Magic Statistics

Kurt Westergaard, the man who drew the cartoon of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, has been the subject of death plots since his work was first published over two years ago.  The recent re-publication of the Danish Mohammed cartoons has sparked a new round of threats even more indiscriminate than before.

Denmark's security services have provided protection to namesakes of the Danish cartoonist behind controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

There are 82 Kurt Westergaards living in Denmark but only one of them is the man who life is under daily threat because of his caricatures of the founder of Islam.

However, some of other 81 "Kurts" scattered across Denmark have also received mistaken identity death threats because they share the same name as the illustrator.

Three men were arrested last month for conspiring to kill the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.

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Last month, Manitoba declared polar bears “threatened” under its Endangered Species Act, and Conservation Minister Stan Struthers stated that climate change is having an adverse impact on the animals.  Now Arviat, Nunavut, MLA David Alagarak suggests that polar bears are threatened not by temperature but by tourists.

Alagalak said hunters there believe tourism practices around Churchill, Man., may be leading to fewer, thinner, less healthy polar bears in his region. That's in contrast to how they looked before: "a nice look, like nice and fat and healthy and strong," he said Friday.

Scientists have said that the bears have seen a drop in weight, health and population due to shrinking sea ice that is going out earlier and coming in later, leaving starving bears on the shore.

But residents in and around Arviat believe polar bears are also following tourism activities in Churchill, especially the smells coming from tourists and operators, Alagalak said.

We get lots of tourists in Yukon and I’ve never noticed that they give off any particular smell, but no doubt polar bears have very sensitive olfactories.

As a result, he added, the bears are lingering in Churchill instead of migrating north, where the ice comes in earlier and they put on weight by hunting for more nutritious food.

"They're trying to wait out for the people to leave to try and find what they're smelling … maybe it's causing the bears to lose fat," Alagalak said.

Eco-tourism may not be so environmentally friendly after all.

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Recovering legal expenses after you’ve had a worthless human right complaint lodged against you is not a sure thing by any means.

In their capacity as executive members of the Yukon Junior Mushers Association (YJMA), Darren Kingvig and Sean Fitzgerald revoked a man’s membership due to repeated profane temper tantrums.  The man, Swiss immigrant Michael Salvisberg, then lodged a complaint with the Yukon Human Rights Commission, alleging prejudice against immigrants and Europeans.  The YJMA hired a lawyer and ran up $3000 in legal bills before Mr Salvisberg dropped his complaint.

Now a Yukon court judge has ruled that he cannot order the complainant to repay the association’s legal expenses.

Salvisberg was well known within the Yukon's mushing community for his outbursts, often including obscenities, at local dog sled races, especially when his son was competing. A number of such outbursts prompted the association to suspend Salvisberg's membership.
The group put further sanctions on Salvisberg, barring him from coaching his son at the 2006 Arctic Winter Games.
. . .
Salvisberg countered with a complaint to the Yukon Human Rights Commission, claiming the association was prejudiced against Europeans and recent immigrants from Europe.

He eventually dropped that complaint, but not before the group had spent more than $3,000 on legal fees, which it had hoped to recoup in small claims court on Friday.

Judge John Faulkner ruled that Salvisberg's evidence alleging the groups had discriminated was scanty at best.

Faulkner added, however, that even if Salvisberg's evidence was completely fabricated and slanderous, the Yukon small claims court has no jurisdiction to award costs in a matter before the human rights commission.

Further confusing detail from the Whitehorse Star (full story behind a subscriber wall, unfortunately).

When Fitzgerald and Kinvig tried to secure compensation for legal fees through the human rights commission, they were told this was outside the commission’s jurisdiction.

Salvisberg told the court he stands by his position that only the commission has jurisdiction in this case.

“I’m forced to agree with the defendant,” Faulkner said in his decision. “It does not follow that small claims court has jurisdiction (in this matter).”

Faulkner said compensation would only have been possible if Salvisberg’s allegations to the commission had been proved false.

Something isn’t right there, or else it’s simply Catch-22 all around.  The commission says it doesn’t have jurisdiction to order unsuccessful complainants to repay their targets’ legal fees; however, the unsuccessful complainant says it does so have jurisdiction.  Doesn’t the commission know best what its own mandate entails?  What is more, the trial judge agrees with the unsuccessful complainant—sort of.

Kingvig and Fitzgerald graciously look on the bright side: They are happy that their original decision to bar Salvisberg has been vindicated.  True, but they’re still out $3000 through no fault of their own.

This is not justice.

Now that John McCain has apparently won the Republican presidential nomination, interest turns to who will be his vice presidential running mate.  One of the more promising contenders is Sarah Palin, the very popular and successful governor of Alaska.  Her approval ratings of 90% or more are among the highest of any US governor.  She’s also a lot better looking than Sen McCain.

Gov Palin graces the cover of the February issue of Alaska magazine.  The cover story is not available online, but I bought a copy in downtown Whitehorse, so here's a snippet.

It is the last day of the 25th Legislative session, and Palin sits in her office watching lawmakers at work via a television mounted in a mahogany-colored cabinet.  She watches with the intensity of a fan watching a football game, knowing the clock is ticking.  Many of the issues she has been working on—municipal revenue sharing, reinstating the longevity bonus for seniors and education finding—languish in committees.  She is particularly concerned about a measure that would limit the deductions oil companies can claim when making necessary safety repairs.

“Just put it on the floor for a vote,” she says to herself, clearly frustrated at the number of bills being held up so late in the session.

“This is a good bill,” she continues, speaking to no one in particular but to everyone in the room.  “If they can make these (tax) claims, we’d be on the hook for 52 percent of their costs.  It’s ridiculous.”

To hear such talk come from a Republican, a party known for its guardians of big business and proponents of paving the way for more oil production, comes as a surprise to many.  Palin has been called a maverick Republican for her unconventional views, but she has steadfastly maintains that she has the best interests of Alaska—and big business—in mind.  Despite her occasional differences with the party’s mainstream ideas, she fits the mold as a lifelong member of the National Rifle Association who is pro-life and opposed to gay marriage.  But she seems to appeal to Democrats as well as Republicans.

"She has not been partisan," said Rep. Les Gara, a Democrat from Anchorage. "Anybody that comes to Juneau and says, 'I’m not going to do my party's bidding' deserves credit. We had some very dark years under [former Governor] Frank Murkowski, and it has been nice to see something different."

If McCain chooses Palin as his running mate, the GOP ticket will consist of two maverick Republicans.  Hmmm.  "Two maverick Republicans."  There's a country-music campaign theme song in there somewhere.

Click here for the Draft Sarah Palin for Vice President blog, whence came the bumper sticker below.  Gov Palin’s official website is here.

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So claims Israeli professor Benny Shanon, who could never understand the Old Testament account of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.  Then, suddenly, it all made sense.

"And all the people perceived the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the voice of the horn, and the mountain smoking." Thus the book of Exodus describes the impressive moment of the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai.

The "perceiving of the voices" has been interpreted endlessly since these words were first written. When Professor Benny Shanon, professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, reads the verse, he recalls a powerful hallucinatory experience he had when he visited the Amazon and drank a potion made from a plant called ayahuasca. "One of the things that happens when you drink the potion is a visual experience created via sounds," he says.

Of course!  How could any rational person doubt such a compelling argument?

Shanon, former head of the Hebrew University psychology department, said his first experience with ayahuasca was in 1991 when he was invited to a religious ceremony in the northern Amazon in 1991 in Brazil. "I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations," he says. Since that time, he has used it hundreds of times, and has published a book about the plant.

Do you suppose this guy is allowing his personal experiences to influence his reading of the Bible?  Nah!  A psychology professor would never do that.

Anyway, that is not exactly a novel idea.  Back in 1970, John Allegro hypothesised that the New Testament was written by aficionados of “the cult of the phallic mushroom” and that “Jesus” was a code name for the mushroom.  Prof Allegro also claimed that Moses (meaning “emergent snake”) was another myth having something to do with mushroom worship.

By comparison, Prof Shanon’s hypothesis seems almost sane sober down-to-earth, but I doubt it will prove any more persuasive.