Gone fishin’

I’m heading to the lake for a week and a bit.

Have a great Canada Day and, for those in Calgary, a none-too-debaucherous Stampede opening weekend.

“We need to translate this potential into reality”

June 22 (Bloomberg) — India plans to set up 30 universities and 6,000 model schools and is considering ways to establish a college in each of its 340 districts to improve the quality of education and add to the pool of skilled workforce.

“We need a quantum leap in our approach to higher education,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in an address at the University of Mumbai today. “We need a massive expansion of higher education opportunities. We need to upgrade the quality of the higher educational institutions so that they work on the frontiers of knowledge.”

Those three words — “a quantum leap” — is everything you need to know about the education and skills needs in the globalized near-future, and has absolutely nothing do with the Canadian post-secondary education system.

Companies in India will face shortage of skilled people in the next five years, the New Delhi-based PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry said this month.

“No organized efforts are visible both at the private and public domain to create and upgrade the skill sets,” Sanjay Bhatia, president of the PHD Chamber, said in a news release on June 12.

The government plans to establish 30 universities across the country, Singh said. Work on these universities will start in the next two to three months, he said.

“They should become the launching pads for our entry into the knowledge economy,” said Singh.

The government will work with the states to “support” the expansion of colleges to the country’s 340 districts. India is considering ways to fund the establishment of the colleges, Singh said.

India is working on a program to set up one “high quality school” in every block of the country, Singh said. These 6,000 publicly funded schools will establish “benchmarks for excellence,” he said.

Three more words — “benchmarks for excellence” — do not seem to coincide with “publicly funded schools” in this country. Fortunately, Indian culture does not (for now) strive for a culture of “fairness”, and one may have high hopes for educators who educate the highest-possible deliverables, rather than focus on being gentle on a child’s supposed fragile psyche.

(via PSE Blog)

In defense of Satan

Well, not really a defense per se, but a reminder as to the Old Testament version of Satan and his benefit to Man, from “Blogging the Bible – Job“:

Here is what this Satan is not: a fallen angel, wicked, omnipotent, demonic, living in hell, warring with God for dominion over the earth, carrying a pitchfork, smelling like brimstone, or wearing red spandex. Here is what he is: an arguer, a troublemaker. But Satan is actually the kind of guy any smart God would want around, because he questions authority. He asks the tricky, contentious questions that make God more thoughtful about His own work. (The kind of questions, say, that presidential advisers should ask the president.) Satan makes God uncomfortable, but only so God will do His job better.

This goes back to the idea of educating children differently, getting them to ask questions and deduce the answers rather than being fed facts, facts, facts. It also relates to Kathy Shaidle’s on-going war on those who regard “divisiveness” as an inherent evil.

Man is, in a metaphysical sense, a divisive creature, one who utlizes disagreement and argument to master the ways of the world. The Satan character in the Old Testament is merely a rhetorical device invented to show God as a logical being and, as Man is made in the image of God, the creator of a logical world.

Job: Bumf recommends.

Holy smothering of youthful curiosity, Batman!

To bolster my earlier argument regarding how public schooling does all it can to discourage independent, creative thought, Colby Cosh subjects us to this:

What fascinates me about the case of Kieran King, the Saskatchewan high school student who was threatened, punished and slandered by various officials over the past three weeks for talking with some pals about the health effects of marijuana, is that it explodes almost every single utopian cliche about public schools that has been ever propounded by their employees and admirers. It’s almost glorious, in a way. Ever heard an educator say “We’re not here to teach students what to think — we’re here to teach them how to think”? BLAMMO! “We encourage children to make learning a lifelong process.” KAPOW! Poor Kieran didn’t even make it to age 16 before someone called the cops.

Linda McQuaig, c. 1938

True to form, Linda McQuaig has written a scathing rebuke of the Harper government’s stance on the terrorist organization Hamas, one which unquestionably lays the civil war in the Gaza Strip and West Bank at the feet of the Conservative leadership.

One must imagine what McQuaig’s stance would have been in 1938 had the Canadian government at the time disavowed their support to a notable disenfranchised people:

————————————–

It’s often argued that Canada isn’t a significant player in world events. That can’t be said of the current crisis in the Studenland, where the King government has played a notable and disastrous role.

Jumping out in front of the rest of the world last year, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King abruptly cut off aid to the German government of the National Socialists, which, ironically, had just been elected with a bigger share of the popular vote than Mackenzie King’s Liberals had won in the Canadian election.

King’s brash rejection of the democratically elected German government was, of course, just the opening salvo in the attempt by Western nations, spearheaded by Britain and the United States, to strangle the National Socialists and replace it with a more malleable government.

The West’s rejection of the National Socialists is always justified on the grounds that the Nazis refuse to recognize a sovereign Czechoslovakia. But it could be noted that the Czechoslovakians also refuse to recognize Anschluss. Czechoslovakia has shown its disrespect for German sovereignty by allowing some Carpathians to settle on greater German land and by affirming the inclusion of the German-speaking territories within the new state of Czechoslovakia in the Treaty of Saint-Germain.

So you could say there’s a mutual refusal on the part of these bitter enemies to “recognize” each other.

But the Nazis are willing to enter into talks at Munich anyway. The Czechs and Slovaks are not.

(via dmb)

Giving props where they’re due

But before I write word one on any subject, I have something extremely important to say. To Michael Moore… thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the generous gift you gave to my husband and me anonymously last year. The $12,000 you anonymously sent us paid for our health insurance premiums and gave us the financial breathing room to both deal with our debts and also relieve the ever mounting stress with which we struggled daily. Since we received that check I have silently thanked my anonymous “guardian angel” countless numbers of times, and it is good to now finally be able to have a real name to go with that title. Though you and I may not agree on many intellectual or political issues, I have always been and will always be thankful for your gracious gift. I hope that you will see any debates I may have with you or your work on this site to be mere intellectual criticisms that have no reflection whatsoever on my gratitude to you as an individual.

You may or may not consider this to be exceptional … until you consider the source.

Now, what would happen if 50-mm turrents had been firing from the jet engines?

NEW YORK (CNN) — A computer simulation of the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, posted on the Web site YouTube by Purdue University researchers, shows how hijacked planes crashed through the twin towers, stripping fireproofing materials from the steel columns and eventually leading to their collapse.

The 3-D animation, part of a Purdue study that took 2½ half years to complete, could help engineers design safer buildings, researchers said.

Sure, the computer simulation is pretty cool, but only physical evidence will convince me that there was no neo-con conspiracy.

(via the blog quebecois)

The long sunset

She lasted longer than I would have given her credit. Cindy Sheehan, fresh off her recent “resignation” from, uh, “America”, is back and right rarin’ to go fightin’ the next arch-nemesis — US corporate imperialism:

I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of love, support, and financial support that has come my way since my resignation from the peace movement. My medical bills will be paid off and because of Bree’s generosity, I have a financial cushion to help me on to the next phase: helping humans who have been hurt by US corporate imperialism. I want to also thank everyone who has helped me along the way so far and encourage people to stay their courses if they think they are being productive and supported.

Oh goodie.

Time to start dropping the C-bomb

Rest easy, dear reader. Bumf is safe for the eyes and the sensibilities:

Of course, I could write like the filthy degenerates over at Mitchieville and change my rating to a much more hip ‘PG-13′ or—dare I say it—the inticing ‘R’.

But then, my mom wouldn’t be too pleased with the content.

So I’ll keep ‘er clean for the time being.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient Canadian World

With its unveiling of The Seven Wonders of Canada, the CBC has outdone itself once again. Finally, due recognition to such vital institutions as, er, “The Canoe” and, uh, “Pier 21″ has been presented, and the nation can rest easy knowing that the “Prairie Skies” will sit in the pantheon of wonders beside the Pyramids of Egypt.

Little known to the big wigs at MotherCorp, however, is that Herodotus himself was also a producer for a state-owned media broadcaster, the Achaean Historians Guild. Credited with first compiling the original Seven Wonders of the World, Herodotus then conducted a similar enterprise on behalf of the AHG, with an astonishing Canadian flair:

1) The Sands of the Sahara

Eternally shifting, awe-inspiring, this magnificent monument will eventually overtake the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Sphinx both and render a lasting admonition to the glories of Demeter.

2) The Papyrela

Long before the dreadful triremes of modern-day warfare, the papyrela had slipped quietly into the stream of the nation’s common parlance. Whether you’re practicing your J-Stroke out on the Mediterranean near Alexandria, rooting for your favorite Ithican biremesman to break the legs of his wrestling opponent in the Olympiad, or simply mongering fish along the Rhodesian harbour, you are reflecting a bit of Greek papyrelan history.

3) The Aegean Sea

Bold, proud, daring, the focal point of all human activities of consequence: from parades celebrating the inhabitants of Lesbos; to the trade of fair-market wheat from Babylon; to the setting of provocative, yet socially conscious, Greek theatre in Halicarnassus.

4) The Olive Tree

Not only provides fuel and nourishment to all peoples, but more importantly, its branches have become the symbol of the courageous protests against the imperial war on Ilium.

5) The Temple of Demeter

The most beloved of all the Olympians, Demeter’s over-arching benevolence upon those who promote sustainable use of her land make her temple the choice of progressives from across the Hellenized world. While not as impressive as the Temples of Artemis or Zeus, the attraction lay in its annual Pomegranate Juice Festival as well as its education and public policy forums on issues pertaining to Pelopennessian multiculturalistic society.

6) The Human Spirit

It’s about an idea, an idea of this land being grotesquely destroyed by such resource-depleting Achaean activities as the pottery-making industry and driving large, inefficient chariots, but which will eventually rise as a Phoenix from its ashes to become the unspoiled paradise which existed before the time of Prometheus.

7) Atlantis

The centre of Green Greek culture, this progressive community was built using eco-friendly methods and technologies for the sole purpose of appeasing the increasingly disgruntled Olympians, whose wrath on our wickedly wasteful ways exhibits itself through the form of earthquakes, lightning storms and hurricanes which rock the rest of the Greek world. It has been prophesized by the Goracle Suzukidoupolous that Atlantis alone will survive the tempest of the Gods, surely to be wrought upon the deniers of the inevitable.