McGill University is a high-ranking one of international prestige. It also happens to be a public University with a relatively low budget and costs little even to foreign students, as compared to other similar ranking Universities. I see it as a sign of success and efficiency in the public University sector.

However, let us not forget the successes of the private University sector. As any quick glance at University rankings will reveal, the United States dominates the field. Of course, it has ten times the population of Canada, something that has to be considered. But Canada has three Universities in the top hundred, in contrast to the United State’s fifty-nine, rather than the thirty that would seem proportional.

I’ve often heard people complain that, though it is true that the United States is renown for its Universities, that they are far too expensive for the common family to afford. Of course, Harvard does not filter its students on merit alone (though it still offers many ways for the most brilliant students of this world to get in, regardless of their economic status). But on the whole, it seems that Universities are perfectly accessible:
Click here to continue reading »« Click here to hide text

For the avid downloaders out there, or those en route in that direction, there’s MediaMonkey (MM). I’ve put Microsoft’s Windows Media Player, Apple’s iTunes and Linux’s amaroK to good use. I’ve also tried many others out there. The only one I could recommend is MediaMonkey. You can download it here. Click here to continue reading »« Click here to hide text

I have previously written an article on the subject, entitled “Bowling For Columbine is shit.”, but I had not seen the film in quite some time when I wrote that and my focus was not on flaws with the documentary itself, but with the general position supported by its fans and, to some extent, Michael Moore. Thus, my title seems to have been somewhat inadequate. However, I will correct this here: I recently had to view the film and it will now be easier for me to criticise the documentary as a documentary, to explain why it really is shit.

I expect the same from documentaries as I expect from news articles. There is a certain methodology involved that is at the root of the discipline — a methodology that is known as “objectivity” — and Michael Moore could not have violated it in more conspicuous ways.

The film is indeed entertaining, spiced with his love of irony and his layman’s approach to the topic, and I did laugh on a few occasions while viewing the film, but the comedy aside, it seems like a collage of superficial looks at the issue. He will dig a bit, then see a new, amusing angle and pursue that, rather than continue to analyse what he first started elaborating upon. It makes it all very shallow.

This, however, I can deal with. What annoys me with his documentary is how it is passed for far more than it is, both by Michael Moore and his fans, and that he consistently misleads the viewers. There’s nothing too bothersome about a news article that says nothing and bores the readers, but what about one that excites and misleads them? Click here to continue reading »« Click here to hide text

I was curious to understand the theological basis behind why Muslim countries often have a ban on alcohol and other drugs and why Muslims refrain themselves from drinking:

The entity who designed these verses seems to not have been opposed to consuming intoxicants as a whole, as he specified one condition under which people should not consume, clearly suggesting that this condition was one exception (perhaps amongst many, but an exception nonetheless) and thus that intoxicants are not forbidden as a whole. The same goes for the other acts which he imposes conditions upon: he does not say that people can not have sex, or defecate, but that there are conditions to be imposed on these acts.

Click here to continue reading »« Click here to hide text