Media: Checking the critics

One must beware of one’s tendency to overestimate the accuracy of critics. They themselves do not always get it right and also need to be corrected.

Religion and US politics: The collapse of evangelical Christianity in the post-truth age

During the US presidential campaign Donald Trump

-        Verbally abused many (Mexican immigrants, Muslims, the disabled)
-        Denied the reality of human activity causing climate change
-        Habitually lied
-        Made promises that he won’t/can’t keep
-        Boasted of sexual assault

Despite all of this 70% of evangelical Christians in the US voted for him.
How could this be?

It seems like these evangelical Christian completely abandoned their supposedly moral principles and voted for him for very worldly reasons.

Obesity: A harbinger of societal collapse?

A small fishing boat in the night sees the Titanic heading towards an iceberg. The fisherman has a radio connection and thinks that he should warn the ship’s captain. But the ship’s passengers are having such a good time on board so that he doesn’t really want to disturb them. What should he do?

At present the US statistics on weight gain show that 70% of all Americans are overweight (BMI> 25) and of these 35% are obese (BMI>30). If present trends continue, in 2030, 60% of all Americans will be obese. Canada as usual is not far behind in these trends. What should we do?

Smart electrical meters: Why they are installed

I have just made a short five-minute YouTube video to explain why smart electrical meters are being installed. 

You can find this by Googling “why install smart electrical meters youtube” or just click on the link 

Why install smart electrical meters

Any comments on this are welcome. If you have friends who have doubts about smart meters, feel free to pass this on to them.

Carry on exploring,

Economics: Index of Financial Inequality

Index of Financial Inequality

How about the graph below, taken from the book The Spirit Level? Just ponder it for a while. The index of financial inequality results in a host of social and health problems. Piketty’s work “Capitalism in the 21^st Century” only confirms this and tells how this has come about (unequal accumulation of capital) and points towards a solution (raise taxes on capital accumulation).

The Rebellious Seeker

p.s. This graph is a survey of industrialized countries. Guess which one has the highest level of inequality? Guess what will happen with billionaires, military types and climate deniers in charge?

 Index of Financial Inequality 

Development: DART Water Mission

DART water team at work

    
DART Water Mission

This describes work in Sri Lanka after the tsunami hit the east coast in 2004     

Local borehole and pump

The recent DART mission to Sri Lanka was located in Ampara district on the east coast of Sri Lanka. This was the region that was the worst hit on the island, with a total of 10,000 of the island’s 30,000 deaths being recorded there. The DART installed 4 reverse osmosis units in two sites in Ampara district. Each one of these units was able to purify 50,000 litres a day of water from a nearby lagoon.

I visited the northern location of the DART water supply point while I was also in Sri Lanka helping with the relief efforts related to water supply and sanitation. The soldiers at the DART water supply point were doing a heroic effort. They lived in simple conditions and worked tirelessly for the period of over a month while they were there. They water they purified was able to keep a steady stream of water trucks supplied with water for the many nearby refugee camps that housed survivors of the recent tsunami disaster.

Syria: A witch's brew

How can we understand Syria? How far back in history should we go?

Let’s start with the Sykes-Picot agreement between the UK and France which divided up the area during the First World War in 1916. France got control of Syria, without of course any consultation with the Syrians who were then part of the crumbling Ottoman empire. Local dissatisfaction with this arrangement is still alive and emerging today.

Hafez al Assad, the father of Bashar al Assad ruled Syria for 30 years (1971-2000). In 1982 he put down civil unrest in Hama with a bloody massacre in which an estimated 20,000 people were killed.
“The 1982 massacre is regarded as the single bloodiest assault by an Arab ruler against his own people in modern times and remains a pivotal event in Syrian history” (The Guardian).

Later when another peaceful civil uprising in Deraa occurred in 2011, Bashar al Assad used the same brutal force as his father to suppress this. This was the beginning of the civil war that is now raging throughout Syria.

The Bashar al Assad regime now counts on the support of three outside powers.