My letter published in National Post - Jan 15th

Hitchen's article is a valid comment that the world is very arbitrary in its treatment of us human beings. He correctly points out that disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis are indiscriminate in their application to those in their way. Unfortunately he always writes with the implied subtext that because bad things happen to good people, and prayers seldom result in a receipt of a shiny new red wagon, there is no God and that religion is a fraud. No so. Religion is the study and work of how to deal with that arbitrary world. It is there to help us deal with the vicissitudes of life, to make our pitiful lives better, to help us ameliorate the disasters of nature, and to help us help others deal those disasters. It gives us an opportunity to distinguish ourselves from animals, to consider or experience the unity of man and our spiritual relationship with God or universal intelligence and with our fellow man. The world's arbitrariness proves that the world is arbitrary, nothing more.

Letters to the Globe and Mail

1. As we have finished with the h1n1 scare, I guess (ho hum) we are on to the dementia scare. As I see it, by 2038, ie in another 28 years, the cost of caring for dementia will be zero, not $153 billion, as medical science will have solved the problem by that time.

2. It is good to see that the Muslim world has exceeded the American world in moral depravity and financial excesses
by building the Burj Dubai. Hurray for the new Islamism. Dubai now even exceeds Los Vegas.

Letters to teh Globe Jan 1, 2010

1. Canadian soldiers.

We have come to the point of honouring our soldiers that are doing such a good job in a very difficult Afghanistan. We must however take one more step in the recognition process. We must recognize the training and experience of these soldiers. We must welcome them back into mainstream Canadian society, not only as heroes, but as men who have been well trained in leadership and who deserve and can handle important positions in our economy and government.

2. Dead Sea Scrolls

Jordan claimed rights over the Dead Sea are very strange. The West Bank and Jerusalem were disputed territories, legally assigned to the Jewish people, not Jordanian territories, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. The West Bank was then illegally annexed by Jordan. Then the West Bank was won in a defensive war by Israel. Jordan then refused to take it back in exchange for a peace treaty with Israel. Surely that is a very weak claim. In addition the claim seems to be just part of a harrassment plan by Abbas and his anti-Israel Palestinian authority. They have tried to boycott Israeli products, Universities and professors. They have tried to jail visiting Israeli diplomats for war crimes. And of course Hamas, the other partner to Fatah, has tried to weaken Israel by illegal targetting it with suicide bombers and ineffective but harmful missiles. The suggstion that the Dead Sea Scrolls belongs to Jordan is just one more illegitimate attempt to embarrass Israel