Greg Clark – my Provincial representative

Calgary-Elbow is a provincial electoral district for the Legislative Assembly of Alberta …

Greg Clark (born March 7, 1971) … is the leader of the Alberta Party. And in the 2015 Alberta general election was elected the party’s sole Member of the Legislative Assembly, representing Calgary-Elbow. …

Greg_Clark,_Leader_of_the_Alberta_Party,_2014

Their Party platform looks pretty good to me.

Peele and Key – Negrotown

In “Negrotown,” main characters Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key imagine a utopia for black people where “you can walk the street without getting stopped, harassed or beat.” …

Mashable – Pointed ‘Key & Peele’ sketch slams police brutality

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Mike Huckabee promotes the ‘cure’ for Type 2 Diabetes

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

There’s no scientific evidence that this $20 kit works. As there’s no evidence Huckabee would be a good President. He should stay an infomercial huckster.

Mike Huckabee Defends Endorsement of Diabetes Product

love outdoor escalators

Love ’em. 🙂

Over the last century, cities have been designed to accommodate the automobile. So, how do we redesign them to benefit people?

Outdoor escalators (climate allowing) are a low cost part of a solution to reduce the use of motor vehicles.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. It highlights the system in Medellín, Colombia.

The Central–Mid-Levels escalator and walkway system in Hong Kong is the longest outdoor covered escalator system in the world. The entire system covers over 800 metres (2,600 ft) in distance and elevates over 135 metres (443 ft) from bottom to top. …

related – Medellín made urban escalators famous, but have they had any impact?

useless War on Drugs over?

1971 Richard Nixon fired the first shot in what became known as the “war on drugs” by declaring them “public enemy number one”.

war-on-drugs-nixon

In America and the other rich countries that fought by its side, the campaign meant strict laws and harsh sentences for small-time dealers and addicts. In the poor, chaotic countries that supplied their cocaine and heroin, it meant uprooting and spraying coca and poppy crops, and arming and training security forces.

Billions of wasted dollars and many destroyed lives later, illegal drugs are still available, and the anti-drug warriors are wearying. In America and western Europe addiction is increasingly seen as an illness. Marijuana has been legalised in a few places. Several countries may follow Portugal, which no longer treats drug use as a crime.

But even as one drug war begins to wind down, another is cranking up across Asia, Russia and the Middle East …

Economist

As always, follow the money. Who profits from a War on Drugs?

war-on-drugs

Day in the Life of the KKK

Carl, an imperial wizard of a Southern-based Ku Klux Klan realm (or state-level group), takes aim with a pellet gun at a large cockroach (on the piece of paper just below the clock), while his wife and goddaughter try to avoid getting struck by a possible ricochet. …

Carl, an Imperial Wizard of a southern-based Ku Klux Klan realm,

see more crazy photos by Anthony S. KarenA Day in the Life of the Ku Klux Klan, Uncensored

Any racist who does no harm, breaks no laws, should be encouraged to put on a goofy costume. It’s a free country.

But if they do break laws, they should be prosecuted severely.

… the Klan’s numbers are steadily dropping. This decline has been attributed to the Klan’s lack of competence in the use of the Internet, their history of violence, a proliferation of competing hate groups, and a decline in the number of young racist activists who are willing to join groups at all. …

guns in the home: more suicide, increased risk for women, more likely to be used for crime than self-defense

David Hemenway, professor at the Harvard School of Public Health:

… to qualify for the survey the researcher should have published on firearms in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and that he or she should be an active scientist — someone who had published an article in the last four years. I was interested in social science and policy issues, so I wanted the articles to be directly relevant. …

So,for example, one survey asked whether having a gun in the home increased the risk of suicide. An overwhelming share of the 150 people who responded, 84%, said yes. …

I also found widespread confidence that a gun in the home increases the risk that a woman living in the home will be a victim of homicide (72% agree, 11% disagree) and that a gun in the home makes it a more dangerous place to be (64%) rather than a safer place (5%). There is consensus that guns are not used in self-defense far more often than they are used in crime (73% vs. 8%) and that the change to more permissive gun carrying laws has not reduced crime rates (62% vs. 9%). Finally, there is consensus that strong gun laws reduce homicide (71% vs. 12%). …

LA Times – There’s scientific consensus on guns — and the NRA won’t like it

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That all said, if you still want to own firearms, please handle them responsibly.

Neither myself or Obama is coming for your guns. 🙂

Norway tops the Social Progress Index

Gross Domestic Product has become the yardstick by which we measure a country’s success. But, says Michael Green, GDP isn’t the best way to measure a good society.

His alternative? The Social Progress Index, which measures things like basic human needs and opportunity. …

The Social Progress Index determines what it means to be a good society according to three dimensions: Basic Human Needs (food, water, shelter, safety); Foundations of Wellbeing (basic education, information, health and a sustainable environment); and Opportunity (do people have rights, freedom of choice, freedom from discrimination, and access to higher education?) …

Norway

Some countries over-perform on social progress relative to their GDP per capita. Costa Rica is the biggest aggregate over-performer, showing strength across all the dimensions. The key lesson here is that building social progress takes persistence. Costa Rica has had strong education, health and welfare systems for a long time, as well as a long democratic tradition. SPI measures outcomes — life expectancy, literacy rate — not inputs, like laws passed or money spent. There are no cheats or quick fixes

WHY WE SHOULDN’T JUDGE A COUNTRY BY ITS GDP

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Saudi Arabia is the biggest underachiever. I’ve just arrived … Actually I’m scheduled to get to San Jose, Costa Rica May 1st, my first visit.