I find whenever there’s a ‘Muslim headscarf’ story unavailable for public outrage a ‘Sikh Turban’ story invariably appears.
This time it’s a Brampton motorcyclist who was ticketed for not wearing a helmet, which, as a Sikh, he challenged as a violation of his religious beliefs to wear a turban at all times. I dunno, last I checked, riding motorcycles wasn’t integral to any religion (remember that ‘Zen’ book was about motorcycle maintenance, not riding per se 
Of course, he could always move to New Hampshire with it’s Live Free or Die motto. According an article in an Indian publication, though oddly enough not mentioned in any Canadian one, turbans may already be worn in lieu of helmets in BC and Manitoba.
The usual arguments for mandatory helmets come down to the usual safety concerns, as well as taxpayers’ money for health costs and so on. At the same time, there is an ongoing serious lack of organ donors.
Since motorcyclists refusing to wear helmets harm nobody but themselves, I don’t think this should be an issue of religious freedom at all. If people don’t want to wear a helmet, that’s their prerogative. Just make them sign an organ donor card first.
Categories: government regulation · law enforcement · safety · stupidity
An article on CTV News yesterday, along with one of the accompanying comments, exemplify the very thing that annoys a lot of folks when it comes to environmentalists.
This article is about a new report from Environmental Defence slamming the state of the environment around Alberta’s tar sands. Within the report are the nasty photos that every one pretty much expects to see. There’s the toxic looking clouds and deformed animals and the scarred landscape. All undoubtedly horrible. At the bottom of the report they outline what they think should be done, including advocating the use of ‘dry tailings’.
An anonymous commenter then posted this:
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Under the conclusions part of this report, the authors recommend that producers switch to “Dry Tailings” instead of wet tailings.
As someone who works in the oil sands industry and occasionally on projects related to tailings, I would love for the authors to inform me of how we can magically make “Dry Tailings”. Through chemicals? That’s already been tried. Through massive driers? Well, you’ll end up burning more gas that way. Filters likely won’t work either due to the extreme solids loading of the system.
Everybody in the industry would love to hear how to make these “Dry Tailings”. Would the authors’ care to enlighten us?
It reminds me of the old Greenpeace protesters complaining about clear-cutting. As the daughter of a forester I learned that a lot of their claims were pretty nonsensical. To the point where one of their founders up and quit the movement altogether. What are loggers supposed to do, pick the trees here and there out one by one? You can’t. Other trees are in the way.
I’ve always thought that if people really care about the environment, that rather than produce flashy brochures and documentaries and court celebrities, they’d go to University, get a BS or Masters in materials engineering or organic chemistry or any related discipline and figure out workable solutions to these problems themselves.
But that would take a lot more hard work and would be less glam than getting to lecture people at every opportunity.
Categories: activism · environment
