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Science = Armageddon
by JustinSchachtman

Is it just me or do the History Channel and the Discovery Channel suck? Why is that?

It probably comes down to the almighty dollar, but lets look further.
If you are anything like me, then you appreciate a good program about history or science. Even when it goes a bit over your head, you enjoy hearing an expert talk about a subject that they have spent their entire life studying. Most of us have neither the time nor the inclination to plow through thick jargonistic academic journals to get caught up on the latest breakthroughs, discoveries, and inventions that the worlds’ brightest minds are making. Regardless, we want to be in the loop and kept up to date when possible. Television networks like Discovery and History used to provide us with the knowledge we hunger for. Not anymore.
Nowadays, when I turn on the History Channel I see absolute garbage. On tonight’s History Channel lineup there are 3 hours of a reality TV show about a pawn shop. Absolute throwaway… But the Discovery Channel is no better. Discovery’s is planning to play 3 hours of shows about river monsters, which of course don’t exist. The Lock Ness monster, the mountain yeti, aliens from space, how many hours of television will the Discovery Channel dedicate this year to the examination of things that have never actually been discovered?
Just when you think you have it figured out which channel is worse, the latter one-ups the former.
I was sitting there watching Discovery. A show was on about something that, again, has never happened. It was an entire hour dedicated to showing what would happen to the good people of the world if a comet collided with the earth. Now, this could fall under the scientific categories of mathematical modeling, theoretical physics, speculative astrophysics, etc.; but, this program did not. All of those categories would involve taking a large view of the event. From a science oriented perspective we would study the physics effect of the impact on the Earth’s orbit, we might study how the impact would effect the Earth’s relationship with the moon, or we might look at how debris from ejected Earth material might form a ring around the planet. What would a science oriented program not do? It would not spend 90% of the program showing the microcosmic apocalypses that would occur to population centers. A scientific program would not show the tidal waves, the forest fires, the volcanic eruptions, the ensuing ice age, etc. The human wreckage is the first of many foregone conclusions in impact scenarios, barely even necessitating a mention. A science program would not push apocalypse as science.
Like I said though, each time you think one channel is worse than the other…
In turning to the history channel, I saw a show called The Nostradamus Effect. This was a well crafted show about the life and historical context about Nostradamus, it included an excellent object summation of all his achievements. Actually it was nothing of the sort. It was an abominable program which takes one sentence of Nostradamus at a time, out of context, from hundreds of years ago, and juxtaposes it with horrible and sacred scenes of modern tragedies like the holocaust, the nuclear attacks on Japan, and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001. The goal is simple. Fear.
Programs like these are disgusting and pathetic. But let me tell how I really feel. Its not just that they are sickening to the consciousness, its that they are pushed under the guise of education. In reality, these programs are viral infections of ignorance that launch a two stage attack on the higher mental capacity. First, they disable your natural barriers of skepticism by gaining entrance into your living room under a cover of informative and responsible programming. Second, these programs steal your sense of excitement for humanity’s achievements and replace it with a twisted, skewed, and warped confusion about the story of human advancement. Or worse, they push that human accomplishment, achievement, and advancement is going to come to an end altogether.

Read a book.




Blakes Take on the Olympics

By Dan Blake

On Friday, the Olympic torch goes through my small town of Keswick, Ontario and right by my high school while I’ll be twiddlin’ my thumbs in class thinking about how good Phil Kessel’s wrist shot is. I figured this would be a good time to pump out something about the Olympics and more specifically the Team Canada men’s hockey team.
Goaltending seems to be a lock with Martin Brodeur and Roberto Luongo as the uncontested top 2, with Marc-Andre Fleury most likely being the #3. Cam Ward won’t make it as the final guy cause of injury and being the goalie for the worst team in the NHL. Steve Mason has played better lately but has been one of the worst starter’s in the NHL for goals against average and save percentage this year.
On defence there are a few locks in Scott Neidermayer and Chris Pronger for the experience, and Mike Green and Duncan Keith as two others. Two of Dan Boyle, Jay Bouwmeester, Brian Campbell Shea Weber, Drew Doughty, Dion Phaneuf, and Brent Seabrook will fill out the defence squad. You might think I’m crazy for listing guys like Phaneuf or Seabrook but they’re not just looking at the top players going into the Olympics, but also taking into account chemistry between the players. Keith and Seabrook would be paired up, and Phaneuf’s only chance of making the team is if Weber makes it.
Chemistry is also the reason you could see San Jose’s first line of Joe Thornton, Dany Heatley, and Patrick Marleau all on team Canada. Thornton leads the NHL in points right now but has been brutal in past international tournaments. I don’t see how you can hold that line off Team Canada.
Heres my list of who I think is going to make the team and the other players that are on the bubble listed below that:
Forwards: Nash – Crosby – Iginla
Perry – Getzlaf – Lecavalier
Heatley – Thornton – Marleau
B. Richards – Toews – Bergeron/M. Richards
Defence: Neidermayer – Pronger
Green – Boyle
Keith – Doughty
Goalies: Brodeur (1), Luongo (2), Fleury (3)
Cut: Bergeron, Stastny, Carter, Stamkos, Tavares, Spezza, E. Staal, J. Staal, Lecavalier, St. Louis, Fisher, Bouwmeester, Weber, Phaneuf, Campbell, Seabrook, Ward, Mason
Stamkos, Tavares, and Mason won’t make the team the same way Crosby didn’t make the team his first year in the NHL where he was 6th in points with 102. Toews makes it as a great team player and for faceoffs on a line with either Bergeron or Mike Richards who will make it two-way forwards.
The defenseman Canada puts out there this year is gonna be one for the ages. Take it to the bank, not even Russia’s Ovechkin, Malkin, Kovalchuk line is getting past those guys and a Brodeur.

Give me your list for Team Canada in the comments or tell me which players in my list deserve to make it or break it.

Religion Vs Science
by JustinSchachtman

The Seven Deadly Sins. It is a list known to Christians world wide. From all houses of Christ it is taught. Religious schools and community groups reinforce it year after year. This continues until it is internalized as truth itself. Fourth from the top on this list is pride.

Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy, and Gluttony.

To be sure, all of these “sins” can be taken to excess. So too can exercise, generosity, or love. After all, what if you love your disinterested neighbor… just a little too much? (police inevitably get involved). While each on the list of sins could be the foundation for an entire essay in itself, this essay rises to the defense of Pride – the fourth deadliest sin.
Pride is natural and healthy. It is felt, and rightfully so, when someone accomplishes something. It does not matter whether someone is accomplishing something ‘good’ or ‘bad’ (whatever they are). If they are pleased that they were able, then they have experienced pride. They may be accomplishing something great for humanity or just as easily an insult to it. Pride does not distinguish between the sane and the insane. And to brand a human emotion evil, deadly, and sinful, just because a psychopath might feel it similarly to a school child is simply wrong.
Where did this demonization of pride come from? It is not hard to figure that out. In order to keep society in a strict hierarchy, with the Church at the top, it was important to demonize those feelings that common people might have that might make them successful. After all, the proper place for a poor person is in the street praying, not systematically improving themselves and their capacities so as to advance themselves… The commoner who ignored this supernatural ball and chain, acknowledged their strengths and weaknesses as belonging inherently to themselves – and not to some external force which controls from on high – could genuinely enjoy the splendor, simple or grand, of their accomplishments. But accomplishment, for anything other than enhancing Church power, has most often been sacrilege.
The Church has adapted to changing times. It has fissured, split apart, become integrated in – and subordinate too - national and international politics. But those horribly perverted moral teachings that indoctrinated for so long can still be heard echoing through our popular consciousness today. And the assault on pride is no longer the clarion call of religion alone. That crusade has metastasized and spread.
Today, as it was a thousand years ago and a thousand years before that, and since the first human realized that they could realize, Pride is an absolute requisite for growth. Indeed, Pride may be the fundamental requisite for growth. The entire western hemisphere’s economic system is based on this. The West’s critique of Communism was precisely that it allowed for no individual Pride. All Pride was to be subjugated too, and commandeered for, the State. This would inevitably stifle creativity, discovery, and invention; and like oppressive religious regimes before it, the distinctly atheist Soviet regime collapsed in turn. To suppress Pride is to turn off the engine of man.

Why is this all important?

We live in an age where accomplishment is treated as though it were an on/off switch. Anonymity can be blasted away with media dynamite to reveal fame and fortune. But this process of overnight accolades is new, unstable, and can leave its recipients victims. True accomplishment comes in small steps at first. It is pushing yourself physically and mentally, besting your record, and then besting it again. Pride is the feeling one has when they accomplish a goal, and knowing they could do it again. It is vital to a healthy life. When our accomplishments are made to seem inane and rhetorical by the revolting reality TV spectacles, mega athlete paychecks, or Wall Street bonuses, our sense of Pride in our own accomplishments can be seriously damaged. When that natural inclination to feel pride for our own accomplishments is damaged too badly we may forsake accomplishment altogether.
Left with only one recourse, we retake our old role beneath our feudal masters and pray for help.

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