Is WE Charity really as bad as the press makes out?

WE Charity is in deep water, there's no doubt about that. You can't fail to have heard that an investigation is still ongoing into the international development and youth empowerment charity (and its commmercial arm, ME to WE Social Enterprises, which turns about half of its profits over to the charity) over its part in a controversial, now cancelled, $912 million student volunteer program called tge Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG) for the federal governmentm
WE itself stood to make $43.5 million from its administration of the project against which it could set its costs - this is NOT the government handing over nearly a billion dollars to WE Charity as some of its detractors try to disingenuously suggest. Under the CSSG program, as many as 100,000 Canadian students stood to make up to $5,000 for a summer of volunteer work, in a pandemic-hit summer where other casual work has all but dried up.
WE already has a bad rep in some circles. There is a perception that it is perhaps not the most efficient charity in terms of bang for your buck, and yet it earns an overall A- grade (A+ for fundraising efficiency and charity efficiency, although only B+ for "social results transparency") in Macleans Top Rated Charities guide, and it does meet the BBB Wise Giving Alliance's 20 Standards for Charity Accountability, which is more than some other charities do. Its corporate culture is perhaps a bit iffy, but so is that of so many corporations and even charities (even Amnesty International has been chastised for its toxic workplace environment).
Yes, like many other charities, WE pays celebrities to give motivational speeches, such as at their glitzy, upbeat WE Days for kids, which are a strange cross between charitable events and rock concerts, and there is a certain sleazy cult-like atmosphere around the Kielberger brothers, who founded the charity back in 1995 (when it was originally known as Free the Children).
I have read article after article listing, with an unspoken (but nevertheless clear) disparaging tone, all the big name speakers WE has persuaded, over the years, to work on their behalf, some paid and some unpaid, and all the rich major global corporations it has accumulated as sponsors and donors. From the barely-disguised disapproving tone of these articles (here is just one such article, and don't try and tellnme there is no sub-text to it), it is clear that the authors assume that there is some underhand skullduggery at work here and, rather than celebrating a successful charitable model, the implication given is that these are just rich socialites tapping their rich socialite buddies - although what would be so wrong with that if the end product is nore money for kids who need it? - that such a successful model could not be possible without some illicit nefariousness and perfidy.
But that is just its own particular MO. As Craig Kielberger told the parliamentary committee hearing last week,"We don't do telemarketing. We don't do street canvassing. We don't do mass mailing. We don't do fundraising of that kind of nature. But by bringing in these types of educational speakers to events, it allows us to bring partners and sponsors to the table."
All in all, WE has a certain in-your-face style, but it fills a certain niche in the Canadian charity eco-system. And, whether you like their style or not, WE certainly engages youth like no other charity, and they do do a lot of good for kids in need.

Explanation for mysterious Chinese seeds raises even more questions

You've probably heard about the mysterious seeds shipped from China to addresses throughout the United States and Canada along with their Amazon orders. Rather than baby triffids, the seeds have actually been identified as, inter alia, mustard, cabbage, morning glory, mint, sage, rosemary, lavender, hibiscus and rose.
But even more mysterious than the seeds themselves is the reasoning behind it all. The best explanation (make that guess) as to why the seeds may have been sent is something called a "brushing scam", whereby a seller sends a buyer an unsolicited item so that they can then post a fake review in order to boost their profile and potentially increase sales.
The pretzel logic of this is so obscure that I have difficulty believing it is a real thing (and yet, there it is on Wikipedia). If they are going to post a fake review anyway, why bother mailing out anything at all? And why seeds (which are explicitly disallowed by the Universal Postal Union)? And can it really be financially worthwhile actually mailing some seeds halfway across the world in order to generate one good review (albeit a fake review for a fake order)?
It makes you realize just how screwed up the world of international commerce really is. It reminds me, in a way, of a Black Mirror episode called Nosedive, which paints an all-too-plausible picture of a society where people's entire socio-economic status is based on ratings or likes from every single social interaction they engage in.

Transgender pastor fired from Mississauga Baptist Church

A Mississauga pastor came out recently as a trans woman, only to lose her job after a congregational vote.
Junia (June) Joplin was pastor at Lorne Park Baptist Church in a posh part of Mississauga, near Toronto. A couple of months ago, she live-streamed a sermon in which she came out to her congregation as a transgender woman, a sermon that apparently went viral among trans Christians, and which seemed to attact much suppprt from her own parishioners. The church's leadership council, though, were not so keen, and a drive-through ballot (I kid you not!) of her parishioners resulted in a narrow 58-53 vote to terminate her employment.
The vote supposedly "determined, for theological reasons, that it is not in God's will that June remain as our pastor", according to a statement from the church. Wait, God left a will? God is dead?! Ah, maybe that part was a typo.
It is actually illegal to fire someone for being trans in Canada, although exceptions are allowed for - go figure! -  religious reasons. Ms. Joplin pointed out that eight of the voters specifically said that they did not object to her "on theological grounds", which should have meant that she won the vote 61-50, but that logical argument didn't seem to sway the council. She is currently looking into legal remedies.
Anyway, it looks like Ms. Joplin chose the wrong denomination to be a transgender pastor in. Those Baptists, they're ornery. The United Church would probably have jumped at her.

Why do sharks swim with their fins exposed?

Video footage of a great white shark off the coast of St. Andrews, New Brunswick, has raised a few eyebrows. Great whites are endangered in Canadian waters and rarely seen, although this is by no means a first. But I started to wonder why sharks swim with their dorsal fin exposed anyway? What advantage does this give the shark, or do they just like freaking people out?
My first attempt at finding out assured me that, nah, skarks don't actually do that, it's just something we have come to expect after watching poorly-researched Hollywood movies: "Sharks do not typically swim at the surface of the water with their fins
exposed...They are not doing it on purpose."
My second source? "Sharks in the wild very, very rarely swim with their dorsal fins exposed above the water...most sharks will not approach the surface at all". Third, and fourth sources (the latter specifically talking about great white sharks)? The same.
Well, the shark in that video certainly seemed quite confortable exposing him or her self for quite some time. So, what gives?
My fifth information source did finally confirm that, "surface finning is common behavior in several shark species...white sharks routinely investigate objects on the suface...following kayakers is not uncommon for this species or other large sharks".
Should I believe this source over and above the others? Well, just the fact that it gels with what we actually see here suggests to me that it may well be more reliable. Slate is a pretty reliable source, isn't it? So, what sharks that exhibit this kind of behaviour are actually doing is just checking out what's happening on the surface, just being inquisitive and nosey basically. The same article does point out that sharks cruising along the surface are very unlikely to be hunting; they are much more likely to hunt in mid-ocean or in the depths, and they would typically strike from below anyway.

Commissioners of Irish Lights moves to extinguish the loom of the light

I was struck by that unlikely thing, an article about lighthouses in Ireland. I was mainly struck by just how much some people care, but also by some of the arcane terminology used.
An organization that delights in the name of the Commissioners of Irish Lights (which sounds like something out of a young adult fantasy novel) is responsible for the maintenance of all the lighthouses in Ireland, both North and South. Like most other lighthouse custodians across the world, they are in the process of converting their lights to environmentally-friendly and cost-saving LEDs. LED lamps typically use 30W compared to 1,000W for traditional lamps. They are also taking out the mercury used to rotate the heavy lenses and replacing it with mechanical bearings.
But not everyone is happy about it. There is vociferous opposition to a 21st century update to St. John's Point lighthouse in County Down, south of Belfast, a lighthouse that dates from 1839. Local people have resorted to roadblocks and have roped in a few celebrities in their protest against the changes, including Princess Anne and Van Morrison. Campaigners, from fishermen to politicians to local residents, are calling the Commissioners "philistines" for wanting to change the traditional ways.
Some say the quality of the harsh blue-white LED light is inferior, while some insist that LED does not allow for the "loom of the light" of incandescent lighting, a phenomenon whereby the light diffuses and spreads in the water droplets of the air, which allows a lighthouse to be seen even over the horizon.
The Commissioners admit that LED lights have a slightly smaller reach - 18 miles compared to 25 miles - but they insist that it still has a loom. Many lighthouse keepers just see this as the next inevitable step in a series of changes from candles to whale oil and paraffin lamps to electricity. Arguably, incandescent lamps have only been "traditional" for a relatively short time. One retired lighthouse keeper opined, "Out at sea, you will see the light, which is what matters". And surely he is right.

Is the Lincoln Project actually doing any good?

What to make of the Lincoln Project? Watch a few of its short videos to get a flavour of it (there are A LOT). Some are amusing, some are poignant, some are just plain factual.
As a vehicle for skewering Donald Trump and his claims in the run-up to the November 3rd election, it's hard not to like it. God knows, we'll take any vehicle that helps depose the guy before he does any more damage to America and the world.
And at least some of its impact comes from the fact that it is produced by anti-Trump Republicans (George Conway is Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway's husband, Rick Wilson is a former GOP strategist and media consultant, Jennifer Horn is a former New Hampshire GOP chair, and Steve Schmidt is another former GOP strategist), the idea being, I suppose, to persuade other Republicans that it is OK - nay, even the right thing for a real Republican to do - to oppose Trump. So, yes, some really pretty nasty character assassination ads produced by a bunch of disaffected Republicans. Weird, right?
But are they effective? Trump's clownishness sets him up easily for mockery and satire, and this has been the mealticket for many a late night comedian since Day One, not to mention that old Internet thing, which is just bursting with Trump satire and piss-takes. Are a few more, admittedly clever, videos going to make much difference? Arguably, the videos work better as comedy than as politics.
Some of the Project's producers have suggested that the ads are actually aimed at Trump himself - "an audience of one" - and that their main intention is to get under Trump's skin. One in particular, Mourning in America, a play on Reagan's Morning in America ad, apparently did get quite a visceral response from the Tweeter-in-Chief. But Trump is so notoriously thin-skinned that getting under it is not too much of an achievement. And how is that going to help anything anyway? Do they think that Trump will be so incensed by their mockery that he will just give up? Do they intend to troll him out of office? It seems improbable to me that that is in fact their objective.
And it's a shame that the videos (with one or two exceptions) are so unremittingly negative - negativity is very much a Trump tactic. They are personally abusive and transparently ad hominen, which arguably is sinking down to the murky depths of Trump's own level.
But no-one said that they were going to turn the election round all on ther own. They are just a small part of an arsenal being brought to bear against Trump and, as such, it's hard not to welcome them.

So, why does Trump think that mail-in ballots lead to massive voter fraud?

Donald Trump has been banging on about how mail-in voting automatically leads to fraud for some time now. It's no surprise, then, that he's now suggesting that the November 3rd election should be delayed because of the possibility -nay, probability, nay, absolute certainty - of massive voter fraud from absentee or mail-in ballots. Many states are looking at mail-in voting as a way to reduce risks during the ongoing pandemic.
This, of course, is in spite of the fact that Trump himself, as well as several other Republicans who are speaking out against mail-in voting, has availed himself of mail-in voting several times in the past (for example, this March in the Florida primaries, and in New York in the 2018 election). Trump's response to this, when asked about it, was that, "I'm allowed to". Duh...
And bear in mind that absentee voting and mail-in voting are essentially the same thing, and subject to the same protections, despite Trump's attempts attempt to separate the two. His claim that, "With Universal Mail-in Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history" is therefore total bunk.
Trump seems to be obsessed with the "tremendous potential for voter fraud", which, he says, "for whatever reason, doesn't work out well for Republicans". It's not quite clear why he believes that any fraud from absentee ballots or mail-in voting should benefit the Democrats; the last time voting irregularities were blamed on mail-in votes, it was a consultant working for the Republican party that was charged (this was in North Carolina in July 2019).
That said, study after study has shown there is no significant evidence of intentional voter fraud. One study covering 14 years found 31 instances of voter fraud out of about one billion votes. There were precisely 4 cases of fraud out of the 135 million votes cast at the 2016 federal election. So, not exactly "widespread", then.
So, why is this such a big deal for Trump? He says it is because he doesn't want to wait "three months" for mailed votes to be counted, he wants instant gratification. But that doesn't ring very true. He says mailed ballots tend to favour Democrat candidates at the expense of Republicans, although no-one is very sure why he thinks that.
I can only speculate that he is trying to get out ahead and either use it as an excuse not to have an election, or if an election cannot be avoided and he loses badly (as the polls suggest he might), a reason not to accept the result. What would be the point in delaying the vote? Unclear, except that Trump gets to sit in the Oval Office a bit longer, and maybe wreak a bit more of his havoc in the country. Who knows what the man thinks?
What's ironic is that some Republicans are worried that, when mandatory mailed ballots become necessary, as they probably will given the way the pandemic is going in America, Trump's rhetoric on the subject could actually result in Republicans losing out. Sensible Democrats will probably gratefully avail themselves of the socially-distanced option (and polls confirm that), while many Republicans will probably not vote at all because they have been persuaded by Trump not to trust the system. Ah, well, you reap what you sow...
There again, there is also evidence that Black voters, who tend to vote predominantly Democrat, are even more wary of voting by mail, because they do not trust the administration to count their votes. Several studies have shown that mail-in votes from Blacks and Latinos are more likely to be rejected than those of white voters, whether due to signatures not matching or ballots being received after the deadline. So, it's a bit of a conundrum.

Who is this strange "doctor" Trump has latched onto?

So, who is this wacko doctor that Donald Trump has latched onto? Essentially, she is a nobody, medically speaking, but Trump finds her "very impressive" and an "important voice" (which should in itself be enough to warn most sensible people away).
Dr. Stella Immanuel is originally from Cameroon, and obtained her medical degree at the University of Calabar in Nigeria. She is licensed to practice medicine in Texas, and is currently based in Houston. She also has a double life as a practising pastor in Texas, and founded her own church called the Fire Power Ministries, which she uses as a platform to promote conspiracy theories about the medical profession and her own non-scientific theories. These include that alien DNA is being used in medical experiments, that scientists are working on a vaccine to make people irreligious, that prayer can be used to remove a generational curse transmitted through the placenta at birth, that gay marriage can somehow result in people marrying children, and that some medical conditions can be blamed on witches and demons which have sex with people in their dreams.
Hoo boy. "Important voice"? You bet.
She only came to Trump's attention because she has been touting the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment and cure for COVID-19 (sound familiar?) Facebook and Twitter have both taken down Dr. Immanuel's video as contravening their policies on misinformation, but not before Trump retweeted it. Her response was, reasonably enough, that Jesus Christ will personally destroy the social media platforms if her video is not reinstated.
Hydroxychloroquine, as you might remember, has been shown by numerous studies to be ineffective agaist the virus and potentially dangerous for many people, and the World Health Organization, the US Food and Drug Administration, and top American doctor Anthony Fauci have all warned strongly against it. Trump, though, seems to think it is a good idea, and he doesn't like to be proved wrong.
Dr. Immanuel's rise to fame has also highlighted a shady organization called America's Frontline Doctors (AFD), a name that must really rankle with America's actual frontline doctors. AFD is a collection of doctors critical of the scientific consensus around how to deal with COVID-19. It is backed, by among other equally shady organizations, the pro-Trump Tea Party Patriots, Breitbart News, and at least one Republican House Representative, Ralph Norman.
The group believes that masks and shut-downs are not necessary to deal with the pandemic, and have been calling for an end to the lockdown since May. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has also tried to close down their accounts for spreading false information after they broadcast a video press conference this Monday.
And these are doctors? What a place this America is?