The Great Courses company has a free lecture on the Hubble Space Telescope. Go here to see the lecture.
I have mixed feeling about “The Great Courses”. I like the lectures they have to offer but I am really tired of their constant emails and catalogs they send out. Get on their mailing list at your mailboxes peril.
ActiveHistory.ca has an article about hunting Saskatchewan Ghost Towns:
A new and fashionable trend in tourism is invading rural regions of western Canada. SUV crossovers, front windows obscured by maps and cameras, are driving down gravel backroads, sweeping around correction line curves and screeching to a stop when a wide-eyed fox creeps across to its den in the culvert.
Are lazy Sunday drives, once the mainstay of 1950s nuclear families, making a comeback? Are the drivers frantically trying to find the way to an uncle’s farm they haven’t seen since childhood?
No. The latest tourism destination is the proverbial ‘empty’ Saskatchewan landscape itself. Or, more specifically, the landscape of places that used to exist, but are no longer there.
Welcome to the latest tourism craze: hunting for ghost towns.
The Star Phoenix has this article regarding a petition requesting that Canada pressure Pakistan to eliminate its Blasphemy Law. One problem with this is that Canada still has a Blasphemy Law, so it might be asked why is it ok for Canada but not for Pakistan.
A Saskatoon man who recently fled his native Pakistan has collected hundreds of signatures on a petition calling for an end to the Islamic republic’s controversial blasphemy laws.
The laws allow sentences of life in prison for defiling a copy of the Qur’an and the death penalty for anyone who, “by any imputation, innuendo or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Mohammed.” These laws are unjust, but have also been used to persecute Christians and other religious minorities, said petition organizer Imtiaz Nadeem Bhatti.
“Anybody can accuse anybody. Every day, the abuse is increasing,” said Bhatti.
Hundreds of people have been imprisoned under the blasphemy laws in the past few years. But even those found not guilty are still in danger. Dozens have been killed by fundamentalist mobs after being released. Bhatti’s uncle, Shahbaz Bhatti, served as Pakistan’s only Christian cabinet minister and campaigned against the blasphemy laws before he was assassinated in March.
Read more: http://www.thestarphoenix.com/life/Petition+targets+blasphemy/5606871/story.html#ixzz1bwCnwWfr
Follow the link to an interview about the Kamloops atheist bus campaign. It’s the first item on the page.
The CBC has a very skeptical Doc Zone episode on anti-aging cures called Magical Mystery Cures. It is very well done
CBC’s Bob McDonald puts anti-aging potions and gadgets to the test. Do they work or are they just snake oil science?
TD bank has a sustainability based Go Green Challenge. Jennifer West and Heather Matheson, two University of Manitoba astronomy grad students have submitted a proposal to create a Dark Sky Campus designation and to have the university meet it, by reducing and eliminating wasteful and unnecessary lighting. This can be done by changing lighting fixtures and simply turning off lights when not needed. Go vote for them.
We want to make our university a dark sky campus. Save energy. Protect wildlife. Create a healthy environment. Enjoy the sky.
Western Canada has a history of creating dark sky preserves. In Saskatchewan, both the Cypress Hills Inter-provincial Park and Grasslands National Park are so designated. Grasslands is the worlds largest dark sky preserve. In Alberta, the Beaver Hills dark sky reserve encompasses Elk Island National Park and the Cooking Lake-Blackfoot Provincial Recreation Area.
More information.
RASC Winnipeg Centre members and University of Manitoba astronomy graduate students, Jennifer West and Heather Matheson, have created a video entry for the TD “Go Green” challenge, which is looking for ideas to make university campuses more sustainable. The video proposes creating a “Dark Sky Campus” designation for University Campuses analogous to RASC’s “Dark Sky Preserve” designations (see http://www.rasc.ca/lpa/darksky.shtml ). The two RASC astronomers could win $20,000 plus $100,000 for the university to spend on green initiatives like well-designed and efficient lighting for the campus.
Janet from the new Saskatoon Secular Organization for Sobriety (SOS) group was recently on John Gormley discussing “Does religion have any place in recovery?“.
On the weekend the CBC radio show Tapestry was about preachers who don’t believe in God. This is based on work done in part by Daniel Dennett. Listen.
A recent study from Tufts University tells the story of several pastors who no longer believe in God. Most are still working in churches, still preaching sermons, and still counseling the faithful. They are isolated and, in some cases, unable to confide even in their own families, for fear of what their newfound disbelief may do to their relationships.
We will speak with two pastors who took part in the study, as well as hear from Daniel Dennett, professor of philosophy and co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He is co-author of the Preachers Who Are Not Believers.
You can read the study here.
Daniel Dennett and his co-authorLinda LaScola are pursuing follow-up research. Clergy who are interested in participating can contact them through Dr. Dennett’s website.
Deepak Chopra was in Saskatoon yesterday and CFI Saskatoon took the opportunity to present an alternate view of Depak’s work. This educational opportunity involved standing in the cold, talking and handing out pamphlets to attendees.
Global news was there and recorded some of the action. Global spliced together video of the pamphleing and an earlier interview with George Williamson. The resulting segment can be seen here starting at 8:20. The video seems to be very pro-alternative medicine.
Personally I hate the way Deepak miss uses quantum physics.
The above is part of a very good Dateline debate between Michael Shermer, Sam Haris, Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston.
This is just funny.
