Author Archive for RBPage 2 of 2

University Education: Why The Lack Of Accountability?

Published

on November 2, 2010

I had the BEST day a few months ago! First, I went to the movies and the theatre decided to do the viewers a favour by stopping the movie twenty minutes early. SCORE! With all the extra time my friends and I had, we decided to go grab a beer. Well it must have been one of our birthdays or something because the bartender decided to fill our glasses only halfway! AMAZING! Why can’t everyday be like this? I wish that just once – JUST ONCE – I could get a nice sandwich maker at Subway who would brighten my day by only giving me 9 inches of the 12 inch sub I order… Alas, to live in a perfect world.

It’s not all bad, though. At least I and my fellow students are fortunate enough to have instructors who sometimes do us the favour of ending class early, canceling the odd lecture here and there, and maybe even going on strike (faculty at my school, the University of Western Ontario, are teetering on the brink of a walkout/lockout)! That last one is a rarity, but it’s one of those things where you just kind of feel good when it happens, even if it doesn’t happen at your school. It’s good to know that good things still happen, y’know?

This all sounds ridiculous, of course. If theatres started cutting movies short, or if a food/beverage establishment only gave you a portion of what you ordered and paid for, you wouldn’t be happy. You’d be shocked and rightfully pissed off. You did not get what you paid for and you’d have a good mind to ask for at least a partial refund.

Contrast this with the situation in university education, where paying students (including me) are apparently universally pleased to be let out of class early or have a class canceled, and are sometimes even welcoming of a short lived academic strike. Lets use a little bit of folk behavioural economics to speculate as to why so many students love to get less than what they paid for when it comes to school.

Read on and leave comments at my new blog, Death By Trolley.

Solving The Mind-Body Problem in Five Minutes

Published

on November 2, 2010

What is the relationship between mind and matter?

Materialism holds that the mental is a product of the physical – the mind is what the brain does. By contrast, dualist accounts are consistent with our common sense notion that the mental is fundamentally different from the physical. How much does a thought weigh? a dualist might ask. In this post I will offer a materialist position that offers all the strengths of materialism as commonly understood, but with none of the shortfalls.

Read on and leave comments at my new blog, Death By Trolley.

He Was Making A Pun!!

Published

on November 2, 2010

Next on Fox: When Puns Attack…

That this man has become a well-known online symbol of stupidity. Unfortunately for him, what is less well-known is that he was making a pun! His “Get A BRAIN MORANS” sign was directed at Democratic Virginia Congressman, Jim Moran, and Moran’s supporters. Did this little quip ever come back to bite him… What’s more, it’s seven years later and his image is still being used as an international symbol of stupid!

Read the rest and leave comments at my new blog, Death By Trolley.

“Republican Woman, Stay Away From Me” By Jasiri X

Published

on November 2, 2010

To see the lyrics or to leave a comment visit my new blog, Death By Trolley.

Death By Trolley – New Blog on Politics, the Culture Wars, Values, etc.

Published

on October 28, 2010

So Death By Trolley is fully running now. A number of posts are up covering various issues (e.g., the culture wars, value systems and objective morality, war, university education, the Vatican, etc.), and original political cartoons are now up. The site design and presentation is also a big step up.

Come check it out. Leave a comment to say “hi”.

My new blog

Published

on October 19, 2010

Greetings all.

I have just started a new blog, Death By Trolley. From its About section:

Death By Trolley is a soapbox and a centre for discussion on the political economies and ethical issues surrounding health care, the mass media, civil liberties, social issues, and other things that catch the interest or ire of a secular humanist progressive 28 year old Canadian health care graduate student who believes in open, honest and fair discussion of all issues, follows Major League Baseball, and enjoys awkward, immature and taboo humour.

Goals of the blog:

To promote open and honest consideration of important and interesting political, societal and ethical issues.

To promote greater understanding of the worldviews and perspectives of people of different value systems (e.g., progressivism, libertarianism).

To shine light on fair and unfair coverage of political issues in media, on the left and right.

Hope you’ll check it out!

May 20, 2010: Draw Muhammad Day

Published

on May 20, 2010

This is my first post in forever – and probably my last post in a similar time frame. But I wanted to take part in Draw Muhammad Day, a worthy international effort spawned online in order to stand up to Islamofascists who use threats of violence to control the behaviour of others.

I created it myself. Following the lead of others I’ve seen online, I’ve deliberately made it benign (i.e., no negative imagery). The stick figure is for simplicity, not to demean. This said, I reserve every right to post any horribly vile image of Muhammad that I wish. It’s not something I have any intention of doing, but I have every civil right to. The purpose of going the benign route is to highlight the ridiculousness of the inhumanly vile over-reaction of said Islamofascists.

As Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks has pointed out, perhaps these people’s problem is that they don’t really believe in Allah. If they did, then why do they need to take it upon themselves to harm those non-Muslims who break Allah’s rules for Muslims? What? They don’t think that Allah has got the situation under control? That he can’t handle a few cartoonists?

Tom Green rages at idiots on Fox News’ Red Eye

Published

on March 27, 2009

The video of the dopes on Faux Noise’s 3 AM program Red Eye ripping on Canada and Canadian troops in Afghanistan as certainly made its rounds on the net as of late. Here it is incase you haven’t seen it.

It has annoyed and angered quite a few people, to say the least. I would describe my reaction as mildly annoyed. I just don’t view these people as credible, and so their idiotic views hardly phased me. A few months ago, I would’ve been more annoyed. But now it’s becoming increasingly clear that the target market of this network – right wing lunatics and ignoramuses – are moving further and further into marginalization.

Tom Green, on the other hand, was absolutely enraged. I pass the video on because it’s important to support those in the public eye who speak out against this horrible network. While it’s true that corruption in news media spreads across the television dial, Fox News is in a league of its own. The bar was already so low, so the people at Fox News routinely take to digging.