War on this and that

I don't usually write two days in a row but our one spring day has turned back to clouds and rain.  Please bear with me.

           I was listening to a commentator talking about Fighting Global Warming. It made me think everything seems to be a fight or a war. Fight Cancer, War on Drugs, War on Terror, etc. etc. It strikes me that rather than fight things that are beyond our control we should ADAPT to them.

          Let's not Fight Global Warming but instead Adapt to Global Warming. Changes in weather patterns are natural phenomena  that have gone on since the worlds beginning. Imagine an ice age is coming. Shall we fight the ice age. No, we'll adapt to it and mitigate the results so we can continue to live as a society. 

          We can Adapt to Global Warming by becoming green as the environmentalists and doomsayers want because doing so will make better use of the worlds resources. We'll develop new technologies to meet new conditions as people have always done. Life will go on even if changed. Populations may rise and fall depending on water and food supplies. War will still happen as the 'have nots' want what the' haves' have so don't worry about not needed a military for protection. 

          The War on Drugs has been unsuccessful. People have used various drugs for pain relief, recreation, mood alteration and other purposes since time immemorial. Just because the US government decrees a war on drugs doesn't change human nature. We can adapt to the use of drugs in the population. We do it with powerful drugs called alcohol and nicotine.

           People Fight Cancer by adapting to it if they or loved ones are stricken. I guess calling it a fight encourages people to donate money and to run in marathons. 

          War on Terror  is a clarion call to fight and send young men to kill and die. Terrorism is not new. A terrorist lit the spark that started WW 1.There is a root cause for the existence Al Qaeda that can be changed or adapted to. We can adapt to the Taliban too. Some other people will have a harder time adapting to the Taliban than we in Canada, I hope.

           I won't go on but I hope you catch my drift.

Holiday weekend in Ontario

It has been very wet here for the last week or so but the sun is up this morning. It is a glorious spring day at last. God is in his heaven and if some people are correct about the end of the world today many others will be there too. 

           Obama went way out on a limb this week asking for reason in the middle east. He is a brave man and could be a great president and leader. I've made predictions that went south a few times and I hope this is one but I suspect he will be ground up, chewed and spit out by the Jewish lobby, the military industrial complex, big oil and Christian evangelicals who all have different reasons to prolong the conflict. 

         The Israeli's want the whole west bank and will displace all the Palestinians to achieve their goal. They believe God gave them the land and have divine right to it. What can be a stronger motivation to kill and steal from other people?

        The Arab world will not rise up to protect their brethren since they are in Washington's pocket for various reasons. There are many American writers among others who openly criticize the duplicitous US policy of promoting democracy for some while supporting friendly tyrants. Obama is between a rock and a hard place this time; logic and justice has nothing to do with it.

         It's amusing that the Israeli's claim the 1967 borders would be indefensible. Wouldn't peace make defensible borders redundant? Canada has indefensible borders with the US but we have peace and while the Americans want to fortify the border I don't think they fear an invasion from Canada.

Thoughts on Islam

The death of Osama Bin Laden has provoked violent reaction in some parts of the Muslim world particularly Pakistan but we can expect it to expand elsewhere. Hopefully our police and security forces can prevent situations like the subway bombing in London and the rail bombing in Madrid. We hear of the arrest of cells of young radicals in many cities in the west including Toronto. Why do followers of the Prophet act like barbarians? Generally they have done so for generations but in addition the Shias have no problem killing Sunnis. The Shia sect in Syria has been busy killing Sunni protesters in the street just as Qaddafi was willing to murder thousands of his people until the west stopped him. This begs a huge question about Egypt where the mass murder during the uprising which everyone expected would happen didn't happen. Maybe President Obama had enough influence in Egypt to prevent it. 

             Winston Churchill was the leader of the west for much of World War 2 and he had been active in the late 1800's during the height of the British Empire.He observed the Muslims (Mohammedans as they were called in those day) in many of their home countries and here is what he wrote;

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!  Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.  The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.
A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity.  The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.
No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.  Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith.  It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome ."


              The sheltering arms of Christianity and science he speaks of have dramatically weakened in the west since he wrote these words. Our only protection may be military power, specifically the US military, but it may not be sufficient to support western ideals over the long run since the Mohammedans now live among us. Maybe they can adopt western values, maybe not. Western values are almost diametrically opposite the Sharia laws and the interpretation of the Quoran. I would not want to predict the world one hundred years from now.

Eating my words

            Surprise, surprise, I was wrong again. The Harper Cons got their majority, the NDP won Quebec, the Bloque was destroyed and the Liberals couldn't even elect their leader. I was close forecasting the NDP would do well in Quebec. Ah well, I even lost my own vote when my riding went solidly blue.

             Enough said about the election. Que sera, sera as they say in France. 

             So the Yanks got Osama. Yeah, but will the future call his death murder. State sponsored killing is usually done after a trial. I suppose Osama was tried in the court of public opinion but it is frightening to think that a government like the American government can swoop in on someone in a foreign state and kill him or her in cold blood. Am I being naive? James Bond did it for England all the time in the movies.

            Lil and I spent a couple of weeks at Marea del Porteo Hotel in Cuba.Well, I spent a week there and she stayed on. Cuba was very hot and the sun shone strongly in the clear blue sky. It was nice to be there for a few days. It seemed to me living conditions at least for some people were better than I've seen before. There were many more new homes under construction or recently built and some were painted quite nicely on the exterior. Some homes even had a car parked in the driveway. Don't think it is like here. Cuba is still a much different place and generally primitive by our standards. 

            Lil and I had taken a cruise in February on a beautiful ship sailing from Fort Lauderdale and basically circumnavigating Cuba stopping in Jamaica and Mexico and a couple of other places. It is not possible to compare other places to Cuba from the deck of a cruise liner. It was definitely a nice voyage though and we will likely do it again sometime.

           Later then.