Libricide. The Harper Government's Plan to Murder Science.

How close to home does Harper's plan to transform Canada have to get before it arrives like the grim reaper on your doorstep?

It has arrived on mine.

Stephen Harper is destroying our scientific libraries.

Years ago this country thought well enough of me to end my combat service and to send me off to become a scientist. Admittedly there was an ulterior motive. I would become one of the few who could find and provide the solution to kill enemy submarines.

I was very good at it. In fact, if one brushed off the rust, I probably still am.

Over the course of four years of study and application I read more books on oceanography than you can possibly imagine. I devoured them. I simply loved them. Every single book provided the clues to the mystery I was attempting to uncover. Some of those books were old. Very old. In scouring those arcane pages a hint of something would arise and send me searching. Ancient knowledge, well documented, provided avenues to further research.

The oldest book I could find related to the subject of killing 20th Century Soviet submarines was written way back in 1785 entitled Sundry Maritime Observations. The author was one Benjamin Franklin. When I ordered it from the NOAA library no one objected. I had a reprint edition within the week.

That book put the Gulf Stream into an older perspective. It was a starting point for another probe which would open a whole new set of question in the research group with which I was working. That group created something which didn't just find a new way to detect submarines, it actually advanced medical science.

So, when Harper starts to burn the historical research, a treasure, that this country has developed and stored, he's on my doorstep.

Stephen Harper doesn't want you to know anything that would make you smarter than him. Science, and the advance of science, is sedition. The dumber you are, the more likely you are to vote for him and the knuckledusters who swear fealty to him. His future is secure if you are stupid. He relies on that.

So, there is only one reason why this is happening.

Harper is destroying historical, scientific publications.

When I asked if EVERYTHING was being digitized and recorded, the answer was NO. A culling of "non-relevant" publications was the answer.

In other words, publications which somebody, the PMO included, decided had no scientific value, was being destroyed.

How do they know? Which book has the buried secret of a scientific discovery?

The hints, the line that could lead to further discovery, is probably in one of those destroyed books. And Stephen Harper has just made sure that you and future generations will never find it.

Who burns books but one who is afraid of what is in them?

Update: Just in case you don't read the comments, Alison has provided two exceptional links which after you've read them should leave you shattered. Many thanks Alison!

 Confessions of a Science Librarian:The Canadian War on Science

 Scientists for the Right to Know

It's officially over

Winter, that is. The Vernal Equinox has occurred.

At 0514Z, (Universal Time for those so inclined. Greenwich Mean Time for those who like to play with the Time Equation), the sun crossed the celestial equator. If you were on the west coast, it happened yesterday at 2214T (10:14 PM, if you must).

Early this year?

Not really. It's a leap year. In the next successive three years the equinox will occur on 20 March with roughly six hours added in each year.

Today, depending on where you are, you can note that the day is slightly longer than the night. You can track the sun rising due east and setting due west.

Boring? You bet. Aside from the prospect of removing winter tires, (unless you live in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island and have to travel Sutton Pass in the image above), it's pretty much the same as yesterday except that it's about 3 minutes and 35 seconds longer daylight. It's also the Persian New Year. (Shame on you for not knowing that!)

We take it all for granted. Which is pretty cool when you consider that if I had written the above in the early 17th Century and you had read it and agreed with any of it, we would have been hauled in front of the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church on charges that the idea that the Sun is stationary and the Earth moves around it as foolish. Worse, we would be condemned as heretics and, (if not tortured and killed), tossed in prison. Ideology trumped science ... then.

It took the better part of almost 400 years for the Roman Catholic Church to crawl down off its high-horse and admit that Galileo was right all along.

Aren't you glad that doesn't happen anymore?

Uh oh.