Nine Things We Learnt This Week

1. Margaret Thatcher, rehabilitated?

Scourge of the Left, in an Aquascutum suit
“But this portrayal of Maggie the seductress, ‘twirling through Young Conservative balls in strapless gowns,’ as the Sunday Times gushed at the weekend, sums up everything that’s wrong about the way Mrs T has been repositioned. She wasn’t a harmless socialite, she’s not a style [...]

Nine Things We Learnt This Week

1. George Bush, explained.

The devil made him
” ‘Evil exists in politics, quite often in fact,’ Father Amorth said.  ‘The devil loves to take over business leaders and those who hold political office.  Hitler and Stalin were possessed.  How do I know? Because they killed millions of people.  The Gospel says: ‘By their fruits you will [...]

House of Commons Votes to Protect War Resisters

Unfortunately, it’s non-binding. The Tories voted against the motion.
From the Canadian Friends Service Committee, the peace and social justice agency of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers):
Today, just after 3 pm, the House of Commons voted 137 – 110 in favour of the 3rd report of the Standing Committee on Immigration and Citizenship, which included this [...]

Nine Things We Learnt This Week

1. Too much coffee, we think.

Jihadi donuts
“The apparently inoffensive magazine ad shows Rachael Ray, purveyor of quick and easy recipes to millions of Food Channel viewers, in a black and white paisley scarf, clutching her iced latte in front of a row of cherry trees.
The offending item, though, is the scarf, which reminded one blogger [...]

War Resister Ordered Deported

A statement issued today by the Canadian Friends Service Committee (Quakers), The United Church of Canada, the  Mennonite Central Committee – Canada and the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers)
Canada No Longer a Safe Haven for U.S .War Resisters:
A Response to Ottawa’s Decision to Deport Corey Glass
 
Toronto: As signatories to the War Resisters Declaration, our concern for conscientious [...]

Free Speech Hysteria: Does Anyone Smell a Rat?

Studied outrage over the tribulations of Mark Steyn and Maclean’s before various human rights commissions continued this last week, with editorials appearing in both the National Post and Maclean’s.  Granted, the complaints were an abuse of process, and means need to be found to prevent the frivolous and vexatious from reaching the tribunals.  Freedom of speech [...]

A Christian, Persecuted

Several deep threads of irony lace the recent decision of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal against Christian Horizons, a provider of services to people with developmental disorders.  The case involved a Christian lesbian named Connie Heintz, who left her job with this agency, and indeed was harassed out of it. Heintz found herself unable to comply [...]

The Death of Us

Amnesty International yesterday released a report on the number of executions last year: at least 1,200 people were hung, decapitated, shot, electrocuted or lethally injected last year in twenty-four countries, and 3,347 more went to death row.  Eighty-eight per cent of executions took place in the usual suspects: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States.  [...]

The Unsnuffable Fire

Oh yeah, I am mad. After watching Tibetan monks get clubbed on Al-Jazeera, hearing about gay activists being jailed for being, well, gay activists (most notable Hu Jia), and hearing ad nauseam about Chinese labour conditions, the other day I came to the jumping conclusion that perhaps the time of the Olympics had passed.

Hoohaw of Olympian Proportions

When discussing the Olympics, regrettably a certain amount of hoohaw is inevitable, hoohaw being defined as hay processed, refined, and ultimately emitted from the non-frontal regions of Equus caballus, also known as the common horse. The hoohaw varies in degree and amount. A large lump, indeed, the greatest lump of hoohaw is how Olympics represents [...]