User:Leoboudv

This user lives in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada but was originally born and raised in Malaysia. I have a strong interest in some museum artifacts, Egyptology, Star Trek and world politics. I also collect stamps as a hobby and have a BA degree from UBC; so, I have some academic training. Personally, while I am socially liberal but fiscally conservative, I dislike extreme left or right wing takes on the issues and prefer a balance in the middle. I disagree with the followers of people such as Immanuel Velikovsky or Ahmed Osman who have some or no academic training but make incredible claims that require the revision of the accepted Egyptian chronology by hundreds of years or Egyptian history based on unclear evidence. Such revisions require credible evidence but the evidence offered is usually lacking or can be interpreted in many different ways. The evidence provided by Velikovsky is generally not accepted by mainstream academics and may be regarded as a fringe point of view in the wikipedia community.

On other matters, this user strongly disagrees with the efforts of some Left Wing or pro-Palestinian groups to ban Israeli academics from attending and lecturing at European or Canadian Universities because 1) Israel has a right to defend its citizens from suicide attacks by Islamic terrorists even if it means using force and 2) Israeli academics and professors are not responsible for Israel's state policies--whether good or bad. Israel's politicians are. Besides, we need to get a balance of discussion on heated topics like Kosovo, Chechenya, Evolution, etc from all spectrums of a conflict--including the protracted Israeli and Palestinian dispute. Biased arguments from a single side and banning people from speaking at Forums removes any balance of discussion on controversial ideas and reminds me of the Year 1933 when Hitler's Nazi supporters burned books composed by left-wing writers and Jews at German Universities immediately after coming to power. If you burn a book today, you may burn the people behind the books tomorrow...as Heine said...which is what precisely happened in the Holocaust. Extremism only leads to more tragedy and conflict. As Churchill once famously said, it is much better to Jaw Jaw (talk) than War War. I'll make only one exception and would support the censorship of fringe and/or unsustainable views on Ancient History. The Great Pyramids of Giza is one place where speculative or crackpot ideas tend to predominate about aliens or UFOs building these great ancient monuments, rather than the ancient Egyptians themselves. They have no place on Wikipedia if we want an encyclopedia based on facts.

This is my Wikimedia Commons account.