I Speak Directly to God

This is a humour piece, and I wrote it because it seems more and more Christian religions are saying that magic and witchcraft exist. Even the Catholic Church seems to be getting in to the act, by recruiting priests to do exorcisms. So, because I wanted to know the truth, and because "if you can't beat them, join them", here is my own conversation with God on the subject.

My sister, who is a Born Again believer suggested in an email a while back that I talk to God.

"I recommend this, that you simply communicate with God directly. Tell Him you are interested in knowing the truth. Is Jesus the only hope for humanity? Is the Bible His Word? Am I lost forever without Jesus? Something like that. And since God doesn't care for mere curiosity, tell Him you are willing to accept truth as He reveals it to you. If your can agree with that prayer, try it."

I never thought of speaking to God directly, but she was right. If God could take the time to talk to charlatans like Peter Popoff, Benny Hinn and Pat Robertson, I figured He might welcome a break to talk to me. I thought why not try, and it would make my sister happy. I didn't get an answer right away, so I asked her how long I should wait, and she said "Give Him time and expect Him to answer you."

"So while I'm giving Him time, is it OK if I continue to bash Pat Robertson in my blog, or does that interfere with the process?"

When I got my chance to talk to God, I could not see God, and I didn't even hear Him, instead, the thoughts just popped into my head. So I have no  proof it was God, but then I never saw Pat Robertson produce any Polaroids of God, or recordings of his conversations with God either.

This is how the conversation went.

I: God, will you speak to me?

God: Go ahead. This is God.

I: (Utterly shocked) I forgot what I was going to say.

God: You were going to ask me if witchcraft and black magic exist.

I: How did you know?

God. I read your blog regularly. Oh yeah, also I am omniscient. Anyhow, continue.

I: Do witchcraft and black magic exist?

God: No. They are made up by people. Along with all spells and demonic possessions.

I: So for sure I don't need an exorcism or anything?

God: Well if demon possessions don't exist, why would you think you need an exorcism to cure it?

I: OK Next question. Did you write the bible?

God: No, but there are a few things in it that I believe, if you know what you're looking for.

I: Is Pat Robertson going to hell?

God: There is no hell, and for that reason, and only that reason, no.

I: How can I be sure I am talking to God right now, and that I'm not talking to myself?

God: Maybe if you ask me some better questions?

I: It seems kind of suspicious to me that you seem to agree with all my previous beliefs.

God: I admit, it's a bit of a coincidence. Would it help if I disagreed with you on some points?

I: Yes, that would probably help me understand I am not talking to myself.

God: So ask another question.

I: Was Darwin right about evolution?

God: He made a lot of mistakes. But the biggest was where he got the whole thing backwards.

I: Wow, Darwin got it backwards. What do you mean?

God: Monkeys evolved from humans. Otherwise he was pretty close.

I: Well, that was not what I thought, so maybe I am not talking to myself after all.

God: There you go.

I: Could you give me a prediction of the future to prove I am really talking to you?

God: I could, just don't ask for lottery numbers or stock market insider information.

I: How about predicting who will win the Stanley Cup?

God: Well, not the Leafs, that's for sure.

I: Could you be more specific?

God: You mean name the actual team that will win?

I: Yes, the team that will win the Stanley Cup this season.

God: Vancouver continues to build to their very strong lineup. Keith Ballard was picked up in a trade with Florida during the NHL draft last weekend.Then much sought after Dan Hamhuis was signed as a free agent on July 1. Then the team added some role players - Manny Malhotra and Joel Perreault, and Jeff Tambellini. Cody Hodgson has done everything there is to do in junior hockey and is likely to make the Canucks out of training camp. But likely the best move was to let Kyle Wellwood and Pavel Demitra leave through free agency. So I would say Vancouver.

I: So Vancouver Canucks then?

God: Yes, they will win.

I: So if they actually win, I'll know I was talking to God. If not, I am just listening to voices in my head.

God: That's right. Well, I have to go now. That pest Pat Robertson is on the other line. May Me be with you.

I: Thanks. See you again in June when the playoffs are over. Or maybe not, if the Canucks don't win.

Footnote: The discussion of the Canucks came from the blog "The Curse of Frank Mahovlich"


Picture: Direct line to God at Burning Man festival, link below. That is not me in the picture, I would be just waiting my turn.
http://eleventhcommandmentblog.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.html

Why Smart Gods make Stupid Choices

In an earlier blog titled "How Intelligent is God Anyway?", I discussed how God must be infinitely more intelligent than Humans. And I gave several examples of how He could display this intelligence, and why He might not want to.

Now I want to discuss why God appears to be quite stupid to many Atheists. Here is one non-believer's argument.

So God created the entire universe, including the Garden of Eden, and put man and woman in the garden. Then he put the tree of knowledge in the garden, and a talking snake. God told Adam and Eve to not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, but then the snake said "Eat the fruit!" to Eve, and she ate it, and then convinced Adam to eat it too. Then God punished not only Adam and Eve, but every single one of their descendants, except the select few who get saved (in a later chapter.)

Although the story is a little confusing, Atheists insist that it demonstrates God's woeful lack of planning. It seems as though God did not really understand what decisions the woman's brain might make when presented with a given stimulus. And this, even though God claims to have designed every cell, every synapse, every neuron, of her brain Himself. To computer programmers, this is like writing a program where you have no clue what it does, or is even supposed to do, then with no testing, you run the program and it fails with a core dump.

If any programmer reading this has ever done what I described, my apologies for implying that you are not too smart. You may have good reason for wanting to write your program like that, or maybe you didn't have time to get it done and tested. Who knows? But I would certainly expect more from God if He was the programmer on this project. I expect Him either to know what the program will do, or to run a little test just to see what would happen first without plunging humanity into endless hellfire.

If you don't understand computer programming, maybe a more human analogy would make more sense. A parent makes a nice treehouse for his two little kids. He puts them in the treehouse with a loaded revolver and says "Do not use that revolver", then leaves them alone. Most normal parents would call that parent stupid, evil or deranged. Not hyper-intelligent.

The story of the Garden of Eden is not the only one where God comes off looking like He is not thinking a lot. What about Noah's Ark, where God drowns over 99.9% of all living creatures, including Humans, because they didn't meet his expectations, and then within a few minutes (not even hours or days) of the end of the world-wide flood, things are right back to being just as bad as they ever were. Eventually He has to send His only Son down to straighten out the mess, and He gets crucified. For the next 2000 years at least, humanity is still just as bad (or possibly even worse) than it ever was.

OK, so it seems that God, to our limited human intelligence, appears like a deranged mental case with the emotional maturity of a three year old. To explain why smart Gods make stupid choices, we are frequently told that humans are just too stupid to be able to appreciate His mysterious plan. That's true, I suppose, but if so, I am not the only one who thinks God's plans don't work very well. Apparently God thinks so too. And He should know better than me.

I have an idea of a way to settle matter once and for all if God is a Genius or a compete idiot. I will challenge God to a simple game of chess. Here is how it works. I set up the chess board and give God white, let Him make the first move. In order to get the moves from God, I would have to go through one of the people who God speaks to directly (God does not speak directly to me, that's for sure). Maybe someone like Pastor Terry Jones of Dove World Outreach, or just about anyone with a direct line to God. All that person needs to do is get the next move directly from God, and send it to me.

A few ground rules:
-Any side that gives an invalid move, will be disqualified, infinite intelligence or not.
-I am allowed to consult with any human for my counter moves, that would not be considered cheating, as Humans are all less intelligent than God.
-We are using the honour system to prevent cheating. i.e. if I use witchcraft or voodoo, or God uses a computer to make His moves. Either one is cheating.
-No specified time limit, but God gets disqualified if He makes me wait until I die of old age to give me His move.
-Any lightning, plagues, floods, earthquakes, or tornadoes  that interrupt the game will result in disqualification of the side causing the disruption.

So, if you, or anyone you know has a direct line to God, and wishes to demonstrate God's infinite intelligence, please send me the first move for God's side, leave it in a comment below.

Picture: found it in several locations on the Internet with no source given. I guess it's public domain.

How Intelligent is God, Anyway?

How intelligent is God? Well, that question may depend on the answer of a more basic question: Can intelligence exist without a physical presence. A physical presence could be an organic brain, or something like computer chips.

When humans first began to speculate on the intelligence of God, they did not know that human intelligence is the result of a process that takes place in our brains, and that the brain has the equivalent of electrical circuits that transmit energy signals. Today we have a much better understanding of the physical process we call "intelligence", as we now can build semi-intelligent computers out of electrical circuits.

The early humans thought that intelligence was something like a miracle, or magic, without any physical process taking place. Therefore, it was easy for them to believe that God, who came before the universe existed, could be intelligent, and think, and make plans. And since they did not know intelligence as a physical process,they assumed that God's intelligence could exist before the creation of the universe. Based on that assumption, Man's own intelligence was simply a gift from God. But just a very small amount of what God Himself had.

As our understanding of intelligence, and the brain has increased, it might be time to reassess our assumptions about God's intelligence. Either God's intelligence has a physical presence or not. Its not possible for me to tell whether or not God has a huge brain tucked away in some other dimension of time and space, so I will go on assuming God's brain exists in some way, and begin estimating God's intelligence.

In theory God is so intelligent that he never has faulty logic, he has unlimited memory, and so can remember perfectly everything that happened since the beginning of time. He can also figure things out in virtually no time, no matter how complicated they are, so he also has infinite speed both in processing logic, and in recall.

But God could not have infinite intelligence if his brain was made up of chemical synapses and neurons and brain cells, like ours. Because it simply could never work fast enough. So that should really put an end to any speculation that man is made in God's image.

By comparison to God's brain power, Man has very slow processing speed, flawed logic, limited memory both in size and in duration. Man suffers from mental dysfunction such as megalomania, delusions, superiority complexes, xenophobia, and dubious motivation. God does not.

Can the difference in intelligence between man and God can be thought of as similar to the difference between an Amoeba and a human? If not an Amoeba, (because it has no detectable intelligence), maybe a better comparison is an ant colony. Ants build cities, ants have slaves, cattle (other insects), grow fungus for food, and make war. So pretty much like humans, then. Maybe too much.

If you gave God a normal human I.Q. test, and if he actually took the trouble to complete it, and hand it in, you would find that He had completed the test in less than a nanosecond, and the only answers he had wrong were ones where the test question was ambiguous, or the official answer scheme was in error. In either event, His score would place Him in the top percentile of the test, way more than He needs to become a member of Mensa (top 2% of scores).

God does not need to get His information from Fox News, or any other TV channel or any newspaper, because He knows everything already. He also knows everything that has ever appeared in print or on TV and can recall it exactly. Along with every radio broadcast and phone call ever made. God has also memorized every page ever written, and every web page on the Internet, and every rough draft prior to publishing that page. He has even memorized all the art work that Kindergarten kids have made, and all the essays written by school kids. God even knows the every movement of every ant that has ever existed.

God does not get faked out by optical illusions, God is not distracted by bright flashes and loud noises. That means his eyes are not made like human eyes. Very likely does not have eyes as we know them.

Human thoughts and opinions can be messed up by peer pressure. God would never have problems with peer pressure (He has no peers.) God would not have double standards. It would be impossible for God to be prejudiced, or biased in any decisions. God does not have a problem with intelligent people asking questions or looking for answers. Also, God would never believe that He was created by God. And God can fact-check Fox News easily in real time, so he would never believe any misstatements He heard on that channel (or any other, for that matter).

So that leaves us with this eternal question:
If Man is so stupid as to not be able to figure stuff out, or even remember what he has managed to figure out, why does God actually care what man thinks about him? Do you care what an ant thinks about you?

In all of Human history, there is only one message that could conceivably have been given to us by God. It is the message of love one another. And what do we respond to that? We ignore it and instead we worry about whether Muslims are building a mosque too close to ground zero.

Further Reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Intelligence

http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Second-Premise-God-is-Intelligent (Says failure of socialism proves God is real, while also acknowledging the early Christian church was socialist)

http://godisimaginary.com/video10.htm (How about a third answer: God is real but does not get involved)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence (connection between education, intelligence and belief in God)

Also, my blog on what kind of motorcycle God would ride.
http://lostmotorcycles.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-kind-of-motorcycle-does-god-ride.html

Picture: From http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/i/intelligence.asp

Reframing the Debate About God

There are many videos on Youtube attempting to prove that God does or does not exist. I find many of them interesting, just because of their pure logic and debating skills. But I think that in most cases the debate about God existing gets confused, and is not really about God at all.

One of the proofs of God, invented by Blaise Pascal, was called "Pascal's Wager".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager

"even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a person should wager as though God exists, because living life accordingly has everything to gain, and nothing to lose."

But Pascal's Wager was not really a proof that God exists. It was simply Pascal's logical observation that, given the choice between believing in God (with no cost or pain) and suffering in everlasting hell after you die, it would be smarter to believe in God. That is actually a "Risk Analysis", not a proof of God's existence. It is more about believing in Hell than about believing in God.

In my mind, the greatest weakness of Pascal's Wager is that you base your beliefs on the religion that threatens you with the most horrible afterlife. And only a very stupid person would ever do that.

In contrast to "Pascal's Wager", I would like to present something I dreamed up called "The Snow White Defence".

Many people who attempt to prove God exists, are not really interested in an abstract God, they really are talking about a God who also has seven other qualities or achievements.

1. Created hell and heaven
2. Looks like a Man (Including hands, feet, eyes, hair, beard, clothing etc.)
3. Performs supernatural miracles
4. Endorses only one organized religion, and denies the rest
5. Wrote the Bible
6. Wants humans to adore Him.
7. Is the one and only source of moral law.

If God is like Snow White, the seven attributes are like the seven dwarfs. The "Snow White Defence" argues that proving the existence of Snow White does not prove the existence of Sneezy, Grumpy or Dopey. (I don't remember the other names, but the same logic is true for all.)

That we dispute one of the preceding dwarfly assertions, does not actually mean we don't believe in God, if you define God as something that started the universe or something outside the known universe, or outside known laws of the physical universe. We might or might not believe in something totally outside the known universe, and call it "god" or any other name. But if God existed outside the known universe, it does not necessarily mean that God looks like a man, or wrote us a book, or sent His son to save us, or smites Haiti with earthquakes for worshipping devils, or answers prayers with miracles. Every single one of those other seven assertions are going to need to be proven separately on its own merits.

It seems to me that Evangelicals and Fundamentalists have been taking the short route to proving all their assertions, by making a big deal about proving that God exists, and then saying: We proved God exists, therefore all these other things are true, end of debate. As if their view of God is the only one possible.

Proving God exists is actually only a baby step in selling the rest of that contrived religious package, it is nowhere near the be-all and end-all. It is easier to prove a basic God might exist, and harder to disprove God's existence, than it is to prove all those other weak assertions that sneak in while debating the existence of God.

First Picture: In case you were wondering. It is not God, it is Blaise Pascal. The second picture I will assume is public domain, along with the name "Snow White". I don't want to get in any trouble with Disney, because I am pretty sure they exist.

The Scooters are Coming, and What Can be Done About It

It's starting to look like scooters are taking over, and if so what can be done to stop them?

I was living during the time of the big Harley Davidson comeback circa 1985. I remember the buzz in our motorcycle club, as member after member traded in their Honda Goldwing touring bike for a big V-twin Harley Davidson. Honda Goldwings used to be the most popular bike in the club by far. We didn't know it at the time, but that would be the beginning of at least 20 years of Harley Davidson growth in market share, to the point where they now dominate the big bike market.

What am I starting to see recently, reminds me of those heady times for H-D Co. But now it is scooters. First, Mary Ann rejected my finely tuned 1970 Honda CD175 in favour of a 2005 Suzuki Burgman 400. I could understand that, as she did not like messing with the gears and clutch while driving a two wheeled vehicle. And it had space for shopping under the seat, and protection from the rain and cold. And then once we had it for several thousand kilometers, it became apparent that it was also fully capable of transporting two people on a freeway at over 110 kph.

Then, another friend, (my age) who I advised to buy a medium to small cruiser as his first bike, ended up with a sport bike. When he showed me, I wondered "Why?". He told me a sport bike, being shorter, would fit into his garden shed while a cruiser would not. OK, good enough reason I suppose, but after a couple of trips on the sport bike, he was wondering if he should give up motorcycling, as it was so uncomfortable. Mary Ann told him the Burgman was comfortable, and to prove it she lent it to him for a 200 km trip. Within a week, he had sold the Suzuki Katana 650 and bought a Yamaha Majesty 400cc scooter. And he still has it and loves to ride it.

This year, Barry bought a scooter after selling his 1400 cc Harley Davidson Dyna Sport. It's a Kymco Bet & Win 150, which he bought lightly used. A few years back, Barry was telling me he would never let somebody on a scooter ride with him. Now we ride together with these bikes: Barry's Bet & Win 150, my Vulcan 900, and Bob's Suzuki Intruder 1400. These are 200 km plus rides, and we move at a reasonable clip of 90 kph. The only question on all our minds is when will the 150cc engine blow up, since it runs most of the time at 9,000 rpm and full throttle. It has not done so yet.

Bob and I have given up on insulting the Kymco Scooter, after several months of side splitting witticisms. Today when we were at Tim Horton's in Port Dover we discussed picking up the scooter and hiding it while Barry was in the bathroom. Unfortunately (or fortunately) Barry got wind of the plot and took out his owners manual to show us the weight of the scooter, so that we would not be so foolish to attempt this in the future. It weighs 300 lbs, which is enough to give both of us a hernia even if Bob lifted 200 lb while I got the remaining 100, as was my plan.

Shortly after that botched prank, we were in the little shop called "On the Fringe" where Bob had heard that the 2010 Friday 13th T-shirts were on sale. He needed to get one ahead of time, as he has the full collection and it's really difficult to get in there on Friday 13th, and not only that they will probably run out early this year if the weather is half decent on Friday 13th. Anyway, it was a partially false rumour, as they had the women's T-Shirts but not the men's, and Bob could not be persuaded to try on the women's. But as we were leaving, I spotted a sticker for $5 that said "Remember when sex was safe and bikes were dangerous?" I remarked that this would be a good sticker to put on Barry's bike, and Bob decided to get one and put it on. That makes it an official "bike", with the sticker in place.

At the last stop on our ride, we were at the Tim Horton's in Paris, and as our gang pulled in, there was another 150cc scooter parked next to us. I asked the rider where he was going, as he had a basket strapped to the luggage rack with shoes and clothing in it. He was heading to Mississauga with his scooter, and had started from his home in London (Ontario). Also we inquired as to why there was all this duct tape over his scooter, and he informed us that it was the result of being hit three times by London drivers, who are the worst in the world, according to our friend. Anyhow he took off in the direction of Mississauga after a friendly chat, and it looked like he was going to make it. I did not have the heart to tell him that Mississauga is the road rage capital of Canada. No sooner had he left than another man with a Burgman 650 (scooter) pulled in looking for coffee and willing to brag about his bike. He had a trailer hitch, where he told us that he attached a 250 pound one-wheel trailer, and was planning to make a trip to Nova Scotia and PEI this summer. I asked him if it was his first bike, no he said, he used to have a Burgman 400 that he put 60,000 km on and then traded on the Burgman 650.

Picture: Quicksilver, a steam-punk custom scooter,just to give you an idea where scooters might be headed when designers figure out what they should look like. From this web site:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Quicksilver-Retro-Future-Scooter-from-appliances/

The Protocols of Biker Trash Talk

I came across an old blogger post from February, 2008. "A Loose Interpretation of "Brotherhood"" from the blog called "Twisted Roads" By Jack Riepe.

In it, Jack tells an amusing tale of bikers trash talking each other. I assumed it was written tongue in cheek, with a few "changes" to enhance the drama of the tale.

Unfortunately, I think there is a tendency for new riders to be intimidated in situations like these. And this blog entry, with it's aggressive language will do nothing to allay their fears. So it's up to me to try and set things straight, and at the same time put into words the unwritten code of biker talk. Let's start with this: You can be a lot more trashy in your talk with an old friend than you can with a complete stranger. Hopefully everyone knows that already.

I will admit that I enjoy talking to other bikers when we meet on the road, at places such as Tim Horton's for example. But I have also travelled around North America by motorcycle, and the friendliness I have found is the same everywhere I go (although I have never been to New Jersey, the place of the first alleged remark, but on the other hand I was given a gift by a New jersey bike rider I met in New York). In fact it's almost embarrassing at times. There are places that you can't even stop for a second to adjust your helmet without four other bikers stopping to ask if you need assistance. And it really does not matter what you ride, from a Harley Sportster to a Puch moped. Once I was pulled over at the end of a long day by a guy on a Harley in northern Michigan, to warn me that my wife was falling asleep on the back, and to tell me where there was a nearby motel. And he gave us a wood carving he had made himself of a fisherman, that still balances on our living room wall unit.

So the first rule of biker talk etiquette is don't be intimidated, they are all friendly. The only exception might be if you were to stop and try to talk to some bikers who have already drawn their guns on each other, you may get a frosty reception. But that never has happened to me. Also, admittedly I do not hang out in biker bars at night when everyone is drunk. So I guess I'm mainly talking about daytime stuff where people are out enjoying riding their motorcycles, and not when some of them are getting into mind altering drugs and booze.

The second rule, and this is my own rule, is "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all". This is about another person's bike of course. So the nastiest thing I might ever say about a bike would be "My, that sure is a nice symmetrical looking oil puddle under your crankcase."

In reading the "Loose Interpretation" blog entry, I came across a number of trash talking comments that didn't sound real to me. Maybe Jack punched them up just a little for effect. For example, calling someone's bike a "little girl's bike" is always wrong. Calling it a girl's bike is OK however, as it is well known by now that girls can ride almost any bike ever made. One day as I was looking at a Boss Hoss, musing aloud to my friend how hard it would be to ride, a young lady (NOT a Little Girl) piped up with "It's easy, and I know because I have ridden one." A Boss Hoss is a bike with a Chevrolet V8 for an engine, and it does not look easy to ride.

A "girl's bike" in the right context can be funny, but calling a bike a "little girl's bike" is just never done, unless someone is wanting to pick a fight in a "Wild Ones" movie, or maybe a bar at 2 AM.

Also, any talk of kicking in the nuts, or head butting in the nuts, or Turkish prisons, is similarly not done in normal biker talk. And, to be fair, these were comments that Jack did not actually say, though he obviously was thinking of it after the fact.

Next, I am doubtful of the comment "Why do you jerks dress like that on such a hot day?” from some hard core biker types at an ice cream stand in West Virginia. The clue is being at an ice cream stand and not a saloon. Actually, there is just one word that gives it away: "Jerks". A motorcyclist at an ice cream stand does not call another a jerk unless he has just knocked off the top scoop of the ice cream. Then it might be justified, and everybody says sorry and moves on. Take out the word "jerk", and it is a reasonably friendly comment and an opener for a conversation.

No matter what stereotypes might exist, most bikers are normal people. You can break them down into four major types. The ones that have been riding a long time, the ones who have just started, the ones who rode when they were young, gave it up for many years and have just come back to it, and the ones who have owned a motorcycle continuously for many years but average only about 100 miles a year.

In general, the new riders do not trash talk other people's bikes, because they are aware of how little they know about motorcycles, so they are more into asking questions. And in general the experienced riders have ridden everything (including Jap bikes and maybe mopeds) and they have met everyone, and have respect for all motorcyclists. And I might add, generally Harley riders are actually more friendly than most, maybe because they are aware they are making up for the bad image they got from a lot of low grade biker movies.

Now how would I answer a comment like this: "“This looks like a copy of Japanese bike made for a little girl.” (if it was ever said like that to me)

The answer should be "Actually it is German." And sometimes I have made that very comment, and it usually starts a conversation like "I didn't know BMW made motorcycles!"

The most embarrassing comments of all, are when I am pushing my bike home because it broke down. Then I am in a mood when no comment is taken the right way, even the usual offer of gas, or a ride to a gas station, is unwelcome. But that's just me when pushing a motorcycle home. Because I'm usually not in a real talkative mood at that time. But I do try to not respond with harsh words, because I know they mean well.

Picture: Steve Tyra, professional humourist, playing the character of "Charley Davidson", that naughty biker.

Bait and Switch: Not all Gods are the Same

When picking a religion there are two questions. Does God exist? and if so, which one is the true God?

There are proofs that God does not exist, and there are proofs that God does exist. This will be very brief, and I will start with the anti-God side. Here are the top ten proofs that God does not exist. They are all based on the assumption of God being "all powerful". (Yes there are other proofs if you take the other assumption that God is not all powerful. That is for another day)

So, assuming God is all powerful and can do anything, here are the top ten things God CANNOT do: (thereby proving logically that an all powerful God does not exist)

10. God cannot create a stone that is too heavy for Him to lift.
9. God cannot commit a sin (For example, cannot say his own name as a curse word)
8. God cannot tell a lie (So would never be able to host a Fox News channel program.)
7. God cannot create a triangle that is spherical.
6. God cannot create a Quarter pounder with cheese that weighs less than a quarter pound and has no cheese.
5. God cannot fail, so even if he didn't study at all for Psych 101, he would still pass.
4. God cannot remember a time when he was not omnipotent.
3. If He can remember a time when He was not omnipotent, then technically, God is not omnipotent
2. God cannot create Himself.
1. God cannot be gay (not that there's anything wrong with that. Or maybe there is.)

Now for the Pro-God side. Suppose there is a God, who is all powerful and has an IQ of about a kajillion, or even a little more maybe. Actually it would have to be more than a kajillion, because His intelligence would have to be unimaginably high, and I can imagine a kajillion. Imagine God having to deal with the previous ten anti-God statements, made up by mere mortals. It's enough to give God a headache, if He could get headaches. Geeze, I just thought of one more thing He can't do!

Let's bring it down to a level easier to understand. Trust me, that I am much smarter than my cat. Now imagine my cat trying to prove I don't exist, and coming up with various proofs that make sense to him. Half the time he manages to convince himself I do not exist, such as when I call his name, but he just sits there and doesn't answer and doesn't even look around to see what I want. That is a metaphor of why it is ridiculous for us to try to prove God doesn't exist, and why God doesn't try to answer our stupid questions.

There are also lots of proofs that God DOES exist, but they are nowhere near as fun as the proofs that God does not exist. You can check out this Wikipedia entry for the most famous proofs. After skimming through this page, it seems that something has to be the origin of everything, and whatever that is, it's called God, therefore God exists. Or something like that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_argument

So assuming you either decided God exists, or at least are still undecided, you now have to pick a religion. You wouldn't think this step would be necessary, as an all powerful God would be a God over all the religions. But you would be mistaken. Although you have been told that God exists, based on Him being the universal and supreme being, the creator of all things, all people, all animals, of the earth and time and space, the fact is that no religion believes that their God is the same as the other Gods. For each religion, the "supreme being" is their God alone, that He speaks to no one else, and helps no one else.

So once proven that God exists as a universal and omnipotent being, you are then told that God has is actually a tribal deity for only one "chosen" group of people. And even to the chosen people, he will not reveal Himself, because then it would be too easy for them to believe in Him.

It's like a bait and switch marketing scheme. You are lured to the church with a claim that this is the most powerful God on Earth over every living thing that ever existed or will ever exist, and when you check it out you find out this God is only for one religion. That is what is called in the marketing world, the "Bait and switch" trick. They bait you with their most appealing product, and when you're lured in to the showroom, they switch the deal to a somewhat less appealing product. Apparently this marketing trick is pretty common and is successful most of the time, just look what they did with sub prime mortgages. And online dating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_and_switch

Picture: Classical Peanuts cartoon, Lucy and Charlie Brown. Hopefully it is public domain by now.

You Can Learn About Motorcycling From Mr. Miyagi

On my website I have a statement "Everything I needed to know about life I learned from a Honda gas tank label". Of course, I was kidding.

But now I am going to make two more statements, and an explanation "Everything I needed to know about riding a motorcycle I learned from the movie Karate Kid IV aka The Next Karate Kid". And everything I needed to know about motorcycle maintenance I learned from the movie McGruber.

Let's start with Karate Kid IV. Riding a motorcycle, like karate, is dangerous especially when you take it to the streets. Threats are everywhere, and to stay safe you need a combination of technique and a sixth sense. Not to mention an ability to remain calm, and to respect the traffic around you, to stay focused, and to be always in control of the situation. Another similarity to the Karate Kid, is that you will generally have four or five opponents against one, and you are by far the smallest out there.

In Karate Kid IV, a small elderly Japanese guy named Mr. Miyagi takes it upon himself to train a girl named Julie in the ways of Karate. There is a lot of Zen involved, and enigmatic instructional techniques. You don't, for example, learn to kick a bag. You learn to "be the bag". Similarly, you cannot learn how to drive defensively, you must learn to "be the traffic". In the movie, this technique of learning and teaching works miraculously for anything, including bowling. A group Tibetan monks who have never bowled before (I assume from the context, but it was never explicitly stated) get in a bowling match for money and win the game easily because of their superior mind control of the ball. They can even get a gutter ball to score a strike.

Many lessons are accompanied by puzzling sayings such as "Ambition without knowledge is like a boat on dry land." That one almost makes sense. But the next one does not "Sun is warm, grass is green." Not at my house it isn't.

These are quotes from Mr. Miyagi again, about traffic conditions and other things, though the dialogue is actually from the first Karate Kid Movie and was not repeated in movie IV, so I put it here

Miyagi: Walk on road, hm? Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later
[makes squish gesture]
Miyagi: get squish just like grape. Here, karate, same thing. Either you karate do "yes" or karate do "no." You karate do "guess so,"
[makes squish gesture]
Miyagi: just like grape. Understand?
Daniel: Yeah, I understand.
Miyagi: Now, ready?
Daniel: Yeah, I'm ready.
------------------------
Daniel: Wouldn't a fly swatter be easier?
Miyagi: Man who catch fly with chopstick accomplish anything.
Daniel: Ever catch one?
Miyagi: Not yet.
------------------------------
Daniel: Hey, what kind of belt do you have?
Miyagi: Canvas. JC Penney, $3.98. You like?
Daniel: No, I meant...
Miyagi: In Okinawa, belt mean no need rope to hold up pants.
Miyagi: Daniel-san...
Miyagi: Karate here. [taps his head]
Miyagi: Karate here. [taps his heart]
Miyagi: Karate never here. Understand? [points to his belt]

(My interpretation, that motorcycle safety is not in a helmet or in a motorcycle, it is in your head and heart. Although of course, having a helmet is useful for holding your brains in.)
---------------------------------------------
Daniel: Where am I, this ring over here?
Miyagi: Hai. Number three.
Daniel: What's that guy kneeling like that for?
Miyagi: Don't know.
Daniel: Don't you know anything you can tell me?
Miyagi: Hai. No get hit.
(The parallels to motorcycling are pretty obvious here)
----------------------------------------
Miyagi: [Daniel has just gotten his driver's license and Miyagi has given him a car for his birthday] Just remember, license never replace eye, ear, and brain.
-------------------------------------------------
Miyagi: [repeated line to Daniel] Look eye!, always look eye!
-----------------------------------------------
And one more actually from Karate Kid IV (I guess all the best lines were used up in the first three movies)

Julie: Is there a trick to this--something I haven't figured out?
Miyagi: Pray.
Julie: Pray?
-------------------------------------------


Now for motorcycle maintenance, inspired by MacGruber, a film from the Saturday Night Live skit, based on a parody of a character from the TV series MacGyver. In the original series, MacGyver was always getting out of trouble by making complicated devices out of houshold materials. MacGruber made this funny (or funnier) by exaggerating it out of all proportion, and also having the device fail most of the time in a massive explosion. OK so this is the lesson I got from the movie. Making stuff out of crap is a lot cheaper than buying accessories at the motorcycle shop. Just make sure they don't fail on the road or it's going to be embarrassing.

Zen and the Art of Traffic Gridlock

Most people think they know what gridlock is, but I want to go over it again because it happens to highlight one of the most important principles in civilization, and if we could solve gridlock, we could solve any human problem.

Lets start with the basics. In a crowded city, such as New York which happens to be laid out in a grid, traffic will occasionally come to a complete halt in a feedback chain reaction. Imagine a city block which has an intersection at each corner, when traffic is very heavy. Now imagine what happens at one of those intersections when the light turns red, but some cars are stuck in the intersection and cannot move forward or back. Now the cars with a green light cannot move either, because of the cars in the middle of the intersection blocking their progress. Immediately, more cars become blocked behind them, and if the line stretches back to their previous intersection, then that one also becomes blocked the same way, and the chain reaction will now occur in all four corners of the block. And with one city block completely stuck, neighbouring blocks will also get stuck the same way. That is what we call gridlock.

In principal, gridlock can happen in places other than a grid, I have seen pictures of gridlock even in a traffic roundabout, where a line of buses in the circle may block and exit to the roundabout, when they get stopped by slow traffic, and the feedback loop quickly travels back around the entire roundabout to lock it down solidly. These traffic jams are apparently very hard to break up.

The root cause of gridlock comes down to human nature. Each independent driver is trying to get through the traffic as quickly as possible. So they may make a decision which superficially may help them get a head a little further. But their decision blocks another driver, and the feedback from that eventually blocks the entire traffic flow for the whole city. The psychology of this is very interesting, because even if you explain to each driver how to act in order to ensure the free movement of traffic, they will continue to behave in such a way as to move themselves ahead of the rest, which gridlocks the traffic, where they themselves will be stuck for hours.

So if I may define the gridlock mentality as one where a person will make some small action to serve themselves. seemingly at the expense of only a few others, but the the effect on the others multiplies around in such a way that it brings down the whole system, including the original perpetrator.

The solution for gridlock is for drivers to not move ahead if doing so will block the cross flow of traffic. After all, the cross flow is not really competing with you. Those divers are not trying to get ahead of you, they are just going their own way, but need to cross your path to get there. You must not enter an intersection even on a green light, if there is no place for you on the other side. But it is hard to get everyone to understand this is the problem. In other words, moving ahead is not always wise if you want to keep moving ahead.

Politics, economics, and war also suffer from gridlock mentality. This is the kind of "self interest" that gives a temporary advantage to one person while starting the chain reaction that brings down the whole system for everyone. Think of the big banks, that get spooked by bad economic news, and withdraw their loans to protect their own interests, which shuts down those borrowers' businesses, which in turn lay off employees, who in turn withdraw their money from the banks, thus driving the banks out of business anyway. The circular chain reaction always comes back to the starting and then spreads further.

This gridlock mentality applies to a military occupation, where soldiers are torturing and killing innocent civilians to get information, the negative effect of which multiplies to more civilians turning against the occupiers until they finally have to give up. A small advantage one minute, torturing and killing happily to "stay safe". But the advantage in temporary security turns millions of people against the occupiers, and the war is lost. Terrorists are always trying to find ways to enhance the "gridlock" effect against the occupying forces.

The temptation to gridlock mentality is the fatal flaw of pure free market capitalism, just as lack of incentive is the fatal flaw of communism.

Two thousand years ago, a man appeared on Earth with the solution to gridlock. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". "love your neighbour and your enemy" and "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Instead of listening to him, he was crucified by the very people who two thousand years later would invent gridlock and laissez faire capitalism.

One day, maybe all people will understand how their own innocent (but self serving) actions sometimes start a chain reaction that comes back to bite them in the rear end.

Pictures: A diagram of gridlock from Wikipedia, and a gridlocked traffic circle.

The Canadian Accent, eh? Made SImple

Let me just start by correcting one misconception. A Canadian would not say "The Canadian accent, eh?". The proper construction of that sentence would be "The Canadian accent is simple, eh?".  (you make a definite statement, but turn it into a question with the "eh?".)

Moving on to my next point, which is a disclaimer. I acknowledge the existence of at least 4 Canadian accents, including French, and I have spent a lot of time listening to them. But I don't speak any of them naturally. I was born and grew up in a town that did not exist before 1937, and had no regional accent of its own.  My father was French Canadian and my mother is an immigrant from England. Most people in town spoke French, so my English accent comes partly from my mother, partly from my Father, and neither one spoke with an English Canadian accent. In the early years, TV was mostly in French or American. And as the English speaking population of our town grew during my teenage years, at least half my friends had Scottish or English accents. The influx of immigrants happened when British Aluminium opened a plant in our town, and relocated a lot of their workers from Scotland.

So about the Canadian accent, let's start with the most frequently used word in Canada, "sorry". It rhymes with Lorry not sari. It also does not rhyme with story. If you can get that one word right, you could move about freely in Canada without anyone noticing you were not Canadian.

Next word is "about", as in "I am about to be sorry". Many Americans mistakenly think we say "aboot", (ending with a very long ooooot") which is simply untrue, there is not even one regional accent in Canada that uses this pronunciation. We shorten the sound, because we don't like wasting time when we are freezing our asses off outside in the winter. Actually, what we say is closer to "abaoot", except we say the "aoot" so fast you can hardly hear it at the end.

The third most used word in Canada, after sorry and about, is pissed. Pissed has a whole bunch of meanings in Canada. "pissed off" means you are feeling anger. "pissed up" means you are drunk. "pissed sideways" is probably just pissing in a horizontal direction. It is pronounced "pissed", sorry I can't help you if you still can't figure it out.

A shibboleth is a word that you can't pronounce if you belong to a particular ethnic group. Canadians can't pronounce "Maryland", a state in the USA. We get real close, but an American can always tell we are Canadian because we are unable to say Maryland without the "y", whereas they can. So Maryland is a shibboleth. Toronto is a word Americans can't pronounce, because they cannot say it without ending in with "toe". There is no toe at the end of Toronto, the last T and the O are both silent, and are replaced by "na". Canada is another word that is hard to pronounce, even for Canadians. The accent is on the first syllable. While most people get that the first syllable is accented, they just don't accent it enough. The CAN is really stressed, followed by a just barely audible "uh, duh". In Canadian English, anyway.

For bonus marks, if you have followed this so far, to help clarify the difference in accent between French from France and from Quebec, here is the explanation in Japanese.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaJNDFi8AAE&feature=related

Picture: Sorry, I don't know what it's all about. I just took it off the Internet.

Canada and Australia, a Comparison

Here is a comment left for me from David, about the same age as me, from Australia.

"Canada is a place I would love to travel to (maybe one day before its too late) and you certainly make it sound very appealing........ David"

Whether David meant what he said about me making Canada sound appealing, or whether he was just being polite makes no difference. It got me thinking about my attitudes towards my own country, Canada and his country Australia.

Ever since I finished school, Australia has been for me the most ideal place on Earth, the place I wanted to emigrate to. But I have never gone there even on vacation. Meanwhile Canada has always been, in my mind anyway, the least inhabitable country on Earth. With the possible exception of Antarctica, but that's not a country is it? When we are not freezing our asses off, we are being eaten alive by insects. Although to be fair, there are a few corners of our country right next to the American border, where we can sometimes bask in the warm American air that drifts over to us. Unfortunately, we all get quite crowded in as we push closer and closer to the border, seeking warmth.

What might I have said to make Canada sound appealing? Surely not my "Bikers' Guide to Dutton Ontario", where I lauded it as the location of greatest biker slaughter in Ontario history. Or my various sarcastic references to Alberta as the most conservative province of Canada, and the province most likely to take Ann Coulter's advice to separate from Canada and join the USA. Nor would my comments on Toronto being the road rage capital of Canada. Or my many blogs on the joys of travelling the 401.

Sometimes people really like to visit places that are just different from their own homes. Once, while motorcycle camping in Saskatchewan, I was speaking to a person from Arizona, where I guess they don't see a lot of rain or cold. As we were talking, a black cloud came up and started pissing on us. For me, this was an annoyance. To him it was a joyous occasion. I didn't understand at first. Maybe he thought this was not water coming down on us, but beer? No, he simply never saw rain at home and loved every minute of standing in the cold getting wet. At that moment I made up my mind, that one day I would visit this place called Arizona.

When I think of Australia, I think of hot summers and warm winters. Koala bears hanging in the trees, Nicole Kidman and kangaroos jumping about. Wrestling crocodiles for fun. Surfing among the great white sharks near the barrier reef. Is it possible that this is just a fantasy, and that if I really lived there I would find out that Australia is more or less like Canada but with a funny accent?

Mary Ann went for a two month visit to Australia when she was young. Even my mother went there about 20 years ago at age 65. While she was on an outback excursion near Alice Springs, she was setting up her tent one night and accidentally drove her tent peg through an underground water pipe and created a nice little lake right where Australia needed it most.

Well anyway, if anyone wants to come and see Canada, they are certainly welcome. And I don't mean just me, I mean almost all Canadians share my bewilderment as to why anyone would want to come here, and we admire the courage of people who do.

Pictures: I am just going to let you guess which is Canada, and which is Australia. Shouldn't be too hard. Notice, I did leave out the pic of the bandit's car, which was having just as much trouble as the police car.

The Transition from Liberal to Conservative Made Easy

Another in my "made easy series", how a person transforms from a liberal to a conservative.

Winston Churchill once remarked that a young person who was a conservative had no heart and an older person who was a liberal had no intelligence.

I think, for the most part, that people do start out their lives as liberals, and with time gradually turn to being conservative. If so, that is going to mean conservative politics will dominate for a while as the baby boomers become older and one by one, turn conservative.

My own conservative "awakening" has not happened yet, but already I can begin to see the pressure mounting that would normally push me over the edge, if I only had a brain.

Let's go back to the time when people just start to form their own political point of view, possibly after high school. That's about when you get to vote for the first time, but as a young person you don't really care that much. A young person at that age accepts the world as a place that has never changed and never will. That is because, during their own short experience, the world has not changed, and by logical extension, never will. So politics has no meaning, no matter who gets in power.

Now maybe I was particularly isolated as a child, living in Baie Comeau. I did not have the opportunity to observe poverty, or wealth, as it was a strictly middle class town with both ends of the wealth spectrum missing. We had no visible minorities, our main concerns were around French vs. English or to a much lesser degree, Catholic vs. Protestant. I did not even get to see any old people. There was no senior citizens' home, and 50% of the population was under 16 years old. I first saw large numbers of old people when I moved to Sherbrooke, and took a city bus.

During a person's twenties, observations take place. You begin to notice such things as poverty, for example. During this period of time, there are a lot of major concerns that come up. My first one was a strong desire to see the world. That seemed more important than getting a car or a job.

Seeing the world as a young person is something that is likely to turn you liberal. You get so see the inequalities in life, and learn about social justice. Because you are young, you are not likely to blame third world poverty on "laziness", the way an older person might. Older people have put in thousands of days of hard work already in their lives, and often have a high opinion of themselves as a "hard worker" who earned everything they got, whether that view is justified or not. Young people are not yet thinking that way.

A younger person travelling in the world is likely to have a good opinion of foreigners, as young travellers often make friends in places that they go, and are treated well by locals. On the other hand, young people travelling abroad are often treated badly and hassled by the authorities, leading to a negative view of "THE MAN". This also undermines their classical conservative viewpoint.

Now moving ahead, to marriage, kids, and settling down. All of this usually takes place close to home. Having kids arouses protective instincts, and often this is the time that owning a house becomes an issue. At this stage, things begin to change rapidly toward conservatism. No longer do you have nothing to lose, like most liberals. You are becoming a land owner, and so you have much to lose. Now you can worry about theft, about the neighbourhood becoming a slum. That worry is the beginning of the conservative mindset. Suddenly you are concerned for the first time about how nice the lawns are, about how many and what type of weeds are springing up, not only on your own lawn, but your neighbour's lawn too. You don't fear police protection any more, you want more of it. And you are now not too far away from fearing that visible minorities might move in to your neighbourhood. This is the time that you might finally become one of those bigots that you mocked as a young person. I'm not saying it is sure to happen, but you are exposed to the pressures, and you may have neighbours around you to heighten your fears. Not only is this happening to you, but to most of your friends of the same age.

Let's go forward another decade or so. Your kids are going to school, you have a "good" job. You are worried now about how your kids are going to make out in life. They do not seem to have the same priorities as you do, about work, and money. They just want to goof off and have fun. They don't listen to your music, or dress the way you want them to dress. They don't hang out with kids that you want them to hang out with. They don't care about money, which is actually yours anyway. Now for the first time, you become aware that there is a generational gap, and now there is a generation younger than yours, and they have disturbing ideas. One of those disturbing ideas is that welfare is a viable career path. Now you begin to question for the first time, the need for welfare, unemployment insurance, and any government benefit at all (except the Canada Pension Plan, that will come later)

You are now paying a fair amount in taxes. You may start reading more, and listening to the news, to find out what is being done with all the tax money you are paying. What you want to hear, is that it is being used to hire cops and throw people in jail. Also, that it is being used to beat down foreign countries that are full of people trying to steal the wealth of rich countries like Canada. You do not really want to hear that it is being used to help immigrants "flood" into Canada, or to help equalize trade with poorer countries. All these developments are now seen as threats, if not to you, to your children who still seem unconcerned about getting a job.

So, you start reading the National Post. You find the writings of Mark Steyn in MacLeans' magazine, and they are a revelation to you. When Mark says "it's the end of our white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant way of life" you feel a kinship with him, a bond is formed. Now you are nearing the end of your transition from liberal to conservative. But there is still more.

Now that you trust Fox News, The National Post, Mark Steyn, Ann Coulter, and Pat Robertson as the true source of all knowledge, you begin to distrust science itself. After all, your own death is approaching now, and this is not the time to be mocking Chistianity. You begin to turn to God and the supernatural. And since the end is approaching, you have no time for Al Gore and his scaremongering about the "future" global warming that you will never live to see anyway. You want, and need, to keep burning those fossil fuels. Drill anywhere you can for the last bit of oil if you have to, to keep gas under a buck a litre, even if it means more oil spills (unless it is on your own cottage waterfront of course). And for heaven's sake, we don't want to see those horrible three bladed wind turbines rearing their oh-so-ugly heads somewhere on the horizon, causing cancer and doing nothing but wasting taxpayers' money.

OK now I have laid out the entire transition from naive innocent young liberal to wise, rich, old conservative. According to the demographics of the baby boom, we are going to have a lot more old people than young people for about 40 more years. I think it's going to get very conservative out there.

Picture: How conservatives imagine a liberal brain would look, if they actually had one. This image is from Conservapedia, the conservative answer to all the lies and distortions of truth in Wikipedia.

Axes and Vise Grips

Yesterday, I was helping remove a dead battery from a Yamaha Majesty scooter belonging to a friend. Once the battery is dead in a scooter, you can't drive or push-start it, and the Majesty has no kick start either, so I drove to the dead scooter with my set of tools. My Allen key wrenches were not up to the job, and before long I found myself asking if he had an axe and vice grips in his tool shed.

In case some of you are very young, by "Axe", I don't mean a sexy deodorant. It is a sharp bladed tool with a wooden handle.

That takes me back to when I was a teenager. Then I knew very little about working on cars and bikes, but I did notice that my father would often be out repairing the family car with nothing more than an axe and vise grips. Being a kind of wise-ass back then, I managed to concoct a fair number of side splittingly funny comments on this. But here I was, in the year 2010, working with an axe and vise grips like he did.

I never intended to become exactly like my father. When I got my first motorcycle, my initial tool kit consisted of a shiny metric ratchet set, in addition to the specialized tool kit that came with the bike. With time, I added more and more tools, including vise grips. But it took at least twenty years before, I finally decided to buy an axe.

The main reason my father used an axe for almost everything was multi-faceted. Number one, he had a lot of axes. Wherever you were around our house, there was always an axe somewhere near at hand, except in the vicinity of the TV, as that would have been extremely dangerous during the Saturday hockey game. Anyhow, by the fourth law of auto mechanics, the axe got used a lot simply because one was always the object closest at hand. Furthermore, my Dad was a forester, also known as "lumberjack". He didn't like to use the term lumberjack, although he started out as one, but progressed to many other jobs such as mapping, surveying, fighting forest fires, and doing logging inspections. But until he retired he was basically working in the forest, and around lumberjacks, and carrying an axe was not considered weird. Third, and by no means the least important, he was extremely skilled at using an axe. By that, I mean the axe head went where it was intended to go, with the amount of force necessary to get whatever job done, and no horrible accidents ever happened resulting from deflections or flying shrapnel There were stories of lumberjacks shaving with their axes, but I never saw my father do this. For recreation, it can be thrown at targets. But whatever you do, do not use an axe like a Frisbee, because that is dangerous.

The only other profession to use axes as much as foresters, are firefighters. Firefighting a job where you are not sure exactly what you will need to do, but whatever you bring better be damned useful and get the job done quickly. Hence, the axe.

During my teenage years, he built a log cabin during his spare time. Axes are incredibly useful for building log cabins. Actually, not so much for the new kind of prefabricated log cabins, delivered by truck with each log preshaped and numbered for assembly. But yes, for the type of log cabin where you walk into the woods for about an hour carrying an axe, stop in some random spot, and start cutting down trees and building a cabin. When he was finished, the cabin looked quite beautiful. I would be lying to say no other tools were used. However, the axe was used to chop trees, shave off the bark, flatten two sides of the logs, notch the ends, drive nails, split wood for the fire, and many other odd jobs.

Although he didn't have much of a formal education (he said grade four, but many in his family seemed to remember most of that was playing hooky.) Anyway, it didn't matter too much, as the stuff he missed probably would have been mostly religious stuff anyway. Instead, he was keen on learning about the rest of the world outside his isolated fishing community in Quebec. That would explain why he voluntarily joined the Canadian Army as soon as WW2 broke out. He was later transferred to the British Royal Engineers, which I used to think meant he was an engineer, but actually the Royal Engineers was a place that lots of non-engineers ended up, because a lot of it was unappealing work like digging foxholes, latrines, building bridges and clearing mines. And some of that is also done under fire.

I can not remember him ever without an axe, but he didn't always have vise grips. I see from Wikipedia, that, they were invented way back in 1924. But they became very popular during my youth, when my father acquired some. I guess he was finding an ever increasing need to do and undo nuts and bolts, which was difficult with an axe. And vise grips were starting to be put to many new ingenious uses as more and more people bought them.

So that brings me up to present day. The Yamaha Majesty had a couple of Allen screws that were on too tight, and the Allen key had rounded the hole. So I started with vise grips, which just slipped off. Then I got a chisel and hammer to notch the side of the bolt and turn it by hammer blows. It also didn't work, so I simply asked if there was a bigger hammer. That's when the axe made its appearance, and with a few axe taps, the screw surrendered.

Picture: I don't need to show vise grips or locking pliers, but many people do not know what a "real" axe looks like, at least judging by how long it took me to find a decent picture on the Internet.

Sven Kramer, Dutch Gold Medal Speedskater vs. NBC

I must start with a disclaimer, that although I am Canadian, and theoretically should not care whether Sven Kramer is an A-hole or not, I am married to a woman who, though born in Canada, is of Dutch descent. So I am going to be using my personal insight into the Dutch character, along with my background in dealing with two languages, and the problems that arise from translations to help me.

The videos of the interview have all been taken down from youtube, which is really too bad as I never saw them and I am relying strictly on second hand accounts. So briefly, Sven Kramer won a gold medal for the Netherlands in the Olympics, and following the win, was interviewed by an American reporter from NBC. The actual wording of the start of the interview went something like this.

NBC reporter: "If you can say your name and your country and what you just won here."

Kramer: "Are you stupid? Hell no I'm not going to do that."

Speaking later in a Dutch interview, Kramer explains: "Come on, this is ridiculous. You've just become Olympic gold medal winner. She was there when it happened and then you have to sum up your whole biography, etc. She's crazy."

Predictable Outcome: Sven Kramer is now better known in the USA as "the guy who says 'are you stupid'", than the speedskater who won a gold medal. And by a strange twist of fate a week later during another event, one of Sven's skating coaches, gave him an incorrect lane change signal that cost Sven the gold medal. Whether that was deliberate or not I'll leave for another day.

My in-depth analysis of the "stupid" comment.

I am fully aware that I do not know what speedskating event Sven was in, or even who he won against. But to be fair, I have a greater interest in the subject of "insulting people in foreign languages" than I do in speed skating.

Let me start with one of my other specialties, "The Dutch National Character". And for starters, here would be a typical Dutch reaction to my statement "I am a specialist in the Dutch National character." In a nutshell, if I may shorten it down to the very minimum number of words required to convey the message, it would be "Are you stupid?".

And that may in fact be all you need to know about the Dutch character. Number one they speak directly, and this is true whether they are speaking their own language or one of several others in which they are probably also fluent. Secondly, they are well known for not embellishing the truth with flowery phrases.

Now getting back to to Sven with the "Are you stupid?" comment. Sven was actually being very polite by putting the word "Are" in front of the word "you". By doing so, Sven is probably aware that his comment does not make a statement about the reporter, it is simply asking a question. The reporter is free to answer "Yes" or "No" or "I don't know". If Sven was trying to be obnoxious, he could have simply turned the words around and said "You are stupid" and end the interview right there. And that would probably have been more to the liking of the NBC reporter and the American public.

I think the Canadians could learn a lot from the Dutch in this area. For example, when an American reporter came to the dressing room of the Canadian Women's hockey team after they won the gold medal, and asked them to come back on to the ice for a few more pictures, the correct response would have been "Are you stupid?". Instead, the women emerged from the dressing room, posed for some pictures, and then one of the American reporters ran off to the IOC committee to report a breach of etiquette and morals, as apparently it was indecent to bring the celebration out to the sacred Olympic ice. And so, the Canadian team was required to make an apology for their bad behaviour, while the US press had a field day with a great story that was far more interesting to Americans than the story of their team losing to Canada.

Now to tell a different story, one that helps once again to understand the Dutch character. This time Mary Ann and I took her Dutch niece to Niagara Falls. She was visiting Canada for the first time. Typical of of younger Dutch people, she spoke very good English. So we went down the ramp for a cruise on the "Maid of the Mist" which is Niagara Fall's most popular tourist attraction (not counting the actual Falls). On the way down, we were stopped by the staff and told to pose for a picture. I told them we were not interested in buying pictures. They responded "The pictures are included in the price of the ticket". I'm sure Katrein understood what they said perfectly, just as I did. We had just been told that our boat tickets included a complimentary picture. So at the end of the cruise, we actually paused at the photo booth and Katrein picked out our free picture, and she was told "That'll be $35". She immediately dropped the picture back on the counter, said "I'm Dutch", turned and walked away.

Now you could substitute many, many phrases in there. First, in case it is not obvious, we were simply lied to when they asked us to pose. Although this may be acceptable behaviour in North America, it would not be acceptable in Holland, apparently. Instead of "I'm Dutch", she could possibly have used the alternate phrase "Are you stupid?". Because in Holland, only stupid people would lie in such a blatant way.

In North America, however, it is not nice to ask people if they are stupid. It is about like asking a blind person "Are you blind?" when they run into a post. Or asking a deaf person "Are you deaf?" when they don't hear you say get out of the way.

So Katrein had a better answer, which wasted no words in stating that although the Maid of the Mist staffers may have tried a stupid trick on us, she, being Dutch, was certainly not stupid enough to fall for it. And my advice for Sven Kramer: You could have answered the NBC reporter the same way, and she probably would not think it was an insult.

Canada's Winter Olympics 2010

I have not written about the Vancouver Olympics yet, but I'm about to take care of that little oversight. And for you, Canadian sports media, commence ducking now.

First to congratulate Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue for their gold medal in ice dancing. I got to confess I just can't watch that sport any more since I saw Jessica Dube get hit in the face by a skate. I don't even know if they banned that particular dangerous move from the competition. But Scott is a relative of one of my brothers-in-law, so I feel obligated to write this.

Now back to the fun part, slamming the Canadian press.

My first criticism results from a game that the Canadian Womens' hockey team played early on, where they beat Slovakia 18-0. The Canadian press worked them over for scoring too many goals. My own opinion is that the Slovakians are big girls, they are in the Olympics, and if 18 pucks end up in their net, they just have to deal with it. Now I would have a problem if the Canadians were taunting them, yelling hateful things, etc. etc. But no, it was done in the finest tradition of sports. Somebody has to lose, and the Canadian team was obviously working up towards trying to win the gold. They don't need the added responsibility of making sure the Slovakians think they are a better team than they really are. On this one, the Canadian press who criticised our team earn a rebuke from me.

Next is the constant harping on the Canadians not winning enough medals. Apparently, our Canadian Olympic Committee started the slogan "Own the Podium", giving the impression that we would be the outright overall winner in these games. Really? Hey, I'm a Canadian, and I never for one second thought of that as being a serious commitment, or I would have started betting money on it (and I could get about 500-1 odds, I might add). No it was just a slogan. This is sports, we are up against teams from countries much bigger than ours with far more sophisticated drug programs. I only expect to compete fairly. Anyway we DO own the podium. As Mary Ann says, we will own it, but we should wait till the Olympics are over before we put it out for a garage sale. So another rebuke to the Canadian press: Drop it with the "Own the Podium" comments already. If you got your hopes up, think of it as a good thing not a problem.

So now it's pretty much established that the Canadian press is going to complain about our athletes whether they win, or lose, and probably also if they draw. I think our main problem is actually the press.

Now we come to something altogether different and unexpected. The CBC's coverage is so bad it is cringe worthy. It seems that for the first time, the CBC is not the official network of the Olympic Games, as the Canadian Television Network (CTV) outbid them. As part of the contract, it stipulates that no other Canadian network is permitted inside an Olympic venue, or to interview the athletes. So the CBC's Olympic coverage is limited to filming correspondents standing outside Olympic venues in the dark, all alone, telling us they are not allowed inside the games. It was funny for the first five minutes I guess. But this is what? the second week and they are not letting up. This morning I switched on the TV and there's the CBC reporter standing beside a dumpster outside in the cold, telling me he is standing beside a dumpster because he is not allowed in to the games. Next time they draw up that contract for exclusive coverage, they need to put a restraining order on the CBC crews, that they should not even be allowed in the Olympic dumpsters.

And one more show that I'm going to slam just because I never did like it. It's on Sun TV, called the "Casino Rama Grill Room", hosted by Gareth Wheeler. Its an irreverent look at sports, and Gareth himself takes the persona of an opinionated loud-mouth. Which may or may not be his real personality, I don't know but he makes it seem pretty genuine. Anyway I watched for a few seconds this morning, and one of his guests said (about the Olympics) that the problem is really with all of us here in the press. "Yes" I thought. "For once, these guys are on to something." But no, I was disappointed to hear that the "Problem" is we still cheer for our athletes even when they don't get podium finishes. So, another rebuke goes to the Casino Rama Grill Room, for making a stupid observation. You were right that the real problem is with the press, it's just not the problem you think it is.