Ayan Hirsi Ali and Niall Ferguson have a thing going' on

Kathy Shaidle produces a segment of this Daily Mail story, adding her own hyperlinks and bolds in red:

The internationally celebrated historian and TV presenter Niall Ferguson has broken up with his wife of 16 years after a string of adulterous affairs.

The 45-year-old Harvard professor has left former newspaper editor Susan Douglas, with whom he has three children, for his mistress, the Somalian-born feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Ferguson, who also has high-level links to the Tory Party, with a seat on the board of the Right-wing think-tank the Centre for Policy Studies, has been seen with Ms Hirsi Ali at a number of high-profile events over recent months.

The pair are understood to have met at Time magazine’s prestigious 100 Most Influential People In The World party in New York last May.

Ms Luscombe, a friend of Ms Hirsi Ali, said: ‘I think that is where they met for the first time. In all the years I have known Ayaan, she’s never had a boyfriend. She’s gorgeous, but with a fatwa, it’s tricky to find guys.’

Is the burka a symbolic shroud?

Phyllis Chesler writes:

In Turkey—a country which was nearly accepted as a member by the European Union—a father and grandfather recently buried Medine Memi, a sixteen-year-old girl, alive—and all because she was seen talking to boys. Medine was repeatedly beaten. She ran to the police but they did not help her. When the men buried her she was “alive and fully conscious.”

This savage, heartless, primitive act is the ultimate, logical consequence of burying women alive—shrouding them–while they are still allowed to roam the earth. One becomes claustrophobic under the burqa, until one gets used to, indeed becomes dependent upon, being seen as a ghost, a phantom, invisible, not-quite-human, as good as dead.

All this past week, I received news of this Buried Alive atrocity in Turkey. I refrained from writing about it. What can one say? There is nothing to say. There is everything to do. No one is doing anything.

But, all over Europe, they are fighting about the Islamic Veil. Should burqas (full body shrouds) and niqab (face masks) be banned? Should hijab remain banned in school in France?Imams do not have to shame the government in a place like Egypt (or Afghanistan), where Muslim girls and women are being buried alive in another way: literally shrouded, face-masked, and hijabbed.

Brian Lilley on Archbishop Collins' latest salvo

One of Canada's top Catholic clerics has fired a shot across the bow of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and in the process sent a warning to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins issued a statement late Thursday saying it was "astonishing" that Ignatieff was advocating for contraception and abortion to become part of Harper's G8 proposal to reduce maternal and child mortality in the developing world.

"When there are so many obvious practical steps that can be taken to promote maternal and child health throughout the world, it is sad to see Mr. Ignatieff introduce into the discussion this negative proposal, which in no way serves to improve the health of mothers or children, but which rather imperils the most vulnerable among us."

Archbishop Collins, who represents 1.7 million Catholics across an area that covers much of the GTA and the area north of Toronto up to Georgian Bay, says the focus of any such proposal to improve the lives of women and children should focus on clean water, improved nutrition and vaccines, not abortion.

The statement is unusual in that it singles out a specific politician for a specific proposal but comments on policy by Canada's Catholic bishops is not unusual in and of itself. In the last year, the bishops have spoken out on euthanasia, human trafficking and several international issues from Israel to Sri Lanka. And while this statement seems to focus on Ignatieff, in saying, "We all await with keen interest the tangible measures that the Prime Minister will propose," Collins has put Harper on notice as well.

Please click through and read the whole thing because Brian has some really astute analysis.

David Cameron. Conservative?

Ruth Gledhill writes:

Tory leader David Cameron has launched an astonishing attack on the Church of England over its attitudes to homosexuality. In an interview with the gay magazine Attitude, Cameron tells award-winning journalist Johann Hari that 'our Lord Jesus' would back equality and gay rights if he were around today. He says he doesn't want to get into a row with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. 'But I think the Church has to do some of the things that the Conservative Party has been through - sorting this issue out and recognising that full equality is a bottom line full essential.' He also introduces a new phrase to the English language, one that might be current in High Tory circles but not one I've heard before, in reference to Muslim women: 'Blowing the hijab off them.'

Ho ho. And we all thought he was a politician.

Our Lord Jesus would call us all to die to our sin natures so that we can receive our new nature in Him. As we die with him in baptism, we rise with Him in new life. Chastity is a hallmark of our new identity, whether married or single.

Too bad David Cameron failed Sunday school. What a terrible pass he puts real conservatives in. I could never vote for someone like this.

"Spengler" contemplates buying a black hat

He writes over at his First Thing's blog:

“Follow your bliss” was the watchword of the late Joseph Campbell, the cultural anthropologist who popularized the idea of the universal “hero’s journey” and the “spiritual quest.” Campbell was also an anti-Semite

The controversy surrounding the ritual role of women at the Kotel (the western wall of the Jerusalem Temple) peaked in the last several days with the arrest of women for adopting male roles (specifically, carrying the Torah scrolls during a prayer service last week). I do not propose to evaluate charges that the Israeli police overreacted, much less to address the difficult issue of women’s ritual leadership in Jewish worship. But the statement issued January 27 by the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary made me want to go out and buy a black hat:

By permitting ultra-Orthodox extremists to control public life and block other caring and devoted Jews from fully realizing their spiritual quest, intentionally or not you send a message that Israel is not committed to democratic principles.

Quest, schmest. Who cares if anyone realizes their “spiritual quest”? That, if you will pardon the term is not goyische naches (a deprecatory Yiddish term referring to something that would give satisfaction to a Gentile) but pagan naches. It bespeaks Campbell’s New Age, narcissistic search for self-realization, not the fearful and ecstatic encounter with the creator of the universe.

The God who loved Abraham stands beyond all hymns and praises of which humanity is capable, states our most frequently-recited prayer, the Kaddish. How is it possible to approach this transcendent and omnipotent God? Judaism’s answer (and in a different way, Christianity’s) is that God himself has given us the means to approach him, through the Temple service of which ritual prayer is the successor, through Torah study, and through imitation of God in the form of works of lovingkindness. It is not a quest that we cook up for ourselves: it is a path not too difficult for our foot to tread.

Catholic Bishop Peter J. Elliot explains the Ordinariates

But what does Pope Benedict’s welcome and offer involve? You have to be clear about this before saying “yes”, “no”, even “maybe”.

The Pastor of the nations is reaching out to give you a special place within the Catholic Church. United in communion, but not absorbed – that sums up the unique and privileged status former Anglicans will enjoy in their Ordinariates.

Catholics in full communion with the Successor of St Peter, you will be gathered in distinctive communities that preserve elements of Anglican worship, spirituality and culture that are compatible with Catholic faith and morals. Each Ordinariate will be an autonomous structure, like a diocese, but something between a Personal Prelature (as in Opus Dei, purely spiritual jurisdiction), or a Military Ordinariate (for the Armed Forces). In some ways, the Ordinariate will even be similar to a Rite (the Eastern Catholic Churches). You will enjoy your own liturgical “use” as Catholics of the Roman Rite. At the same time your Ordinaries, bishops or priests, will work alongside diocesan bishops of the Roman Rite and find their place within the Episcopal Conference in each nation or region.

There is no “hidden agenda” here, no popish trap! So beware of warnings from certain traditional Anglican bloggers or pamphleteers. They distort the Pope’s offer because they cling to small fiefdoms and purist enclaves – where they do as they wish. Indeed, the Ordinariates come under the discipline of the Church and her laws, but the Code of Canon Law is also a detailed charter of our rights as clergy and laity.

The decision to be reconciled through an Ordinariate can only made through following personal conscience, that is, after prayer, study and reflection. This is a step of faith in Jesus Christ and his Church. It involves accepting all the teachings of the Church on faith and morals.

Such a personal assent of faith needs to be formed and informed. To use an Anglican expression, please “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This summarises the Faith “once given”, embodied in one Word of God that comes to us, as the Second Vatican Council teaches, through Scripture and Tradition.

There will be sacrifices, but humility and suffering are parts of a faith journey – and many of you have already suffered much for the sake of conscience.

Jennifer Lynch is sharpening her nails--watch out!

I guess because there's been a lull in commentary about the egregious overreach of "human rights" commissions, the Canadian Human Rights Commission's chief commissar is wading back into the fray with efforts to preserve the detestable censorship provision Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Scaramouche, Five Feet of Fury and Mark Steyn are all over it. Mark writes:

Kathy Shaidle makes another point - that the CHRC is now Canada's largest publisher of racist commentary: It's the one-stop shop for all your racist needs. To take another point I made to Parliament:

Let me take the most recent example of a section 13 conviction. The sole charge on which Marc Lemire was found guilty a month ago was for a post that appeared at his website, written by somebody else. That piece was read by a grand total of just eight people in the whole of Canada, which works out to 0.8 of a Canadian per province, or if you include territories, 0.6153 of a Canadian. And almost all those 0.6153s of a Canadian going to this website and reading this piece were Richard Warman and his fellow dress-up Nazis at the Human Rights Commission, salivating at the prospect of having found another witch to provide more bounty.

In other words, no one in Canada saw this post. No one in Canada read it. Nothing could be less “likely to expose” anyone to hatred or contempt than an unread post at an unread website. Yet Canadian taxpayers paid for Jennifer Lynch and the Nazi fetishists at the commission to investigate this unread bit of nothing for six years.

In the course of securing this itsy-bitsy single conviction, these psychologically disturbed employees of the Human Rights Commission wrote and distributed far more hate speech of their own.

By the way, Kathy is absolutely right to reprint one of the "hate poems" helpfully anthologized by the CHRC. Aside from the fact that the author should have been prosecuted for his appalling false rhymes, the notion that material deemed not only criminal but dangerous if printed on a private unread web site can be disseminated perfectly legally by a far more widely read government website exposes the lie on which Commissar Lynch's lavish sinecure rests - that, if exposed to this material, the moronic citizenry would be rampaging down the 401 from one pogrom to the next.

No, they wouldn't. It's wholly irrelevant to the Queen's peace, but it's vital to control-freak conceptions of state power.

What's interesting is that under Section 13 as written there is no defense for truth and no defense for motive. The speech is deemed to be harmful because of its impact on designated minority groups, not on whether it is factually true or whether the person making the expression was inwardly motivated by hatred.

So, Jennifer Lynch et. al. could argue that their posting the tacky poem that got Mark Lemire into trouble is okay because their motivation is to show how hard they are working to rid the world of hate speech. But no, she is in violation of Section 13 as it is written.

If a magazine or a blog posts the poem for journalistic reasons, those motives would not count for a hill of beans under Section 13 and the latest postmodern "human rights" thinking if some interest group decided to make an example of you. Mark Steyn got hauled before three jurisdictions for accurately quoting Imams and citing accurate statistics about demographic trends. Truth is no defense, neither is motive under these various "human rights" codes. And clearly there are people out there who like filing complaints merely for the hassle it causes.

Yeah, yeah, the CHRT has "written in" Taylor and Jennifer Lynch has smiled her Cheshire-cat smile in agreement, while at the same time appealing the CHRT Lemire decision. What other reason than to back the previous status quo? Or to say that Lemire's poem was so hateful that it did fit the definition.

You see, the open-ended Section 13, even interpreted by the penumbra of Taylor, (which does speak to motive and narrows what constitutes hate speech) gives power to folks like Lynch that makes her the chief arbiter of what one is allowed to say or publish in Canada. It also gives activists of various stripes can use to punish their political opponents through lawfare.

Here's what the CHRC is saying now:

5.1 Definition of hatred and contempt - The Commission applies the restrictive definition of hatred and contempt established by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Taylor case. Applying this definition ensures that the exercise of the Commission’s mandate does not offend the Charter.

This means that in order to come within the ambit of section 13, the communication that is the subject of the complaint must be so excessive and extreme in nature that it suggests that a given race, sex, religion or other group identifiable in relation to one or more grounds in the CHRA is devoid of any redeeming qualities as human beings. If the message does not meet this threshold, it will not be found to come within the ambit of section 13, notwithstanding that the message is offensive, controversial, shocking or disgusting to some.

But then it thought Lemire's poem fit the bill. You can read the poem on the CHRC site here.

It goes on to talk about non-whites and people with turbans etc. displacing whites. It's the kind of stuff that would make me not want to read Mark Lemire's site and possibly explains why his readership was so low.

But should this be against the law?

Do you want Jennifer Lynch deciding? What about a legitimate news story on how some ethnic groups might be using welfare and Canada's generous family class programs to abuse our system?

Where does it end?

And then, how come you never see any human rights commission taking action against signs in downtown Toronto or Calgary talking about killing the Jews?

David Warren and the relationship of climate change to chastity

Most interesting, as usual. Here's an excerpt but read the whole column which goes into the various projections of dire effects from Anthropogenic Global Warming that have been recently shown to have no scientific basis whatsoever:

Like communist apparatchiks in the good old days, a global warm-alarmist may "honestly" think he is serving a higher purpose, that he is on "the right side of history," that he must cut a few corners for the greater good, that the end will eventually justify the means. Read Dostoevsky on this. The book is Crime and Punishment, and the character is Raskolnikov. By subtle increments a failure of candour degenerates into major-league crime.

Not only all the numbers, but all the assumptions behind "AGW" -- not "most," but all -- have depended on the manipulation of facts by persons who had an interest in manipulating them. Often the specific incident is small, but the falsehood is cumulative. Investment in the illusion grows, the stakes become too large to forfeit. Yet the reality remains: that we still don't know any more about long-term human influence on climate than Punxsutawney Phil can know by observing his own shadow.

This should have been obvious to climatologists from the beginning. At the simplest level, they could observe that global temperature estimates depended on a slur of constantly changing thermometer locations and time sequences. NASA's recent admissions are the more pathetic for that reason: from the top down, these were men who should have known better than to think they could fly beyond the end of such a limb.

I have argued previously for chastity: not limited to the sexual sense, of keeping one's pants on. The virtue of chastity requires us to look at the world without immediately engaging our desires. Those desires are often not sexual at all; some of the most powerful involve justifying one's livelihood. A scientist with an interest in getting a result is under huge temptation, compounded by the huge public funding on which his research depends.

Our mysterious capacity for chastity can put us above the animal level: for if we try, we can actually remove the blinkers of, "What's in it for me?" -- and discover truths larger than ourselves. The highest arts and sciences require alike the highest conditions of chastity. It is what lifts us above the groundhogs.

The upcoming lawfare trial of the century

Ever heard of lawfare? Soft jihad? You will soon.

The so-called Hairless Sockpuppet is suing Ezra Levant. Heh heh heh. I'm ordering a CASE of microwave popcorn for this performance that will put Awan's name down in the annals of Canadian history.

His name will one day be synonymous with lawfare. And a source of shame for generations.

The excellent Robert Sibley gives some background on the man who is foolish enough to sue Ezra
(my bolds).

Khurrum Awan, one-time president of the Canadian Islamic Congress’s youth wing, and sidekick to Congress leader Mohammed Elmasry, undertook the complaints against Steyn. The latter, as I’m sure everyone remembers, once declared on The Michael Coren Show that every Israeli over the age of 18 was a legitimate terrorist target. (I’ve provided an excerpt below for those who’ve forgotten what Elmasry said. I’ve often wondered why he wasn’t charged with hate speech.)

Anyway, the complaints against both Steyn and Levant were eventually tossed, much to the irritation of Islamo-propagandists like Greg Felton, who, in the Dec. 9, 2008 edition of Canadian Arab News, denounced “the stupidity and cowardice” of the human rights tribunal that handled the Steyn complaint.

Khurrum Awan, however, took some consolation, according to Felton’s report. Awan gloated at the thought that his complaints had cost Maclean’s a great deal of money. Indeed, that seems to be the real purpose of the complaints.

Felton quoted Awan as saying: “‘We do not plan to appeal the decision because we attained out strategic objective — to increase the cost of publishing anti-Islamic material.’ Awan said Maclean’s spent $500,000 alone on the B.C. case, but that does not take into account the case in Ontario. The total legal cost to Maclean’s is somewhere around $2 million.” (No mention of all the taxpayers’ money the human rights commissions wasted in allowing the complaints in the first place.)

In other words, Awan and his Muslim friends weren’t really concerned about rights or justice or wanting to be treated the same as other Canadians. Nope, it was all about making it too expensive for anyone to dare criticize Islam. It was all about using (abusing?) the legal system to silence Canadians who question the Islamic worldview.

I’d call that jihad chill, or, perhaps, soft terrorism. Isn’t it a kind of terrorism when the law itself becomes the means for frightening people into silence, and, thereby, stripping them of rights to free speech and freedom of religion, which, of course, including the right to criticize religion. (Can you imagine the hullabaloo if the Catholic Church started indulging in lawsuits against those who blaspheme the Son of God?)

I cannot wait until the discovery process begins.

Hooray! Binks is back with lots of fresh linkz

And commentary, too.

Enjoy.

But take his latest warning to heart about a new front opening in the battle for preventing government encroachment on our God-given liberties. He writes:

~ THE STATUS QUO-ITES are coming out fighting, in a new submission to the parliamentary Commission reviewing Section 13 of the Human Rights thing.

So now LEAF– or, The Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund– is a radical busy-body group who’ve minded business in many court cases, including some notable human rights debacles.

Their latest intervention is interesting for two reasons.

(1) It’s legally pretty, with all the proper footnotes, citations, and precedent-speak which is part of our legal tradition, even when radical things are being done. The equivalent is a scholar’s paper loaded with the right terminology, bits of Greek, Latin, German, and piled high with footnotes. It’s black tail and tie, with bells on, and partly a comfortable appeal to the lawyerly sort who largely populate parliament and her committee ranks. It shows the nanny-squads are getting worried, and bringing out their big words, and clearest case.

(2) LEAF is making a bid to reset the debate. This is utter status quo-ism as a non-negotiating position. Let’s rewind, it says, to the good old days when the rabble weren’t allowed to interfere in the betters crushing the lessers, with no witnesses, or proper justice done. This is the stuff a HRC honcho only dreams about, and even sideswipes the moderate and eminently reasonable position of Professor Moon as being too far to the extremist right.

The Thing Itself

This report (read it all, including the footnotes) is a nasty piece of work, like a vicious but well-mannered Renaissance diplomat not above using assassins and poisons to do his work. It represents a curiously dusty perspective, as if 9/11, Canucki terror-plots, the MoToon thing, HRC abuses over 20 years– heck, the entire free-speech debate concerning Muslims– and hence to Christians and other freespeechers– had never happened, and we lived in the 1980s. Problem? What problem? Nothing to see here folks, move along.

For this observer, it illustrates nicely the intellectual and historical bankruptcy of the HRC utopian position: what they can’t deal with, they ignore; what they reject, they smear; what they imagine is possible (despite all evidence and experience) they pursue by any means– even such strangely dated and well-aired and problematic ideas and language that got us to the situation we’re in in Canada, now becoming a less free state with softly advancing religious and political repression on the one hand, and utter blindness and permissiveness towards stealth Jihadi anti-Westernists and radical Leftists in our midst on the other.

The appalling push for abortion to "help" women and children

by ensuring there are fewer of them, especially fewer poor children.

The Liberals put out this appalling news release yesterday:

Liberals are concerned that Stephen Harper’s maternal health initiative will not
fund organizations that advance women’s rights to reproductive choice and access
to birth control.

Reproductive choice is a euphemism for abortion and no one on the left is willing to talk about the damage abortion does to women, mentally, physically or socially. What's abortion got to do with helping women deliver babies safely and ensuring their offspring survive past the age of five? How does killing their kids before they're born help them? As Kate McMillan writes at Small Dead Animals:

Someone really needs to get him on the record answering that question. (Just
think of the photo op ... "Prime Minister Michael Ignatieff at the Morgentaler
Clinic, Port-Au-Prince ribbon cutting".)

I hope my friend Ezra Levant does not mind if I steal his whole blog post on this. Here goes:


-->

What's
the first thing you think of when you see all those poor Haitian kids?
By
Ezra Levant on February 2, 2010 10:21

Stephen Harper's reaction
Send food, medicine and relief workers.
Be amongst the first in the world to help. Dispatch our disaster response team within
hours of the earthquake.
Save every child you can.
Make a personal example of donating, encourage other Canadians to donate, and match those private donations.
Host an international Haiti relief conference.
Pledge to make the upcoming G8 meeting about helping the
world's poor, especially moms with infants, by funding "clean
water, vaccinations and nutrition".

Michael Ignatieff's reaction "Liberals support the plan so
long as it includes abortion".
h/t sda
P.S.
Surely it's just a coincidence that Ignatieff's first major policy statement
about abortion has to do with Haiti and other Third World minorities, right? I
mean, it's not like Planned Parenthood was founded by a racist woman who called
blacks "reckless breeders" and had a special "Negro Project" right? I mean, Planned Parenthood would never argue that eugenics was the best solution
of racial, political and social problems would they?
Right?

Binks needs to get well soon so we can Free Guy Earle

I realize I've been dropping the ball lately on a number of developments on the "human rights" front. Yuppers, those are scare quotes.

Unfortunately, Binks over at Free Canuckistan is under the weather and we don't have our one-stop action central for all the threats to our liberties and way of life. Please head over and wish the Binks well, okay? We need him to get well soon.

I trust most of you know already that Ezra Levant is being sued by the Hairless Sock Puppet (that's Kathy Shaidle's useful description). Read about it here. Hairless took part in a lawfare jihad against Maclean's Magazine, using "human rights commissions" to make any criticism of Islamism too costly for publishers worried about their bottom line. Grab the popcorn as this will be the gift that keeps on giving, ensuring us hours of entertaining, vintage Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn posts. Head on over to Ezra's site and hit the PayPal button so he can "follow the money" in discovery.

And don't forget to Free Guy Earle. Remember him? He's the comic being dragged through the B.C. "Human Rights" Tribunal. Mark writes:

Different people react to "human rights" torture in different ways: Ezra Levant and I are oppositional by nature and by profession. You take a swing at us, we'll swing back. Go ahead, "human rights" punks, make our day. So is Marc Lemire, whose bloody-minded refusal to sit there and take it wound up inflicting more damage on the racket than anything else.

But most victims of Canada's thought police aren't like that: They're just regular folks trying to get on with their lives without catching the eye of the state enforcers, and, in that sense, Guy Earle is far closer to the gay guy with acute sinusitis forced to close down his b-&-b or the health-club owner taken to the cleaners by a pre-op transsexual who wanted to use the ladies' showers. These are fellows leading fully compliant Trudeaupian lives who nevertheless find they've managed to attract the attentions of an ever more whimsical tyranny. It would be interested to know what might have befallen Catsmeat Kinsella, notorious ethnic comic and Count Iggy's lead attack chihuahua, had he essayed his culinary jests in a Vancouver comedy club. That's the point: No matter how daintily you tiptoe on PC eggshells, it'll never be enough.

I feel very sorry for Mr Earle. The most interesting part of the Rob Breakenridge interview is when he muses on some of the website comments that appeared after news reports about the case: "This is the best thing that could happen to Guy Earle’s career", etc. "That is not how this works at all," explains the comic, recounting how he was being lined up for some event in Vancouver until the promoter got wind of the suit and decided he didn't need a lot of trouble from the gay community. "A lot of people don’t want to have anything to do with me," he says. "I don’t know what the silver lining is."

And he hasn't even been convicted of anything yet.

It's interesting to me how all those promoters who claim to be committed to producing "edgy", "transgressive", "provocative" comedy wilt like pansies in the face of one "human rights" complaint. But it's invariably the case that the self-congratulatory left, forever hailing itself for its courage in speaking truth to power, is never there when real courage is needed - even if, like Guy Earle, you're essentially one of their own.

Rob Breakenridge has more, including an interview with Guy.

Dear Guy,

Please write a new comedy routine about your battle with the "human rights" people. Make a CD of it. We'll buy it. Find the humor in this. As Omar Khayyam wrote in his famous poem the Rubaiyat: Make a game of that which makes as much of thee.

Have fun. Take your depression, turn it into righteous anger and put all your talent into making a mockery of these censorious clowns. Make a financial killing on their sorry arses. Next time you are before the Tribunal be watching for how you can impersonate the cast of characters. Take notes. Heh heh heh. I can see it already. Heh heh heh. In fact, you could get a blonde wig and some killer fingernails nails and do a Jennifer Lynch impersonation (with that Cheshire Cat smile) so easily. I know you're fight is before the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, but hey, you have such a wide selection of easy targets to lampoon.

There is a whole audience out there that is tired of oral sex jokes and the other sexual fare that seems to be the "transgressive" humor in comedy clubs. Be genuinely transgressive and take on this travesty.

We're rooting for you, but you need to fight for yourself, too.

Revenue Canada is "way out of line" says Bishop Henry

OTTAWA - Revenue Canada is “way out of line” and could be setting a worrisome precedent by revoking the charitable status of a church run by an activist lay pastor, said Calgary Bishop Fred Henry.

The Glory Christian Fellowship ran afoul of Revenue Canada due to the activities of its lay pastor, Artur Pawlowski. In December, the church received a letter from Dian Prodenov of Revenue Canada informing the fellowship its charitable status was revoked because “members of the Board of Directors espouse strong negative views about sensitive and controversial issues, which may also be viewed as political, such as abortion, homosexuality, divorce, etc.”

Revenue Canada had taken information off StreetChurch.ca, a web site for the entirely separate Street Church Ministries that Pawlowski, 37, also runs as part of his ministry to feed the poor and evangelize the homeless.

Andrea and ProWoman Prolife has some questions for World Vision

She writes:

A follow up post to the maternal health saga of last week. This week I will be writing Mr. Dave Toycen of World Vision a letter, because this press release says World Vision is partnering with Action Canada Population and Development. I’ll ask why they chose to do so. Does World Vision believe abortion is part of maternal health? If not, how did Action Canada wheedle their way in to this otherwise good group of charities? I need to hear a concrete answer. This press release doesn’t look good.

In praise of the Holy Father, Father Z and Mark Steyn

Over at The Anglo-Catholic.

I add a little rant at the bottom, too.

The Holy Father urges bishops to be generous to Anglicans wishing to join the Catholic Church

The Anglo-Catholic has posted the text of Pope Benedict's remarks to the British bishops making their ad limina visits to the Holy See (via Vatican Radio). Fr. Anthony Chadwick has helpfully bolded the portions that stand out to me as well. I am excerpting some paragraphs that include those bolds. Go on over and read the whole text:

Your country is well known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society. Yet as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed. I urge you as Pastors to ensure that the Church’s moral teaching be always presented in its entirety and convincingly defended. Fidelity to the Gospel in no way restricts the freedom of others – on the contrary, it serves their freedom by offering them the truth

-snip-

In a social milieu that encourages the expression of a variety of opinions on every question that arises, it is important to recognize dissent for what it is, and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate. It is the truth revealed through Scripture and Tradition and articulated by the Church’s Magisterium that sets us free.

-snip-

Be close to your priests, and rekindle their sense of the enormous privilege and joy of standing among the people of God as alter Christus. In Newman’s words, “Christ’s priests have no priesthood but His … what they do, He does; when they baptize, He is baptizing; when they bless, He is blessing” (Parochial and Plain Sermons, VI 242).

-snip-

Ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue assume great importance in England and Wales, given the varied demographic profile of the population. As well as encouraging you in your important work in these areas, I would ask you to be generous in implementing the provisions of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, so as to assist those groups of Anglicans who wish to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church. I am convinced that, if given a warm and open-hearted welcome, such groups will be a blessing for the entire Church.

From the Vatican, 1 February 2010

Sometimes you have to laugh about exploding bazooms

Pamela Geller writes:

Islamic Jihad Plan Breast Bomb Attacks: Britain is facing a new Al Qaeda terror threat from suicide ‘body bombers’ with explosives surgically inserted inside them.
Maybe the Muslim women will like their new tatas so much, they will want to live! laugh! love! as infidels. Hubba hubba boom.

Why isn't our mainstream media covering Climategate?

According to American Thinker, the British press are all over the falsification of science in the climate change racket. So where is the mainstream media in North America?

The revelations have been nothing short of jaw dropping. Dozens - yes dozens - of claims made in the IPCC 2007 report on climate change that was supposed to represent the "consensus" of 2500 of the world's climate scientists have been shown to be bogus, or faulty, or not properly vetted, or simply pulled out of thin air.

We know this because newspapers in Great Britain are doing their job; vetting the 2007 report item by item, coming up with shocking news about global warming claims that formed the basis of argument by climate change advocates who were pressuring the US and western industrialized democracies to transfer trillions of dollars in wealth to the third world and cede sovereignty to the UN.

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This is a great story. It has everything a media outlet could desire; scandal, conflict of interest (IPCC head Pauchuri runs companies that benefited from climate scare stories), government cover ups - why then, has this unraveling of the basis of climate science that posited catastrophic man made warming not been making any news at all in the United States?

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Perhaps its time to ask why this story being revealed overseas with new revelations almost daily in the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, the Timesonline, and other Fleet Street publications can't get any traction here. Blogs like Watts up with That and Climate Depot are keeping us informed of the latest from England but we hear crickets chirping when it comes to stories from major newspapers and - outside of Fox News - the cable nets.

As global warming the political movement is losing its scientific justification, the American people - who will be asked to foot the bill to the tune of trillions of dollars if Obama goes ahead with his "green" plans - are grossly uninformed about the state of the debate. Until the media starts to give this story the coverage it deserves, that state of affairs will not change.

Funny how you have to turn to the blogosphere to hear about this

Actually, it's not funny at all. It's horrible.

Lumpy, Grumpy and Frumpy has pictures and commentary from a recent march in Toronto by Coptic Christians protesting ongoing persecution in Egypt. She writes:

"Canada, Canada, Wake Up!" was the cry I heard most often at yesterday's Coptic Christian march through downtown Toronto. Their voices raw and sometimes desperate, the marchers cried out to Canada, their beacon of hope and democracy, to put an end to Islamic terrorism and save their fellow Copts in Egypt.

Their message was simple and blunt and absolutely not politically correct: "Islamic terrorists must be stopped!" "No more Christian blood!" "Why, why, must we die?" "No, no Islam by force!"

This is the difference between Canadians who have lived comfortable lives free of Islamic repression and those who have experienced it first-hand in their home countries: we pussy-foot around and are oh-so-careful not to offend anyone's feelings or, heaven forbid, cause an argument, whereas they will openly name the problem and call for a solution.

Despite the extremely cold weather, thousands of Coptic Christians gathered at Dundas Square, then marched to Nathan Phillips Square and on to Queen's Park. Their signs were varied; each carried a powerful message. The impetus for the rally was the recent escalation of violence against Copts by Muslims in Egypt but their signs and chants highlighted 1,440 years of Islamic violence.

Please head on over and look at her many photographs.