How Much Money Is A Few Months Of Torture Worth?

Maher Arar, settled for $10 million because he was on the terrorist watch list in the US and deported to his NATIVE Syria (where he was ALLEGEDLY tortured), instead of being allowed to return to Montreal a few year ago.

Ok that is an oversimplification. If you want the details click here.

Besides the obvious questions as to WHY he was on the terror list?, and WHY Syria would torture a TERRORIST?, or even, WHY would Syria torture a non terrorist? And why hasn't the USA removed Arar from their terror list yet? After reading a post by Deepsouth, one comment stands out: Would the Canadian government please send me
to Syria so that I can be abused for a healthy
10 Million bucks.

He originally sued for $400 MILLION, so maybe the Canadian government figured the $12.8 million it is paying out to be a bargoon. Personally, the amount being paid out is beyond obscene.

This leads me to my hypothetical question:

If you were "falsely" accused of a crime and deported to another country (it doesn't even have to be the country you were born in), and you were tortured (not even allegedly tortured), how much money would you accept from your government for a few months of jail and torture? Remember: You will not be raped or murdered and you will return to the country you now call home in around one year.

I'm not a fan of Sadism/Masochism. I'm not that kinky. Doesn't do anything for me sexually or even emotionally. But I would be willing to take a vacation for $200,000. How about you?


The Canadian taxpayer is paying for this fiasco. To be honest, this makes me not want to pay taxes.

Might As Well Get Some Use From My New Digital Camera

My wife just wouldn't flush this thing I saw on the floor by our bar last night. And I have no say in the matter.
It is too fricken cold to put her/him/it outside, so right now Wolfie (I'm pretty sure it is a Wolf spider) is our new temporary pet.

Left, is a picture of my wife's finger in comparison with Wolfie. As you can see, Wolfie is around 3 inches 1 inch long. My wife thinks it is 3 inches. I won't tell her differently. That is a piece of hamburger meat next to Wolfie in case anyone was wondering.







If I'm right and this is a Wolf spider, surprisingly they can live 3+ years.

This makes sense, since I don't remember Charlotte making it past October, or was it November?

They love crickets, flies, moths, etc. But my house is pretty bug free, so it looks like hamburger meat for him/her/it right now.

Oh yeah, today is my birthday. I'm still one day older than Wayne Gretzky:


Oh, and Daisy is loving the snow:

Canada May Be On The Verge Of The Cancer Cure

I know, we've heard this before. But one thing I have to admit, the fight against cancer has come a long way, even since the early 70's, when a cancer diagnosis might as well been a death sentence. Of course, it depends which cancers we are talking about today, but it seems that a lot of people get "cured." Maybe it has to do with the fact that more things are called cancer than they were way back when. I don't remember people talking about skin cancers in the 60's and early 70's, but I wasn't paying much attention either.

I'm one of those optimistic skeptics, but I really like what I've read about the potential cure written about at NewScientist.com. Bear in mind, I am not a biologist, or any type of scientist or doctor for that matter, but thanks to my laymans understanding about evolution, this stuff really looks exciting:

Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks.

DCA attacks a unique feature of cancer cells: the fact that they make their energy throughout the main body of the cell, rather than in distinct organelles called mitochondria. This process, called glycolysis, is inefficient and uses up vast amounts of sugar.

Until now it had been assumed that cancer cells used glycolysis because their mitochondria were irreparably damaged. However, Michelakis’s experiments prove this is not the case, because DCA reawakened the mitochondria in cancer cells. The cells then withered and died.


It appears that this team is looking at cancer in a different way:

Paul Clarke, a cancer cell biologist at the University of Dundee in the UK, says the findings challenge the current assumption that mutations, not metabolism, spark off cancers. “The question is: which comes first?” he says.

Now the big problem is FUNDING the needed human research. Because DCA is not patented, drug firms can't make a ton of money off it. So the pubicly owned drug companies won't spend dough on research:

'Michelakis is concerned that it may be difficult to find funding from private investors to test DCA in clinical trials. He is grateful for the support he has already received from publicly funded agencies, such as the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), and he is hopeful such support will continue and allow him to conduct clinical trials of DCA on cancer patients.'

"Nobody is going to make a billion dollars from this drug," Dr. Michelakis said. "But maybe it will help a lot of people with cancer."

I don't think Canada research will get stymied by the FDA. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

A website has been set up to take donations. It looks legit...and again I'm a skeptic. Check out DCA Research Information, and do your own diligence if you wish to donate.

Now, this is the kind of thing Bill Gates or Warren Buffett should throw a whack of money at. It is one thing to spend money on preventing cancer and other diseases in the third world (spending money on preventing babies in the third world and oil rich countries should be the priority though), it is another thing to cure cancer. Being the main contributor on a venture that cures cancer will ensure immortality, and the good kind of immortality, not the Hitler kind. Hey, maybe I can be remembered as the blogger who twisted Bill Gate's arm on this one.

H/T Shadow Of God at the Raving Atheist's Forum

Added tidbit: She Blinded Me With Science has a very interesting blog post about evolution and cancer.

These People Have To Be Young Earth Creationists

This is what happens when you go to church on Sundays and use a V-Chip to block out PBS and the National Geographic channels:

HT Choobus, from The Raving Atheist's Forum.

There is no way the people interviewed in the above clip are Atheist, or even Agnostic. Let me take that back. They are Agnostic when it comes to common facts.
It is sad that these people can vote.
Hopefully that clip made you laugh, and embarrassed the hell out of you if you are an American.

I know they edited out right answers. Who knows how much editing they had to do? But still, it makes me think that maybe I'm not that smart after all. Maybe, just maybe, I'm deluding myself into thinking I'm smarter than I really am, by comparing myself with the over abundance of dimwits who infest our planet.

That clip reminded me of Rick Mercer's (he has a blog) funny piece about Americans and their knowledge about Canada; Talking To Americans.
Here is a clip of that show. It took place just before the 2000 USA Election for their Prime Minister (when in Rome...):


Watch more Talking To Americans clips here.

You Think Tony Soprano Was Pissed?

Remember the episode where Tony took Meadows new boyfriend Noah aside and told him to stay away from his daughter. Tony referred to him as a "charcoal briquet," because he was half black and half Jewish. I think it was the black part that really pushed Tony over the edge, but he made it clear that Meadow better just stick to dating Italians.

Many Italian homes and Jewish homes have unwritten rules that the kids grow up and marry their own kind. I'm sure it doesn't just stop with Jews and Italians, but parents from those homes tend to be the most "emotional" about the subject.

I find this to be hilarious (I use to love watching All In the Family). Though, it could be thought of an example of extreme intolerance. Either way it is comical.



This is more of an ethnic phenomena than a religious one. But I'm sure that the more religious the household is, the more extreme the "stick with your own" philosophy is taught.

My father started preaching stick with your own, but he mellowed out pretty quick. He might have been more hardcore if he took us to synagogue, but we were very secular. 3 out of 4 of us got married, and none of us to Jews.

I really can't think of any of my friends involved in a "mixed" marriage where the couple was shunned by their families. That might have happened in the old days. The lack of shunning doesn't stop the family whispering or the stigma altogether.

Of course, there are Orthodox Jews (and even secular Jews) that wouldn't even consider marrying or dating out. Again, I understand the religious Jews. In a home where one's life revolves around religion, it would be a difficult situation when bringing up kids to marry outside one's beliefs.

I don't think it is even a consideration to most Muslims to marry outside.

Ironically, Jews have a very high divorce rate in the US compared to other faiths:

Religion % have been divorced
Jews 30%
Born-again Christians 27%
Other Christians 24%
Atheists, Agnostics 21%

Note: Baptists came in at 29% and Catholics 21%.

When it is all said and done, it is the individual's choice which should be respected. The parents in the Youtube clip had every right to whine all they want (free speech), but no right to prevent a thing.