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CFI Saskatoon Debate: Should Assisted Suicide be Legalized in Canada?

Posted in Event, news, Saskatoon on April 29, 2012 by saskskeptic

CFI Saskatoon is sponsoring a public debate on euthanasia.

Thursday, May 3, 2012
7:00 PM
Frances Morrison Public Library
311 – 23rd St. E.
Saskatoon, SK S7K 0J6
The Centre for Inquiry Canada is presenting a series of debates across the country on the issue of assisted suicide. With strong arguments on both sides, this is a complex and emotionally-charged issue.

Motion: “Should assisted suicide be legalized in Canada?”

Proposition Debater: Wanda Morris, Executive Director of Dying with Dignity

Opposition Debater: Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director of theEuthanasia Prevention Coalition

Moderator: University of Saskatchewan Debate Society Member

This promises to be a stimulating debate about a very topical issue in Canada. Hope to see you there!

There has already been some interviews for this event.  Alex Schandenberg from the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition was on John Gormley.  As was George Williamson from CFI Saskatoon.

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Experiencing Hubble: Free Video Lecture on the Hubble Space Telescope

Posted in lecture, Media, news, science on February 2, 2012 by saskskeptic

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.

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Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame

Posted in Event, news, Saskatoon on February 1, 2012 by saskskeptic

The Saskatoon Western Development Museum has a display from the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame, which will run until Feb. 26.

Have you ever driven over the Broadway Bridge in Saskatoon? If so, do you know who designed it and supervised its construction? The answer is Chalmers Jack Mackenzie, Dean of Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan.

Do you use a cell phone or smart phone? Ever thought about who came up with the idea for a telephone and who built the first one? The answer is Alexander Graham Bell, who also worked to develop methods to help deaf children speak.

Have you wondered who assisted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in investigating suspicious deaths? In Saskatchewan, from 1922 to 1942 it was the Provincial Pathologist, Frances Gertrude McGill, who in 1946 was made Honourary Surgeon to the RCMP.

More Info

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Calgary: Lawrence Krauss Lecture

Posted in Event, Feed Your Brain, lecture, news on January 22, 2012 by saskskeptic

CFI Calgary is hosting a Lecture by physicist Lawrence Krauss.

Starts: Thursday, February 23rd 2012 at 7:30 pm
Ends: Thursday, February 23rd 2012 at 9:30 pm

Theoretical physicist, and author of A Universe from Nothing, Lawrence Krauss is coming to Calgary!

Prof. Lawrence M. Krauss is an internationally known theoretical physicist and author with wide research interests, including the interface between elementary particle physics and cosmology, where his studies include the early universe, the nature of dark matter, general relativity and neutrino astrophysics. He has investigated questions ranging from the nature of exploding stars to issues of the origin of all mass in the universe.

Join the Centre For Inquiry in Calgary where Prof. Lawrence Krauss will be discussing his new book “A Universe From Nothing”. Lawrence Krauss offers provocative, revelatory answers to the most basic philosophical questions: Where did our universe come from? Why is there something rather than nothing? And how is it all going to end?

Tickets are $20 for the general public, $10 for “Friends of the Center”, and $15 for students, and can be purchased at the event or throughEvent Brite.

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Sad, Empty Places? Marketing ‘Ghost Towns’ in Saskatchewan

Posted in Media, news, Regina, Saskatoon on January 22, 2012 by saskskeptic

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.

Read More

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Family Literacy Festival

Posted in Event, news, Saskatoon on January 21, 2012 by saskskeptic

Saturday 1:00pm until 4:00pm

Join us for face painting, games, crafts, storytelling and a whole lot of fun as we journey around the world through the day and celebrate family literacy.

Frances Morrison Library / Room 3 (Lower Level)

 

Where
Description

Presented in partnership with the Saskatoon and Region Family Literacy Advisory Group.

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The Children’s Discovery Museum Free on Sunday.

Posted in Event, news, Saskatoon on January 21, 2012 by saskskeptic

The Children’s Discovery Museum will be open to the public for free on Sunday.

The Kinsmen Day at the Museum, provided by the Kinsmen Club of Saskatoon, will be held every fourth Sunday of each month in 2012, with admission to the museum free to everyone.

The event strives to ensure that financial barriers do not prevent children and families from taking advantage of the programs and exhibits at the museum, located at Market Mall. The museum will be open from noon to 4 p.m.

Read more: http://www.thestarphoenix.com/travel/Children+museum+offers+free+admission/6017407/story.html#ixzz1k3Icl0Ms

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Possible Northern Lights This Weekend

Posted in news, science on January 20, 2012 by saskskeptic

Space Weather is reporting the possibility of aurora this weekend Jan. 21st at 22:30 UT (+/- 7 hrs).

 

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Petition Targets Blasphemy Law

Posted in Media, news on October 27, 2011 by saskskeptic

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

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The Pathology of Honor Killings

Posted in news on October 27, 2011 by saskskeptic

The National Post has this article by Barbara Kay on Canadian honor killings:

The deaths of Montreal teenagers Zainab, Sahar and Geeti Shafia, along with their “auntie,” their father’s first wife, bring to something like 17 or 18 the official number of murders in Canada allegedly motivated by the need to redress family honour. Now on trial for their murders are their father, brother and mother.

As immigration from countries dominated by honour codes proceeds apace, it’s likely that there will be more such killings. As is typical, it was the Shafia girls’ Canadian social life — mall-surfing, open flirting, boyfriends — that reportedly triggered parental alarm over their family’s honour. And as we saw in the iconic 2007 case of Toronto’s Aqsa Parvez, the 16-year-old girl murdered by her father and brother after an eerily similar trajectory, the victim’s appeals to teachers, social workers and police — even though taken seriously — were no match for the determined machinations of her honour-obsessed family.

more

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