war – placed further barriers to mouvement on the inhabitants of Darfur. Before these barriers were erected, the people of southern Sudan had a perfectly adequate system for dealing with droughts and lack of water – mouvement.  Now, the once nomadic tribes who moved with the water were trapped in a sandpit. This understandably led to violent conflict.

The Kashmir region of India and Pakistan has been at war since partition in 1947, but they have nevertheless managed to sign the Indus Water Treaty in 1960 which has allowed for the distribution of water between the two countries. Gwynne Dyer’s book Climate Wars, outlines a scenario where India and Pakistan launch nuclear missiles over water rights. Remarkably, the Indo-Pakistani conflict has remained relatively dormant for 60 years despite the recent Mumbai terrorist attacks, religious terrorism and longstanding historical conflicts. In light of this, water seems like an unlikely candidate for military escalation. Though Kashmir is still at war, it is not due to water.

Israel and Jordan are separated by the Jordan River and have a mutual interest in its waters. Each Palestinian is allowed to consume 1/5 the water of an Israeli. Israel withdraws far more water than its Arab cousins. Despite this apparent conflict, Jordan and Israel they have maintained the peace since 1992 and water issues are not seen as a major hurdle to a two-state solution. Syria might still be at war with Israel, but it is not fundamentally over water – though the Golan heights do allow for the control of much of the region’s water supply.

The list of agreements over water rights is long, the list of conflicts is very short. The cynics among us believe man fights for power without much consideration for life. If this were true, water would be the ultimate leverage over a population. Yet, over and over again, conflict over water leads to diplomatic agreements – not armed conflict. If anything, I see this as demonstration that despite our differences, we recognize each other’s right to live and have access to water.

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 – 32 $)

Another take on water conflict

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.

Municipal politics are messy. A number of scandals have rocked Montréal in the past year, overpriced water meters, lazy construction workers and sketchy land permits. All this amounts to corruption.

So, in their bureaucratic wisdom, the Quebec government commissioned a study on how to fix the problem. Their solution: a code of ethics. Bravo.

The simplest, quickest, and cheapest way to rid an organization of corruption is to increase transparency. The more eyes looking at it, the less likely someone will try and pull a quick one.

With the power of the internet, cities and governments are moving towards transparency. Obama is a leading, as usual, on this front, with recovery.gov and usaspending.gov which lists where government contracts are going. Both Toronto and Vancouver have endorsed the concept of an ‘open-city’ where data and information is freely available to the citizens.

Where is Montreal on all this? Still in the woods. In a meeting with the city last year, I actually brought up the point that contaminated sites in Montreal are very difficult to locate – the city should list them on google maps (or something of the sort). The response I got was, “Why would we do that?”. The insular nature of our french island has put us 5 years behind on many technological fronts – government transparency being a major one.

A June article in Harper’s magazine was fairly negative on the prospects of alleviating world hunger through the development of commodities market. Basically, the article outlines why markets do not work to alleviate poverty, citing examples such as the Irish Famine, Ethiopian famine and last summer’s spike in grain and other prices. The author is clearly coming from a socialist, markets can be ugly school. That does not mean he is incorrect, but I do think it contradicts the empirical evidence. There is very little starvation in economies with lubricated, but regulated, markets. If you are curious, the full article can be found here: Poverty Article

Since I have too much time on my hands, I wrote to the magazine and they published my letter along with a response from the author. Pick up this month’s Harper’s to see it (edited) on old fashion pulp and paper. Either way, Harper’s has some great articles and the subscription is a paltry 20$, I do recommend you check it out.

My response:
Last summer, I travelled to Ethiopia to speak with the people setting up the Ethiopian Commodities Exchange (ECX) and I can assure you that the goal of the program is not to encourage speculation. No one imagines an uneducated rural farmer becoming a sophisticated commodities trader. Currently, produce is mostly sold locally (within 10 kms of production) and is subject to huge fluctuations in supply and demand, as farmers in a region tend to produce the same produce, flooding a local market at harvest. In fact, a marketplace for agricultural commodities will in all likelihood help stabilize food prices compared to the huge variations currently seen in villages across Africa.
I encourage readers to consult Dr. Eleni Gabre-Madhin’s (the CEO of the ECX) TED talk where she explains the logic and purpose of the ECX. Also, the ECX will set-up numerous warehouses throughout the country to stock food – not a unique one in the capital as Mr. Frederick Kaufman claims. Currently, farmers are unable to reliably store food for future sale; they lack the knowledge and infrastructure to do so, unsold food rots and goes to waste. By delivering the produce to climate controlled warehouses, stocks will be built up – ensuring a consistent flow of food.
The Chicago Board of Exchange helped build the united states and the midwest into a world power – delivering cheaper and cheaper food to drive innovation in the cities that in turn helped the country prosper. Cheap, reliable sources of food is essential to the growth of a nation – and regulated markets are the best mechanism to deliver that food.
Markets are not the only solution to world hunger, but Mr. Kaufman is incorrect in his conclusion that they will not help alleviate it. Money can feed people and with farmers comprising 80% of Ethiopian population, it is high time they gain access to a stable and transparent market for their produce.

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: