Spiteful Steve goes
Fahrenheit 451!

Modern Day Library Burning as Serbs destroy the Library in Sarajevo 1992

There's little that modern day reich wing zealots fear more than science, data and facts that might stand in the way of their dreams of being blue-eyed Petro-Sheiks.  The most famous sacking and burning of a library in history has to be the famous library built in Alexandria, Egypt, before the birth of Jesus.  There is a great deal of disagreement about just who was responsible for the destruction of the largest repository of scientific, historical and mathematical knowledge in the ancient world, or known world at the time.

Mostly one hears that Christian zealots were the culprits, but the Catholic Church and other modern day X-tians vehemently deny this and everybody from Pagans, to Muslims, Romans and even the Barbarians from far to the north gets blamed, depending on who is doing the blaming.

Today in Canada a superb group of libraries in Canada, some as old as a century are being dismantled with the books being thrown away, burned or just left with the last scientist to have checked them out.
In this case there is no doubt who is responsible, and it is the Christian (so called) Zealots otherwise known and the Harper Government (tm). Not happy removing environmental protection and designation form most water ways and bodies in the country, degrading Stats-Can and its ability to understand Canadians and shutting down the world class Experimental Lakes Project.....all in hopes that no one will be able to claim that Slimey Steve and Oiley Oliver and the rest of the asphalt smelling piggies can't be accused of harming fish or water with their ugly mess in central Alberta.

An example of the type of debate that rages to this day regarding the Alexandria library and its most famous (though doomed to be brutally murdered, like an ancient example of what Malala has had to endure today, though she survived the attempt on her life) Hypatia is this cute little explanation of why he wouldn't want to watch the movie Agora by Alejandro Amenábar because Mr. Amenabar's version of the story the reviewer (w/o actually watching, of course) doesn't accept....I guess Mr. David B. Hart rounded up some eye witnesses to events that occurred over 1500 years ago......,yeah.

The occasion of my misery is the release of Alejandro Amenábar’s film Agora, which purports to be a historical account of the murder of the female philosopher Hypatia by a Christian mob in the early fifth century, of the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria, and (more generally) of an alleged conflict that raged in the ancient world between Greek science and Christian faith.......

Mr. Hart's teeth are put "on edge" by simply reading another writer's impression of the film and I will let Mister Hart continue display his ignorance.

 All I know about it is what I have read in an article by Larry Rohter in the New York Times. But that is enough to put my teeth on edge.

Not that I entirely blame Mr. Amenábar. The story he repeats is one that has been bruited about for a few centuries now, often by seemingly respectable historians. Its premise is that the Christians of late antiquity were a brutish horde of superstitious louts, who despised science and philosophy, and frequently acted to suppress both, and who also had a particularly low opinion of women.

Wow, if I just read the part that is in boldface, I would guess it was a movie about the Harper Government(tm) and the stooges he surrounds himself with in Cabinet and the PMO.  

There has been some good coverage of this tragic action by our Great Ugly Leader and his gang of hogs by Andrew Nikiforuk in the Tyee.....but true to it's maddening chickenshit style, all posts about this have the comments closed before anyone reads the post, is Mr. Beers afraid of hurting the feelings of our Great Ugly Leader?

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 Shit like this and their mystifying moderation policies is why I disconneted their link from my blogroll and why I refuse to comment there.  Those  commenters who promulgate the BC LIEberal/PAB talking points are allowed to fill up acres of screen space with insults and stupidity, yet Mr. Hops and Barley cuts off G. West or Grant the Powell River Persuader at a moments notice. Sometimes I think I'm accidentally on the BC liaR's own website. 


In Secret Memo Casts Doubt on Feds' Claims for Science Library Closures  Andrew hammers both the policy and the sneaky way it is being done. 

A federal document marked "secret" obtained by Postmedia News indicates the closure or destruction of more than half a dozen world famous science libraries has little if anything to do with digitizing books as claimed by the Harper government.

Scientists have variously condemned the dismantling of the one of the world's finest aquatic libraries as a natural tragedy, a series of criminal acts and information destruction unworthy of a democracy.

"The fact that many materials were thrown away or given away is heartbreaking to those of us who are dedicated to this field of research (marine science and fisheries) and the history of science in Canada," says Peter Wells, a prominent marine environmental scientist at Dalhousie University.

In doing some research for this post I came across a brief description of Justinian the Great, who it would appear sent his DNA on down to Our Great Ugly Paunchy Leader, Spiteful Steve.  If the following statements don't make you think of the Spiteful One, you haven't been paying attention.

• he had two great commanders, Belisarius and the eunuch, Narses, who re-conquered large parts of the Western Empire from the Germans for him
• he codified Roman law (but himself ignored the rule of law—blatantly robbing friend and foe alike and encouraging his officials to extortion)
• he spent fortunes on building churches to the glory of God
• he persecuted Pagans and heretical Christians alike.

While doing all these wonderful things he forgot the proper management of the economy and did far more damage to civilisation than barbarians ever did. The empire was left ruined, its administration corrupt, the countryside abandoned and the cities full of beggars who waited in vast numbers for alms from the state coffers.

 I can't decide if Belisarius was an early model of Dean del Maestro, or Paul Calandra or maybe even Greasy Joe Oliver.  The eunuch, Narses is obviously an early proto-type for the middle aged virgin -Jason Kenny.

In an earlier piece Mr. Nikiforuk discusses the chaotic nature of the ongoing dismantling of over a century worth of knowledge and data. 

"The Department has claimed that all useful information from the closed libraries is available in digital form. This is simply not true. Much of the material is lost forever," reports one DFO scientist who requested not to be named.

That picture of a taxpayer-funded treasure trove of information laid waste emerges from interviews by The Tyee with half a dozen prominent scientists, many of whom asked to remain anonymous for fear that their funding or other government support could be hurt if their names were connected with the concerns they were eager to share.
Some of the research scientists interviewed questioned the legality of what they saw happening, accusing the Harper government of "libricide.

Not only has the Canadian public lost critical environmental and cultural baseline data more than 100 years old, but scientists have lost the symbolic heart of their research operations.

A DFO scientist told The Tyee, "The cuts were carried out in great haste apparently in order to meet some unknown agenda. No records have been provided with regard to what material has been dumped or the value of this public property. No formal attempt was made to transfer material to libraries of existing academic institutions." (See sidebar.)
One scientist after another struggled to make sense of the shuttering of libraries devoted to water and fish in a nation that guards the world's largest coastline and roughly 18 per cent of the world's surface freshwater. Most saw in the actions a political agenda by the Harper government to reduce the role of government in Canadian society, as well as the use of scientific evidence in making policy.