Mixed Message. Selective Listening

Likewise, we condemn any type of extremism. Of course, what took place was ugly. Offending the Holy Prophet is quite ugly. This has very little or nothing to do with freedom and freedom of speech. This is the weakness of and the abuse of freedom, and in many places it is a crime. It shouldn't take place and I do hope the day will come in which politicians will not seek to offend those whom others hold holy," said Ahmadinejad.

We also believe that this must also be resolved in a humane atmosphere, in a participatory environment and we do not like anyone losing their lives or being killed for any reason, anywhere in the world.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in an interview with the mentally vacant Piers Morgan.

New drinking game: take a shot every time you see the first paragraph quoted on an conservative/atheist blog without the second paragraph.

An acceptable compromise would be to create a blasphemy law with the strict requirement that you must produce the victim for cross-examination.

(Spell check tries to change Ahmadinejad to Madeleine.  They're using some type of soundex algorithm which is tuned to anglo-saxon, latin words.) Please recommend this post

God's Word on the Election

Jim Blake is the Calgary based head of Concerned Christians Canada, an Evangelical pressure group with political ambitions. Jim is none too happy about the election of Naheed Nenshi as Calgary's new mayor.

He starts off by quoting the prophet Hosea:

They set up kings without my consent;
they choose princes without my approval.

This verse is often quoted by dominion theology advocates. Democracy is displeasing to God unless you elect the one God wants. Or the one Jim and his friends want. It gets confusing. Don't laugh it's not funny. These guys are walking in and out of the Prime Minister's office and laying hands on your MP.

Jim get's to the meat of the matter:

Well we will all have to be very watchful of City hall now. Many of the worst aldermen have been re-elected and now with a Mayor who clearly has stated that he is a Muslim and an open supporter of the "Pride Parade" and therefor [sic] "alternate lifestyles", things should be very interesting.

Yes, they will be interesting. This is one little sign that my vote for Nenshi was well placed. I'm alway fascinated how one person's spiritual path turns them into a small minded bigot.

Aside: At the bottom left of the blog post there's a poll asking you to evaluate Ed Stelmach's performance. It's very strange that Alberta's worst Premier gets such a high rating from this group. Don't God's people have any discernment these days?

Please recommend this post

Down the Canwest Rabbit Hole

Yesterday’s Canwest story about supposedly missing ammonium nitrate in the lower mainland was short on details and high on irrelevant fear mongering.  I think it was rushed out. Or maybe a night cleaner got on someone’s computer.

Four quick paragraphs to remind you who to fear and loathe:

VANCOUVER — Up to two tonnes of ammonium nitrate, which can be used to make explosives, has gone missing on its way from Alberta to North Vancouver, the Vancouver Province has learned.

Kinder Morgan, a pipeline and energy storing company, was transporting a huge amount of the chemical compound in one-tonne cubes, but two cubes did not make it to their final destination in North Vancouver.

Ammonium nitrate has been used by the Taliban in Afghanistan to make explosives.

Col. Mark Lee, who heads NATO's effort to stop bomb-makers in southern Afghanistan, was recently quoted in the New York Times saying, "You can turn a bag of ammonium nitrate into a bomb in a matter of hours."

Around the same time the Globe & Mail wrote the same story except they included more facts.  The main fact was that the RCMP and the company believed the missing chemicals to be a clerical error. The RCMP believed they had no probable grounds to believe the stuff was missing, and certainly no reason to suspect a terrorist plot.

Canwest quickly re-wrote their story after the clerical error clarification and over-wrote, with the same URL, the original story quoted above.. Down the memory hole.

It’s not that I trust the RCMP in particular, I just think if I were a journalist I would be skeptical and lean to the clerical error explanation in the absence of any proof whatsoever of a theft or a plot.


But Canwest wasn’t done humping my leg. In the final story they couldn’t resist throwing in a pointless reference to the Oklahoma City bombing. So now in return I get to throw in a pointless reference to white hyper-patriotic opus day Catholics.

We know how dangerous ammonium nitrate is, and the thought of a few tonnes going missing made me very nervous. Especially when you consider that there has been sporadic bombings of oil and gas facilities in Alberta and B.C.  It may or may not be helpful to point out that the so called En Cana bomber is likely a rural land owner, demographically likely to be a Harper voter. (Zing)

I must stop reading these people’s junk.  My left eye has been twitching for two days. Please recommend this post

Hurtful By Intent

Here is a pdf copy of Rob Anders anti-Muslim pamphlet that I received in my mail box not long ago. Free speech is free speech, but this particular free speech, borderline hate speech, is wholly funded by the Government of Canada.

The key piece that caught my eye:

It is now illegal to hold opinions that offend radical Muslim activists.

A lie, pure and simple.

That, and frequent references to liberal activists, who by the semantics of infantile McCarthyism are equally to blame for whatever ails you.

It was released on or around Ramadan, and designed to fall on the fertile ground of Calgary West, a constituency built by hand by Preston Manning and Stephen Harper.

As a political strategy keeping people dumb, full of hatred, and confused about basic facts seems to have worked quite well.

h/t to Jennifer Pollock, whom I stole the post title from.



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Please recommend this post

A Vortex of Hypocrisy and Shame

I was really saddened this week when I read about the death of 16 year old Aqsa Parvez, allegedly murdered by her father. I was having a bad week to begin with and events like this don't help any of us. To me it is purely a case of domestic abuse and not an issue of immigration, race or religion. Nonetheless, the blogospere swarmed on the story, and honestly I found a lot of the commentary quite disgusting.

Unfortunately this tragedy is being used as a wedge in the ongoing Islamophobia that our society has steadily descended into since September 11, 2001.

I grew up with a friend whom I'll call B. When we were children our fathers were good friends so we saw each other a lot. I don't know how our fathers met. B's father was a WWII Pow in Hong Kong and had life long health problems because of the starvation and torture he endured. After my father passed away I didn't see B nearly as much. B and myself and our families were remarkably alike. Born in the 60's, white protestants, United Church, Boy Scouts of Canda, parents who moved into the new suburbs of Edmonton to raise their new families, etc.

B's mom and my mom occasionally talked and I'd often hear about what he was up to. After high school he had a deep Christian experience and became active in a large Pentecostal church. Neither he nor his family were particularly religious as far as I can remember. Eventually he became a leader in the Church, married and started a family. As some point I lost track of him as he moved to BC.

Sometime in 2006 B was arrested and charged in suspicion of the murder of his 16 year old daughter. I couldn't have been more shocked and saddened by this news. Talk about the last thing you would expect to find out about someone you knew.

The murder did not make the national news. It made the news in the locality where it occurred and made the news in Edmonton, but only because they were from there. The story quickly fell off the media radar and is difficult to find references on the internet at all. I still don't know if B has been convicted and sentenced yet. Last bit of information was the judge sending him off for a Psych evaluation.

When this crime occurred there was not widespread swarming in the blogosphere. No one made broad sweeping hate filled comments about Pentecostals. No one demanded that B go back where he came from. No one blamed it on the fact that B refused to assimilate into our way of life. (An Orwellian term if there ever was one. ) No one cried moral outrage because Pentecostal leaders did not hold press conferences to denounce the crime.

I'm afraid I find this contrast slightly jarring and not particularly flattering to our attitudes. I grieve for an old friend and his family. And I grieve for another family that I do not know who in addition to all else, has to deal with media glare and tightly focused racism. Please recommend this post