First, my disclaimer: I’m a member of the social democratic New Democratic Party of Canada, and am thus partisan on all the issues I’m going to talk about. I’ll try to stay neutral, but I make no promises. If you’ve followed me on Facebook at all, my rants and arguments have been littering everywhere for about five days now.

So now some background:

Canada is a technically a constitutional monarchy, which means our head of state is the Queen of England, and her representative the Governor General. The monarchy has little to no influence over this country, but the Governor General does need to be consulted for certain events. Our current Governor General is Michaelle Jean. Typically her role is ceremonial, but in certain instances she can use her discretion to look out for Canada.

Canada has five main political parties, and four with seats in our parliament. They are (from oldest to newest); the Liberal Party (centrist policies), the New Democratic Party (or NDP, social democrats), the Bloc Quebecois (website in French; a party for the “protection of Quebec’s interests on a federal level as well as the promotion of its sovereignty” [Wikipedia]), the Green Party (environmentalist party with centre-right economic policies, they have no seats presently), and the Conservative Party (right wing). In comparison to American politics, the Liberals follow the general policies of the Democrats (with a less charismatic leader) and the Conservatives are similar to the Republicans (and even share an evangelical support base – but the Canadian wing is less overt about it).

Finally to introduce the topic, Canada operates as a representative parliamentary democracy. Rather than have three separate branches of government like the USA (legislative, executive and judicial), Canada has a weird blend. When Canadians vote in federal elections, we choose an member of parliament (through a single member plurality or first-past-the-post system, i.e. the most votes wins) who represents us and our constituency in Ottawa (the nation’s capital). Typically, the party with the most seats “wins” the election and the Governor General gives the opportunity to govern to that party. The leader of the winning party becomes the Prime Minister, who chooses his or her cabinet to form the executive branch of government. Contrary to some belief, Canadians do not elect a government or prime minister, we elect representatives who are supposed to do that for us. Usually this system works fine, as the winning party has more than half of the seats in the House of Commons, thereby halving a majority and the ability to pass laws without consulting the opposition.

During the 1990s, Canada was lead by Jean Chretien and the Liberals. They typically received popular votes in the 40%-50% range, while getting a majority of the seats (prompting many calls for alternative electoral systems, but thats another post on its own). In 2003 he stepped down, and his long-time Finance Minister, Paul Martin, took over as Prime Minister. However, a number of scandals overran the Liberals at this time and his government held only a minority of the seats after Chretien left, and eventually fell after the right was united by Stephen Harper. Stephen Harper won a minority of seats for his Conservative party in 2006. He has governed as Prime Minister since.

One of the laws Stephen Harper introduced was a fixed election date law. Citing that the parliament had become dysfunctional, in September 2008 he requested that the Governor General to call an election an entire year early (had his government been defeated by the opposition there would be a required election). Typically in minority governments in Canada, elections occur after a vote of non-confidence occurs. This means that the majority of the members of parliament vote against the government on a bill of confidence. The Speech from the Throne (the first thing read in any session of parliament that outlines the government’s goals for the term), budgets, any finance bills, and any other bills the government puts forth as confidence motions are all votes of confidence. Between 2006 and 2008 the Conservatives used many confidence bills to force the Liberals, still weak and poor since Chretien left, to vote for the government (often the Liberals would fail to show up in parliament as a way to abstain from voting).

After the election on October 14, 2008, Stephen Harper and his Conservatives received a slightly stronger minority government, despite having what many consider a lame-duck leader of the Liberals, Stephane Dion, as their chief opponent. Dion and his Green Shift Carbon Tax were so unpopular with Canadians that the Liberals received their lowest popular vote since the confederation of the country in 1867. With his weakest opposition ever, Harper still couldn’t convince many Canadians to support his party. In fact his party only received a popular vote of 37%. It would seem Canadians are still uncomfortable with Harper and his policies.

Since the election, Harper presented a Throne Speech, which passed with support of the Liberals. The Throne Speech is usually vague enough that most oppositions parties pass it.

On Thursday, November 27 (only a week ago), Jim Flaherty, the Finance Minister, presented an economic update, that the Conservatives promised to use to tackle the economic crisis and recession. To the opposition parties dismay the update contained a removal of the rights of civil servants to strike for three years, removed the guarantee for equal pay for equal work that protected women’s salaries, no promises for bailout or stimulus packages, no conditions for bank bailouts, no money for small or medium sized business, and to top it off, removed the government subsidy to political parties.

This subsidy grants $1.95 to each party for each vote they get in a federal election. It was introduced by Chretien to replace corporate and union donations to political parties, as well as caps on individual donations. Since then the Greens and NDP rely on the fund for half of their budget, the Liberals for two-thirds, the Bloc for 86% and the Conservatives for only a third. The government claimed that this represented each party “tightening their belts” during the hard times to come, and that they would stand to lose the most money (since they received the most votes). However, the disproportionate hit that some parties would take (it is common knowledge that the Conservatives are “swimming” in cash and can afford to run campaigns nearly all year long, while elections have fixed campaign spending limits) along with the extreme right-wing nature of many of the points in the update seemed to signal a strategic partisan attack on the rival parties.

Immediately after the release of this update, all three opposition parties slammed it. By the next day the Liberals and the NDP had recruited Ed Broadbent (leader of the NDP in the 1980s who brought them to their most successful showing) and Jean Chretien to spend the weekend discussing a coalition that could bring down the Harper Conservatives. The update, being a fiscal bill, was scheduled to be tabled on Monday, December 1, along with what’s known as opposition day (when the opposition parties get to table bills). By the end of Friday, the Liberals let out that they were potentially tabling a motion that said the House of Commons had lost confidence in the current government and that a new government could be formed within the current house, as well, fearing heating rhetoric, Harper delayed the votes by a week, postponing any non-confidence motions until December 8.

By the end of Saturday, Harper and Flaherty had removed the party funding aspect of the update, as well as the removal of the right to strike. However, it seemed too late to slow the momentum of the budding coalition.

Also over the weekend, a member of the Prime Minister’s Office released a tape recording of an NDP caucus teleconference where they discussed past attempts to work with the Bloc to topple the Conservatives. In Canada, recording a conversation is legal so long as one party involved in the conversation is aware of the recording. It is unclear whether the tape was recorded legally, so the NDP are calling for a criminal investigation. The Conservatives maintain that an invitation was mistakenly sent to one of their employees who recorded the conversation.

On Monday afternoon, the leaders of the Liberals, NDP and Bloc signed an agreement stating that the Liberals and NDP would enter into a coalition, supported on confidence votes by the Bloc, and sought to replace the Conservatives at the earliest possibility. The coalition promised that a Liberal government would take control, but would give a quarter of the cabinet seats to NDP MPs. This would represent the first coalition government in Canada since the First World War. While the Liberals and NDP combined have less seats then the Conservatives, with the support of the Bloc they represent a majority of the House and a majority of the popular vote from the past election.

Now, one of the options the Governor General has when the government loses a confidence motion is to ask if anyone else feels they can govern with the confidence of the House. This has only happened once in Canadian history.

On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday parliament was in session and denigrated quickly into shouting matches and harsh allegations. While Dion and the coalition challenged Harper to face a confidence vote, the Conservatives called the coalition “traitors” for working with the “separatists” of the Bloc. The Conservatives further attacked the coalition calling it “undemocratic” and forged in “back room deals.” Quickly it was found that in 2004 the Harper Conservatives had attempted a situation almost exactly the same to attempt to oust then Prime Minister Paul Martin. Further, in 2000, the Canadian Alliance (the precursor to the Conservatives) attempted to form a coalition with the Bloc and Progressive Conservatives to oust the government.

On Tuesday the Conservatives launched radio ads attacking the coalition and on Wednesday Harper took to national television for a five minute speech in which he chastised the opposition as undemocratic and wrong for Canada. He refused to use the word “separatist” in the French translation, opting instead for the less divisive word “sovereigntist.” After his speech, which provided no new information, Stephane Dion gave a rebuttal, which suffered from low quality, arriving late to the networks and Dion’s weak English.

On Thursday (today) morning, Harper visited the Governor General, who ended her European trip early, to request to prorogue parliament. To prorogue parliament essentially means to take a time out. Everything is put on pause for a break. Typically it occurs when a government needs a bit of wind down time for the year end or summer break. No Prime Minister has ever requested to prorogue to prevent a vote of non-confidence. While being generally symbolic, it would have been within the rights of Ms. Jean to deny Mr. Harper the request and instead ask him to face the music. However, setting precedence, the request was granted and parliament was closed until January 26. The government is still able to spend money and operate, however no new bills will be presented and any spending to occur should be approved when parliament resumes.

Had the request been denied, Harper’s government would have fallen on Monday, and he would be visiting the Governor General to request an election (the second within as many months). She would then have the ability to deny that request and allow the coalition to govern.

Harper has promised to present a budget as soon as parliament resumes, the earliest a budget has ever been presented. However, the coalition claims that without “monumental changes” they will bring down the governing party at first chance.

If the government falls in January, it may be more reasonable for the Governor General to call an election, since, although they haven’t done anything yet, it will have been a longer period of time since the past election.

Current polls show little support for either the coalition of a continuance of Mr. Harper’s government. At this point, the likely consensus of Canadians is that the government should settle down and get to work. The problem lies in the best way to accomplish that, be it by coalition or a more cooperative Conservative Party. Also, rumblings have been heard from within the Conservative Party that it may be time to replace Stephen Harper as their leader.

The biggest cog so far for the coalition has been Stephane Dion. Still few people like Mr. Dion, and he has pledged to step down in May when the Liberals choose a new leader (one of Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae, or Dominic LeBlanc). Canadians are also very inexperienced with coalitions as compared to their European counterparts, where coalitions are the norm in government. Many see a coalition between ideologically different parties as disastrous and they question if it will even survive until January.

So now, until January 26 Canada will be under a PR war between the Conservatives and the Coalition. Both will claim to stand for Canada and democracy. Both will launch extensive ad campaigns, and fight for the hearts of Canadians, even if the key decision lies with Mr. Harper, his cabinet, and the Governor General.

I found out that she:

• is the governor of Alaska.
• is a mother of 5.
• is an evangelical Protestant.
• is pro-life and a member of Feminists for Life.
• is a creationist.
• is a creationist who wants creationism taught along with evolution.

I shall let her speak for herself:

In an interview Thursday, Palin said she meant only to say that discussion of alternative views should be allowed to arise in Alaska classrooms:

“I don’t think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn’t have to be part of the curriculum.”

(…)

Palin said she thought there was value in discussing alternatives.

“It’s OK to let kids know that there are theories out there,” she said in the interview. “They gain information just by being in a discussion.”

That was how she was brought up, she said. Her father was a public school science teacher.

“My dad did talk a lot about his theories of evolution,” she said. “He would show us fossils and say, ‘How old do you think these are?’ ”

Asked for her personal views on evolution, Palin said, “I believe we have a creator.”

She would not say whether her belief also allowed her to accept the theory of evolution as fact.

“I’m not going to pretend I know how all this came to be,” she said.

From Anchorage Daily News

Again, this is the usual tripe creationists try to push: “Teach both sides!” “Teach the debate!”

There is NO debate. Evolution is fact. I bet you Palin won’t be able to define evolution if you asked her to. In my experience, almost all deniers of evolution do not know what evolution is. It’s rather pathetic that they would deny something without knowing what it actually is.

Wired also had this to say about her:

Palin’s statements track with the official Alaska Republican Party platform, which support creation science and intelligent design by name, and says that “evidence disputing the theory should also be presented.”

According to Fordham Institute science education expert Lawrence Lerner, Palin’s nomination is less worrisome in terms of education than the broad relationship of science and government.

“In the direct sense, vice presidents don’t have much to do with what goes on in classrooms. But a person who’s a creationist doesn’t understand science and technology at all,” said Lerner. “It doesn’t bode well for science, and doesn’t bode well for interaction between science and government.”

From the Wired Website

Personally, if someone believes in creationism, it does not bother me. If their belief does not have negative effects on my life, then I don’t mind it. BUT this is just not the case with regards to Palin and most creationists. Their unscientific demeanor does have negative ramifications. It does affect me negatively. How could they possibly make informed decisions about scientific policies when they are scientifically illiterate? They are dangerous people. Palin is dangerous.

So…who wants to move out of the US with me if McCain gets elected?

It started when my girlfriend’s mother gave me a copy of Dreams from my Father, Obama’s bestselling 1996 biography. Reading it got me very excited about Obama’s candidacy, and once it became clear that it was going to be a contest between Obama and McCain I enthusiastically threw my support behind Obama. A McCain presidency promises a fresh social conservative in the Supreme Court following Justice Stevens’ imminent departure, something that, as a freethought activist, I felt I had to oppose. Meanwhile, Obama has been explicit in several speeches about his staunch support of church-state separation. To me, the choice was obvious.

Then my wake-up call came, in the form of Obama promising to promote and enhance faith-based initiatives across the country. I was shaken; was there any candidate who could help us progress as a society, who would not actively promote conformity to mainstream religious modes?

The answer is simply no. This election is noteworthy, among many other things, for the fact that the Evangelical Christian bloc is up for grabs for the first time in recent memory. They carried Bush II to victory in the 2000 and 2004 elections, swinging states like Ohio into the Red and helping him capture the White House. However, the evangelicals are not as excited about McCain as they were Bush II, and both camps know that they have to mobilize to target this very motivated group of voters. The first real appearance of the two candidates together was the recent Saddleback Church forum, hosted by celebrity evangelist pastor Rick Warren. Before they debated on real issues, they instead got on-stage in front of the nation and tried to out-Christian each other, jumping through the Judeo-Christian hoops to prove that they are Christian leaders who will lead a Christian nation with Christian values towards a Christian world.

As an non-believer and a secular freethought activist, this sickens me. Many who decry the role of religion in Middle Eastern politics passionately advocate a Christian stranglehold on our own government, the worst of which we have seen since Bush II came into office. Christianity disproportionately dominates our government, unreflective of the true nature of the American religious demographic: anywhere from 4%-14% of Americans(depending on who you ask) consider themselves to be non-believers, not including many who keep their mouths shut about their disbelief. Despite this fact, one has to ask: where are the non-religious politicians? Well, here’s one, and he’s not the first; California Gov. Culbert Olson, a Democrat who served from 1939 to 1943, declared his atheism as well. But these men “came out” close to or after the end of their political careers, when they had little left to lose by such an admission. It would seem as though the non-believer is among the last of the political outcasts; the Democratic Party has a black man running for president with a Catholic as his running mate, and it came narrowly close to nominating a woman. A Jewish man was a Vice Presidential candidate in the 2000 election. The Democratic party openly supports civil unions for homosexuals. Yet, for all of its talk, the “party of inclusiveness” shuns those whose worldview tends toward the skeptical.

Given the current socio-political landscape, this makes bitter sense. To formally recognize non-believers as a political entity would be instant suicide for any political party. The best that we can hope to do is to vote for someone who would hurt our cause less, and in this case, the choice is clearly Obama. However, it is a regrettable choice, one that hurts more and more with each election cycle as we grow as a subset of the population while facing the same political disenfranchisement year after year. Perhaps someday the non-believers will know the joy of having a real say in politics, like women, minorities and soon homosexuals. Until then, we’ll fight the good fight until the world considers our voice a legitimate one.

]]> http://factonista.org/2008/08/29/political-untouchables/feed/ 8 http://factonista.org/2008/08/29/the-us-senate-all-lawyers-and-businessmen-not-one-scientist/ http://factonista.org/2008/08/29/the-us-senate-all-lawyers-and-businessmen-not-one-scientist/#comments Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:17:49 +0000 Robin Zhang http://theedger.org/?p=869 There is not a single former scientist-turned-senator, which I must say is very disappointing since unless they were EPA (or other niche) lawyers or have pursued a single scientific issue as doggedly as Al Gore has, none of them appear to have a firm grasp on current scientific affairs… or even the scientific method itself.

Here is a list of Senate Committees that have something to do with research or science-related policymaking in this country and anyone on such a committee who has any grounding in science at all. I’m grasping at straws with some of these people, but here goes -

• Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation: One engineer (John Sununu, R-NH), One veterinarian (John Ensign, R-NV)
• Committee on Environment and Public Works: One batshit crazy global warming denier (Jim Inhofe, R-OK)
• Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions: One doctor (Tom Coburn, R-OK), one veterinarian (Wayne Allard, R-CO)
• Committee on Energy and Natural Resources: One teacher (Daniel Akaka, D-HI)
• Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry: One organic farmer (Jon Tester, D-MT)

I’m not implying that this nation should be some sort of technocracy of scientists; such a system can easily fall out of touch with the average citizen and is the stuff of dystopian science fiction movies. I also realize that going into law and business are more or less natural routes into a political career and that it is pretty much inevitable that a large portion of not an outright majority of our lawmakers will have gone down this path.

However, ask yourself this – On a committee where the latest in scientific research and related policymaking is discussed on a daily basis, how confident do you feel that the right decisions will be made if the vast majority of the committee members probably could not even interpret a PubMed article on their own?

It would be reassuring if at least a few politicians on such a committee were able to interpret and disseminate scientific information provided to them like they are easily be able to do with issues of constitutionality, foreign policy, and general domestic policy. But in a nation where the current administration supports intelligent design, set us back six years on stem cell research to pander to the religious right, and still shows lingering doubts about the validity of anthropogenic global warming… maybe that’s too much to ask.

This morning, Dole’s campaign office released an action alert warning her constituents that her competitor would be heading to Boston for a fundraiser, which “will be in the home of leading anti religion activists Wendy Kaminer and her lawyer husband Woody Kaplan — who is an advisor to the “Godless Americans Political Action Committee” and the alert also warns that “Kaminer is also an advisory board member (Woody is the chairman) of The Secular Coalition for America.”

“Kay Hagan is trying to run a campaign in North Carolina that casts her as a moderate but the money that’s paying for it is coming from the left-wing fringe of political thought,” said Dole Campaign Communications Director Dan McLagan. “Kay Hagan does not represent the values of this state; she is a Trojan Horse for a long list of wacky left-wing outside groups bent on policies that would horrify most North Carolinians if they knew about it,” McLagan went on. “This latest revelation of support from anti-religion activists will not sit well with the 90% of state residents who identify with a specific religious faith.”

Any secular person, or even religious person, who does not appreciate having all non-religious Americans collectively tarred and feathered as a “wacky left-wing outside group” whose beliefs and Constitutional rights “would horrify most North Carolinians,” can make a cash contribution to her opponent here.

If you wish to contact Senator Dole’s office and demand the immediate censure, dismissal, and condemnation of Dan McLagan for his obvious personal disdain for the non-religious (12% of North Carolina’s citizens are not religious, and 20% of them “seldom or never” attend religious meetings), her office can be contacted at info@elizabethdole.org for email, 704-633-0014 for her telephone switchboard.

There was discussion about what the term Technocrat meant, and there was a great deal of disturbing observations about the definition I posted from Wikipedia.

People accurately pointed out that a purely meritocratic society would be very susceptible to corruption.

Some people thought that Technocracy was opposed to democracy, and in hindsight I can see why people thought that. Though I consider myself to be a technocrat and a committed apologist for the democratic process.

So I am coining a term: Neo-Technocrat.

I am using the term Neo-Technocrat so that I can discard any of the ideas of the original technocrats that we find antiquated, while still embracing the core themes of the original movement.

A Neo-Technocrat is someone who wholeheartedly accepts the democratic endeavor as the best current political system. A Neo-Technocrat does not dispute that the current western political system does provide society with skilled politicians as a result of the voting process. The only thing that a Neo-Technocrat wants to do to the voting process is make sure that the voters are better informed, especially on science and technology issues.

Another issue demanding clarification from the last post is the importance of the term “technocrat.” Technology is the ultimate utility of science. Even basic science, which by definition has no specific technological goals, is defended for its constant contribution to the development of technology. Using technology as the root word for a political idea implies that the vast usefulness of science is of great political consequence.

To call Neo-Technocracy some other word, which does not have technology in the name would not due the idea justice.

What Neo-Technocrats want is for scientists to be consulted by politicians and the public for issues where science is relevant. Neo-Technocrats believe this is going to be the norm for many political issues, especially if one considers the robustness of the social sciences.

Neo-Technocrats see that political language should be naturalistic, just as it is in science. The effect of this is that political discussion of ethics should be naturalistic in its premises, and humanistic in its conclusions. Humanism is a system of ethics built on what naturalism tells us about the world in deference to science. Neo-Technocrats see this as being a more universal approach to ethics.

It is not that Neo-Technocrats want Neo-Technocratic projects to eliminate all philosophy save naturalism and humanism, but we see these as being extremely basic and universally applicable to the whole of humanity. In essence a naturalistic basis for political discussion is a filter, which allows for discussion of testable phenomena to have its deserved prominence. This, again, makes a great deal of sense when one considers the robustness of social science. Questions such as what motivates crimes, greed in human nature, and other controversial behaviors have huge bodies of data in psychology, economics, and other social sciences.

Neo-Technocrats quite simply believe that when society takes in to consideration what is known by experts, society makes better decisions. There are two areas in which this must be achieved. One is at the level of the public, the electorate to be specific. The second is at the level of political decision makers, which include elected officials. This is achieved by creating policy infrastructure so that politicians consult scientists, and so scientific understanding is always strongly promoted to the public.

This may sound like a pipe-dream to some, but we have essentially had this kind of government in the United States before, with a trend towards having more in the future. Especially in the early years of the cold war. I would also argue that the United States was founded on similar principles.

Now the political discourse has strayed from naturalistic language into some kind of post-modernist la-la land where things like climate change are treated as though they were simply a matter of opinion.

This is unacceptable.

These theories are boring. We have heard variations of them before: some said that a lone nut shot JFK, others said that a laundry list of secret societies were behind it. We have been told that it was a deranged fan(atic) who shot John Lennon, but others have pointed to anti-counterculture agents of the FBI. Did aliens crash at Roswell, or a government project? I, as undoubtedly you also are, am tired of this crazy-versus-government dichotomy. So, in the interest of injecting a little Ralph Naderesque third-party diversity into the upcoming Toronto debate, let me present them with a little theory of my own that is a healthy medium between the two prevailing theories:

Dylan Avery blew up the World Trade Center.

Now, I am sure that you are as shocked as I was when I first stumbled upon this horrible, slightly befuddling truth. Dylan Avery, director of the groundbreaking 9/11 conspiracy documentary Loose Change, blowing up the World Trade Center? You scoff!

But think about it. The prime rule in conspiracy thinking is cui bono, that is, who benefits? According to the government’s official explanation, Muslim terrorists conducted the attacks. But what did they gain? Indefinite military escalation on the part of the United States and the alienation of their allies in Pakistan, not to mention the out-and-out obliteration of their terrorist fascism that once ruled Afghanistan. On the other hand, the conspiracy nutters say that the government did it in order to gain support for the Iraq invasion of 2003. But what did they really gain? The pro-war hawks got obliterated in the 2006 election, Hillary Clinton’s own primary bid was probably sabotaged singularly on the issue of her pro-war vote, and Bush is imprisoned in the inescapable mess of being labeled the worst and least popular president of all time. And when did his downward spiral begin? With the invasion.

My theory, on the other hand, makes perfect sense. Dylan Avery has profited immensely off of the tragic murder of thousands. I mean, who was this guy before “terrorists” handed him the biggest indie film contract in history? He was rejected by film school twice. He was probably living with his parents, at age 22, when he made the movie. He was so rock-bottom in his life that he even had to cavort and consort with losers and treasonous deserters like Korey Rowe. But now look at him: selling DVDs at $20 a pop. He has invented a personal subculture of facebook groups, message boards, and an underground merchandising empire of T-shirts, coffee mugs, bumper stickers, books, and movies. He has been all over the conspiracy radioroll: mentioned everywhere, personally appearing in news, Coast-to-Coast, he and his associates are with Alex Jones… he is a celebrity now. He is the champion of a cause. And he can retire at 25 because of it. Is this suspicious to anyone?

And I say: how? Because he invented the cause.

I submit to the court Exhibit B: false flag operations. These are covert operations perpetrated by nations against other nations seeking to frame enemies for dastardly acts, with the intent of drumming up support for “retaliatory” action against the blamed party. According to the government’s official explanation, this was no false flag operation but this must be rejected because it seems ridiculous to me personally, therefore it is worthy of our collective suspicion. According to Avery’s conspiracy myth, the government ran the attacks as a false flag attempt to gain the PR momentum necessary to invade the Middle East. But this doesn’t make any sense because none of the hijackers were from Iraq or Afghanistan, yet those were the targets, and the government could easily have used a list of Afghani or Iraqi terrorists. No, those theories are both crap.

And that is why my case wins Exhibit B: who can say that the 9/11 Truth Movement has done anything besides hurl vitriol at the Republican Party? That’s right, Dylan Avery is a lifelong leftist, and I proudly proclaim that 9/11 was a false-flag operation designed to rally the conspiracy psychopaths against the Republican Party. Now, you might object that the radical far left already hated the GOP, but Avery’s dastardly plot even had the effect of rallying certain right-wing nuts against George Bush. And now Avery has his wish: an entire electorate built on blaming George Bush for murder. He even had Dennis Kucinich talking about it with him! It’s all going according to plan for Dylan Avery, but nobody seems to realize the obvious truth: Dylan Avery blew up the World Trade Center.

Exhibit C is particularly damning: Dylan Avery is not an engineer, knows nothing about engineering, yet he has been able to fling engineering claims around left and right. Melting steel does this, falling concrete does that, WTC 7 can’t do this, jetliners can’t do that, and look at this tiny photograph here, and here is how thermite works, and here is where you would have to plant it. But George Bush couldn’t have figured it out, as there were no PhD engineers anywhere in his cabinet. And yet there was Dylan Avery, with a master list of highly technical reasons why the World Trade Center could not have been destroyed by the plane. But it isn’t just like Dylan Avery was running a half-assed quote mine / rumor mill duplex of sloppy stupidity by begging unqualified engineers to rally to his cause or anything, because otherwise we would have to conclude that Avery is just an incompetent, deceptive buffoon, and if we did that we might be accused of ad hominems. Rather, the TRUTH is quite plain: Avery knew the ins and outs of the attacks almost immediately after they happened because, duh, Dylan Avery blew up the World Trade Center!

And then just think about the logistics. According to the conspiracy theory, the government did it. But as one of the individuals who will be debating on the 12th in Toronto has shown, this would have meant the involvement of literally thousands of people, including airline personnel, WTC personnel, soldiers, pilots, politicians, media… one screw-up anywhere in a chain of command a thousand ranks long would have been a complete controlled demolition of the Republican Party (and any of its conspirators) for about the next thousand years. Not only that, but they would have needed to have voice actors available and intelligence personnel to gather information to fake cell phone calls, and Avery has been unable to produce a list of prominent voiceover actors and actresses who vanished into the night on 9/12/01. Why is this? Because, as Exhibit D undeniably proves, Dylan Avery blew up the World Trade Center.

By now I’m sure you’re saying, “well yeah Chris, obviously Dylan Avery blew up the World Trade Center, but just so we can start producing pamphlets, protest signs and songs, low-quality Youtube diatribes, and an endlessly repetitive, self-plagiarizing blogroll, how did he do it?” Well, I’ll tell you!

See, the government theory has planes, but the conspiracy theory has thermite or other explosives. Now, the planes don’t make sense because Avery’s oddly brilliant and accurate analysis (see Exhibit C) shows that burning jet fuel can’t melt steel. But the conspiracy theory (thermite stashed at structurally significant points all over the World Trade Center) also makes no sense because it would take thousands of pounds of thermite to accomplish this, and the odds of the government squeezing a forklift full of thermite into a World Trade Center service elevator without a Democrat, a New York Times reporter, or a disgruntled ex-John Bircher noticing are rather low. So, my theory combines these two wrongs and makes a RIGHT: Dylan Avery blew up the World Trade Center by flying thermite-laden planes into the World Trade Center.

Firstly, Avery’s computer expertise is self-evident (I mean, the guy did make Loose Change on his home computer), so hacking into a jetliner’s navigational computer would be a cakewalk for him, and we know that it is at least possible since he has accused the government of doing just that, and it’s not like he would just make up claims about the capabilities of military electronic warfare measures. But where did he get the thermite? Well, the guy has to have plenty of money, because he has clearly demonstrated that his entire life and body are for sale, as when he was approached with a monetary offer to turn his script for a fiction movie about a 9/11 conspiracy into a documentary. Because it’s not like a guy would just whore out his soul to the highest bidder at the drop of a hat, this must have been a lifelong pattern of profound disinterest in self-respect, and so the guy probably had a lot of money stashed away under his bed from whatever previous prostitutions he had partaken in prior to his Loose Change days.

With that money, he had his right-wing militia friends (who all came together to endorse the 9/11 conspiracy theory right after “whoever” blew up the World Trade Center…) make him some thermite, and getting it onto the planes was nothing more than a simple matter of confusing airline computers into giving orders by email to pick up such and such a package and put it on such and such a commercial passenger jet.

And that is the Truth about 9/11. Dylan Avery is the culprit, and, with the help of canonical conspiracy thinking, we have proven it beyond all semi-literate doubt. Join us next week when we ask the toughest question in the history of modern science: Was 1969 the year of the Moon Landing, or was it just a Romulan Hoax??

Barry and I talk, often into the late night about politics, secularism, and science. But this was one of the early conversations, and we were discussing what we felt was the culmination of our leftist counter-culture experiences. We were discussing, what conclusions we had reached.

One stood out, from Philadelphia and Texas, two guys had decided the same thing.

The unapologetic promotion of technocracy.

Here are some Wikipedia quotes about technocracy:

Technocracy (bureaucratic), a governmental or organizational system where decision makers are selected based upon how highly skilled and qualified they are, rather than how much political capital they hold. A form of government in which scientists and technical experts are in control; “technocracy is described as that society in which those who govern justify themselves by appeal to technical experts who justify themselves by appeal to scientific forms of knowledge”

It’s beautiful.

Think about it. Don’t just react.

People who actually know what they are doing: In Charge!

For me there are many ways in which this could play out. One for example could just be more use of scientific panels by the congress. I mean, we have politicians pontificating about things social scientists have actually collected data on. These politicians are often making a priori arguments about how people are in total ignorance.

Let me tell you a brief story about how faith began to die in my mind.

I had just started college, it was about 3 years ago, and I was working in a psychology research lab for professor Jeff Larsen. Jeff asked me how I thought a certain experimental design would work out, I told him.

He asked me, “How do you know that?”

My answer was typical, “That’s just how people are.”

I really believed this, my intuitions had become my compass, and I was unaware how much this blinded me to reality.

Jeff went buck-wild. He assaulted my willingness to abandon all scientific reasoning, he made me conscious of the fact that there are many things which are “empirical questions.” Questions which can be tested to find the answer.

What a beautiful idea.

What an elegant, thoughtful way to find out what is going on.

Imagine if politicians merely felt the same way. If they said to themselves, “well maybe there are scientists out there working on this thing?”

There are many political issues in which science undeniably must be heard: energy policy, pollution laws, medical regulation.

In science we have a rigorous peer review process which is a little like dropping blood in a shark pool. We try to discredit each other, to accuse each other’s work of being meaningless tripe, and consensus is rare. Consensus is, by design, difficult to attain.

Yet we have scientific consensus on many issues, some troubling to the left as much as evolutionary biology troubles the religious right.

But the practice of recent years has been to ignore scientific consensus in politics, in favor of finding the contentious individuals who still tow party lines in their research.

The media has left us believing that there is “right wing” and “left wing” science. This is merely not true. There is only science. And it deserves a bigger role in politics, we as humans would benefit if science had a bigger role in politics.

I actually think this is the real purpose of the Secular Humanist movement. Not by design, I think we have all come into this for different reasons, and we are too many at the organizational level to have any kind of real conspiracy. But still, I think when you take a Secular Humanist ethic and a Naturalist outlook, those two ideas have political consequences.

You start to think about “how things are” is more important than “how things should be.”

How can you believe that we as humans really must make our own way in existence, that we should value each other in principle, and that we have evidence to tell us the truth, without having this affect how you think civilization should be shaped?

You become aware that the way to achieve lofty political goals like a well protected environment in a world with a robust market, can only be achieved by making use of information which is out there, but far beyond the realm of intuition.

Intuition is simply not enough to move forward, we need facts, we need science!