Asshat of the Day - March 2nd, 2008

Today's Asshat? Minister of Science and Technology Gary Goodyear.

Why, you ask? Let's let the Globe and Mail tell the story.

The screaming erupted last Wednesday afternoon, just down the street from Parliament Hill, in the offices of a Conservative cabinet minister.

Never a good sign in the Houses of Parliament, screaming.

“The minister was very angry,” said David Robinson, associate executive director of CAUT. “He was raising his voice and pointing his finger … He said everyone loves their [federal budget] and we said, ‘A lot of our members don't love it'… and he said, ‘That's because you're lying to them, misleading them.'”

Hm. Slander, Mr. Goodyear?

Mr. Goodyear, a chiropractor from Cambridge, Ont., said the government has been steadily investing in science and technology since 2006, with a new emphasis on commercialization and that it has designed an overall strategy to ensure Canada remains a world leader in research.

“We have done everything right,” he said.

Well, that at least is a lie.

Now, the G&M article is a start, but there's also a lovely little piece in the Cambridge Voice - Gary Goodyear in His Own Words:

Age of the Internet
”I certainly don’t have any time to play on the Internet,” Cambridge MP Gary Goodyear said, adding that he would be concerned about the comments people may post when no one is watching.
(The Record, July 21, 2007)

And it goes on...

Conservative candidate Gary Goodyear said: “I’m pro-life and that’s the answer to the question.”
(Cambridge Times Friday, June 11, 2004)

And on...

Same Sex Marriage
Mr. Speaker, I, like most of my colleagues on this side of the House and many others on the other side as well, believe that the traditional definition of marriage is the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. However, in the course of this debate those of us who support marriage have been told that to amend the bill to reflect the traditional definition of marriage, we would be in violation of human rights and committing an unconstitutional violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
I believe this is an attempt by the government to shift the grounds of the debate. It is another famous Liberal distraction. Liberals do not want to debate the question of traditional marriage versus same sex marriage so they would rather focus on attacking their opponents as opposing human rights and the charter.
(Hansard April 21, 2005)

And this is our Minister of Science and Technology. Gee, he sure sounds forward-thinking and open-minded, doesn't he?

Seriously. U.S. Assistant to the President for Science and Technology? A physics PhD with over 300 published articles, twenty books, and a list of awards as long as my arm, with twenty years' teaching experience at Berkeley.

US Energy Secretary? A. Nobel. Laureate..

Our Minister of Science and Technology? A pro-life, anti-gay chiropractor and acupuncturist who has anger control issues when told he's doing his job wrong. Probably, he's just terrified that someone will ask him to find - and indicate to a health professional - a subluxation.

And there you are, ladies and gentlemen - the Asshat of the Day.

Afterthought: Thanks to Canadian Cynic for pointing me in the direction of this news story, and reminding me of something I had tried dearly to forget.

Sunny Day, Sweepin' the Clouds Away... (Part 1)

So, it seems Blogging Tory Raging Tory is, among his other failings, a global warming denier. Now, I could take this gentleman, his beliefs, and his politics, to task, but instead I'm going to address a particularly heinous document he produced as "proof" of the "controversy" surrounding Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Namely, U. S. Senate Minority Report: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims Scientists Continue to Debunk “Consensus” in 2008.

Now, in my initial brief perusal of the document in question, my impression was that it was a massive example of quote-mining and showboating. However, given that dear Justin suggested that I had overlooked this document, I felt it was worthwhile to give it a more thorough going-over.

So, here goes. (Note: Initially, I'd planned to make this a single post, but given the magnitude of the document - and the attempt at misdirection it makes - it really needs a bit more time. So here's part one.)

First impressions - too many links - and this is me talking. Also, for a document supposedly updated on January 27th, 2009, there are an awful lot of broken links. Regardless, in the first full page of the document (not counting the colossal crest), there are forty-nine links. Of these:

• Links to articles the author of the document wrote: 20 (including one link back to the document itself!)


• Duplicated links: 3 (or 6, depending on how you look at it.)


• Links to articles authored by organizations or individuals whose primary (or only) concern is disproving AGW: 4


• Links to articles authored by retired academics: 2 (One of whom thinks that second hand smoke is harmless, too!)


• Links to powerpoint presentations by current academics: 1


• Links to articles authored by current academics: 3 (Some sketchy funding there, though)


• Links to articles that do not support the premise of the document (that AGW is a fraud): 9


• Links to articles that include links to thorough rebuttals: 1


• Links to op-ed pieces: 3


• Links to blog posts: 1

So. Not a spectacular start to this (in the author's own words) "blockbuster report".

Next time, we'll have a look at a few of the six hundred and fifty scientists who make up the body of the report. Any guesses as to what we'll find?

Asshat of the Day - February 20th, 2009

Today's Asshat of the Day is an individual who I suspect didn't get a Valentine this year, and whom - at the risk of an ad hominem attack - I sincerely hope never reproduces. Not that I'm so sure his genes are that bad - I'm sure any children of his could grow up to be decent human beings if removed from his influence - but rather that I'd prefer it if he never got to have sex. Or experience much by way of pleasure. Ever.

Strong, you say? You be the judge. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, live, from the Blogging Tories Forum, Mr. Rusty Bedsprings!

Now, I grant you, usually making fun of the Blogging Tories is someone else's schtick, but Rusty here is so... deserving a target that we're going to spend an AotD post, just dissecting what's wrong with him. (And this is just his public life. I've no doubt there are many, many more things wrong with his private life.)

First, a brief list of topics that Rusty himself has started:

Pro life supporters are anti-women	Poorly titled thread - Rusty is actually whining about the U of C shutting down an offensive anti-abortion demonstration. And even that's a smokescreen - he's not complaining about fettered rights to free speech - he's simply purely anti-abortion, because the second post (also his) complains about Obama returning funding to NGOs that sponsor abortions - though US funds cannot be earmarked for that particular operation.
anti missle[sic] shield? who needs it, not me i'm invincible	Demonstrating an ability to state a definitive opinion despite having read no more than a sentence from an article somewhere as "research", Rusty attempts to assert, in the face of opposing evidence, that anyone who doesn't want to build an anti-ballistic missile system is a moron, and damn the expense! This one's a good read - even confronted with the ineffective nature of the system, Rusty sticks to his guns.
Your[sic] patriotic? whats[sic] up with you...	Basically, again, with no research, Rusty wades into a case of "kids these days aren't patriotic enough". This, in typical BT Forum manner, transforms into a case of "I wish we were more like the US."
Can their[sic] be too many?	Intended in reference to the case of Nadya Suleman, the young woman who had octuplets as a result of the implantation of multiple frozen embryos. Here, we see Rusty and the rest of the BT crowd trying to reconcile three long-standing right-wing philosophies - less legislation, control over reproduction, and "babies are good!" - with a traditional left-wing tautology that was, at the time of the posting, becoming painfully obvious in the Suleman case: Some people can't be trusted to do what's good for them, society, or their children. Regular poster and general village idiot ezbeatz weighed in with his statement (short form: "Bureaucrats and regulations are evil!") and got modded up by our boy Rusty.
Good	Short form: "Blargh, blargh, blargh! Guy makes mistake, punish him forever!" I'm the first to agree that Erik Millet made the wrong decision here - Political Correctness and acceptance are all very well, but it's O Canada. The kids don't have to sing it if they don't want to. However, saying "Good" to the fact that the poor, beleaguered man has received death threats and may lose his job is quite another thing.
is it wrong to be philisophical(sic)?	This post was so incoherent that the BTs themselves criticized it.

In a way, this post is directed less at Rusty himself and more at the kind of people he represents - those who are uneducated, unintelligent, opinionated, and proud of all three without realizing that value attributed to the last is proportional to the first two. Those who read what they want from a document, and ignore other points. These are the people who have earned the title of Asshat of the Day, and representing them is a card-carrying member: Rusty Bedsprings.

P.S.: My own subversive handle on the BT forums is darkstorme - I encourage anyone who wants a bit of a laugh to join me in posting rational arguments to the various self-congratulatory discussions that take place.

A New Kind of Asshat

Samson Effect dropping in with my first post here on Not Fit to Print. Since I've been tabbed by AN as a contributor, it's probably high time I started contributing.

Anyways, I like to think of myself as a tolerant person. I've few qualms with respect to personal faith, or political ideology, and if people are sensible and reasonable, I often afford the same. That being said, there are some issues or events that get to me, and fewer still that provoke a visceral reaction. A news item coming from Italy a couple weeks back was one such thing that made me feel a touch queasy, and so without further ado, your Asshat of the Day:

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

So how did Mr. Berlusconi earn this title? The summary version of it is that Italy is going through its very own Terry Schiavo case, and may be facing a constitutional crisis as a result thanks to Berlusconi. A 38-year-old Italian woman was the victim of a car accident in 1992, and suffered brain damage to the point of putting her in a persistent vegetative state, which she has been in since. After a decade-long legal battle, doctors had begun reducing nutrition to prepare removal of feeding tubes, after seventeen years in a coma, which according to the father, would be in accordance with the woman's wishes, and according to my opinions, is the right thing to do after 17 years and no change in condition.

Berlusconi, however, does not seem inclined to agree with me, and that is certainly his right. However, he issued an emergency decree that effectively reverses the court ruling, which states that food and water cannot be suspended for patients depending on them. So, what was Mr. Berlusconi's justifications for blocking the feeding tube removal, after consulting with the Vatican head of state?

Physically, she was “in the condition to have babies.”

I am not making this up. I wish I was. This justification to me is even more abhorrent than any of the ones used by the Schindlers in the Schiavo case, and I thought there was some offensive ones in there, from claiming it would violate her wishes as a Roman Catholic (which, I suppose, is fair), to challenging the PVS diagnosis (which, while also fair, I think is pretty silly after seeing the CT scan from 2002), to claiming abuse on the part of the husband (which is unfounded and completely off-side). Relevant document here; see page 3 for the abuse allegation.

This justification for barring euthanasia is worse than all of those because it, to me, reduces a woman to the functionality of her uterus, based on a religious doctrine that is not necessarily hers, which makes it a double-slap to me; not only have you apparently based the worth of a woman on her uterus, you've now imposed your religion on her, and everyone who simply want to see her rest in peace after 17 years of PVS. I think it's about time to let go; why Berlusconi's thinking about babies in this case is utterly beyond me, and if after 17 years and massive brain trauma, there's been no improvement in condition, it's very unlikely that there ever will be, and as of 9 February, she has passed away. May she rest in peace.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, Silvio Berlusconi. Your Asshat of the Day, and what an asshat it is.

And Another Author - Fiery Kitten

Sound the miniature trumpets and raise the comically small banners once more, for we've got another contributor!

Please welcome Fiery Kitten, coming from Kingston to add a feminine touch to the crude depravity that this blog has been up to this point.

So... she's on! You may now go back to whatever you were doing.

Well, Seems Like Someone Wasn't Paying Attention in School...

Justin Hoffer, from Raging Tory makes a rather unusual assertion:

Freedom continues to suffer as separatist revisionists destroy our history.

[...]

As political correctness continues to destroy our freedoms, it begins to rewrite our history. Here's something they don't teach you in school. Canada went through two rebellions before we were released from British rule. No one I know was ever taught this in school. Not even my parents.

Now, you see, I find this claim a bit odd, since I distinctly recall being taught about the rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada in Grade 8. I recall writing an essay on the topic. Emphasis was placed more on Upper Canada than Lower Canada, but given that my Grade 8 education was in Ontario, that's to be expected - we could have field trips to emphasize the Upper Canada Rebellion. The Lower Canada Rebellion would've been a bit of a hike.

A cursory search turns up this curriculum document. Page 57:

Students examine the causes of the rebellions of 1837–38 in Upper and Lower Canada and describe the roles various men and women played in the conflict. Students use inquiry/research and communication skills to identify social, economic, political, and legal changes in the colonies between 1837 and 1850 and to analyse their importance. Students consider ideas about conflict and change, methods of creating change, and methods of conflict resolution in both historical and contemporary contexts.

So, more accurately, Justin should have said "Here's something that they teach you in elementary school."

There's also a certain delicious irony that he's touting the Rebellions of 1837 as a demonstration that the sword is mightier than the pen, and a shining example of Canada's rebellious spirit, when the Lower Canada Rebellion is held up by the same separatists he condemns in the beginning of the post as a cause célèbre.

Update: A Lame Defense Avails Him Naught

Quoth Justin:

Must be just my NDP government here in Manitoba that blocks it out, then. My older brother wasn't taught about it, and my younger sister, who is still in school, hasn't been taught, either.

Hm. Well, then, there must be something wrong with this Grade 5 Social Studies Curriculum Document I procured from the government of Manitoba's education website. Because, you know, it says (on page 183, introducing Cluster 4):

Students examine life and citizenship in British North America. This study includes a focus on the United Empire Loyalists, War of 1812, Selkirk Settlement, 1837 to 1838 Rebellions, and the people, issues, and events surrounding the origins of Canadian Confederation.

And I suppose the activities on pages 199:

Students read or listen to excerpts from Lord Durham’s report on problems in Canada following the Rebellions of 1837-1838. Students discuss Durham’s main points and make predictions about the solutions he will propose. Students share their predictions with each other and discuss what they think life may have been like in Upper Canada and Lower Canada at this time, making connections to some of the ongoing historical issues faced by Canada as a nation.

204:

Using print and electronic resources, students research people or groups involved in the Rebellions of 1837 to 1838, as well as the aftermath of the Rebellions. Students record the position and actions of the individual during and after the rebellions.

205:

Students listen to the lyrics of the traditional French folk song, Un Canadien Errant/ AWandering Canadian, about an exiled Patriote following the Rebellion in Lower Canada. Students discuss the feelings expressed in the song, and other observations (e.g., their impressions of the consequences of the rebellions, whether they think the punishment of the rebels was fair, did the reformers make the right choice in resorting to violence, and were their actions effective in changing government?).

and 206:

Students assume the role of an individual involved in the 1837 and 1838 Rebellions (e.g., the radicals Louis-Joseph Papineau in Lower Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie in Upper Canada), or the moderates (e.g., Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine in Lower Canada and Robert Baldwin in Upper Canada), and prepare and present a persuasive speech expressing their position.
TIP: Refer to the Acquiring Strategy earlier in this Learning Experience that refers to roles in the Rebellions (BLM 5.4.3o—Role Cards: Rebellions of 1837 and 1838). As a part of their presentation, the students representing the reformer groups may collaborate to develop action plans to counteract the Family Compact in Upper Canada and the Château Clique in Lower Canada.

...were missed by the NDP's revisionist leftist censors, eh? Or maybe poor Justin was tired and fell asleep in class a lot, because the persecution complex that he was developing, even then, was keeping him up at night.

The Progress of a Right Winger (Conclusion):

Step 1: Lefties are destroying history! (Also, they are somehow responsible for the threatened violence related to a reenactment of the Plains of Abraham!)

Step 2: Well, maybe not ALL lefties, but the lefties where I live are!

Step 3: Well, maybe not the lefties in my area, but the ones who taught me were!

Step 4: *sulks*

A Brief Outburst on Apostrophe Abuse

Look, people, it's really very easy.

The apostrophe is used to indicate third-person proper noun possession, or to indicate a contraction. (Or, occasionally, to indicate glottal stops in languages other than English.) It is not used when indicating a plural. It is not used when writing the simple passive present tense of a verb, or the active future tense.

So these are just fine:

Use	Example
Possessive	That is Jake's house. The dog over there is Terri's Luke's X-wing is parked over there.
Contraction	I can't (cannot) do that. I shouldn't (should not) do that. I wouldn't (would not) do that. I don't (do not) think I would do that. They're (they are) sure to find out if I do that. You're (you are) sure they won't (will not)? Alright, then, I'm (I am) going to do it.

The exception here is the word "it". The possessive form applying to "it" is "its". That is to say, "Where's Tony's dog? That's its ball right there!" is correct, while "Where's Tony's dog? That's it's ball right there!" is not.

The following are incorrect uses of the apostrophe.

He grew up in squalor, in the slum's district of town.	The slums are a location. One slum, many slums. The district is not possessed by the slums - it is comprised of them.
[His home] became like an oven in the summer, an ice locker in the winter, and during the rain seasons's flooded to the point they could leave nothing on the floor for fear it would be swept away.	Seasons. Plural. Otherwise, the question would be, "The rainy season's what?"
His mother kept them isolated and away from the eye's of the rest of town. She kept her feature's hidden for her work...	Plural. Eyes. Features. Not rocket science.
As the year's progressed, he mastered the cantrip's...	Plural! Plural!
...aware of a group of burly young boy's sneering and hurrying after him.	*whimpers*
...could only train him the rudimentary basic's of such a weapon...	Plural! PLURAL! Kyaaaieee!
Perhap's Bezrel may have been disgusted by...	... the word is, in fact, "perhaps". It's not even plural. How could you do this?

(As you may have guessed, this bit was engendered by one individual and their writing. It makes me stabby.)

Tune in next time for Capital Letters: When Not to Use Them!

Please Welcome Samson Effect!

Yes, we've added a new voice to Not Fit to Print - coming from sunny Waterloo, Ontario, we now have Samson Effect as a regular author!

Well, at least as regular as I am.

You may now put down your comically small banners and proceed with whatever you were planning on doing. And comment, people!

Cheers!

Asshat of the Day - January 31st, 2009

Today's Asshats of the Day, collectively, are... the CHP! I've been putting them off for a while, on the basis of "really, really easy targets are unsporting", but their time has come.

Their full title, the Christian Heritage Party (and their sub-nom de plume, "The Right Conservatives!") should give you an idea what this party is about from the get-go, but let's pick apart the asshattery in detail, shall we?

First, there's the tagline present on every page of their site:

The CHP is Canada's only pro-Life, pro-family federal political party, and the only federal party that endorses the principles of the Preamble to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the Canadian Constitution, which says:

"Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law..."

Now, off the bat, they make a really arrogant statement. I'm sure the neoRhinos would claim to be both pro-life and pro-family. In the sense that they are pro-people having a life, and pro-people having a family. Of course, they're also likely to claim to be strawberry jello or figments of your imagination, so I suppose they don't count. Even so, they imply - as most "pro-life, pro-family" types do - that all the other parties want to break up families and kill people (specifically, helpless babies).

Leaving that aside for a moment, let's go into a few more of their more general pages.

Alright, how about here? "Biblical Principles that Guide the Christian Heritage Party of Canada". Yikes. Well, let's have a look:

• There is one Creator God, eternally existent in three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We believe in the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Well, there's probably not. I mean, these guys make some pretty solid counter-apologist arguments against the existence of the Abrahamic God, these guys have a whole index debunking myths about a Creator, and these guys went through that book of yours, pointing out contradictions or blatant falsehoods.

If you want to believe in the Lordship of a dead and possibly mythical figure, feel free - but don't expect sane people to swear fealty to you if you're swearing fealty to ghosts above all others.

• The Holy Bible to be the inspired, inerrant written Word of God and the final authority above all man's laws and government.

Er, aside from the link above above all man's laws? The shady, patriarchal bible-language aside, Leviticus is a nightmare, if you go by its laws. Also, there's the ever-popular Leviticus 11:10, "And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you." So no shrimp. If you want to throw Leviticus out, because, well, gee, that was the old testament, I'm just fine with that - but you'd better be ready to welcome in the homosexual community, because guess where all the rules about gay folks are? So either give up shrimp, pork, and rabbit, or give up gay bashing. You can't have it both ways.

• Civil government to be under the authority of God.

You know, on the whole, I'm alright with this, if it doesn't involve the bible or speaking in tongues. The guy hasn't stuck his head in to ask how things are going in going on two thousand years now, and I don't think he's likely to start, so if they want to make a big beard in the sky the authority over the Supreme Court, they can go ahead. They just can't use the Bible, nor can priests of any description claim to have heard from Him unless they have a notarized affidavit attesting to the conversation.

The remainder of that page, though tainted with some "biblical principles" this and "Biblical ethics" that, is largely inoffensive. Which is good, given the content of the rest of the site!

Going through their Policy at length would be an essay in itself, so I'll just pick and choose some of the most horrendous verbiage.

1. The Canadian Nation
   
   • 1.0.1 NATIONAL IDENTITY - "In the interests of national identity and stability, we believe it is wise to enhance public appreciation for God’s role in Canada's unique history, laws, freedoms, political structure, resources, economic opportunities, all of which reflect Canada’s Christian heritage."
     
     Er, sorry, what? Our laws, freedoms, and economic opportunities are in no way the providence of some Creator - that is what was achieved by labour and effort, over years. The resources, I'll leave - I've already expressed my skepticism as to the role of your God in any great act of Creation.
   
   
   • 1.1.2 RESPECT FOR CHRISTIAN HERITAGE.
     Look, guys, I realize you're a one-trick pony as a party, but seriously, this is embarrassing.
   
   
   
   


2. National Sovereignty
   
   • 2.1.6 RECRUITMENT - "In general, admission to Canada's armed forces should be open to all applicants who are of the age of eighteen (18) years and who are resident in Canada, in sound physical health and not practicing either unnatural or immoral lifestyles. Recruitment should be on a voluntary basis in time of peace, encouragement being given to those wishing to make a career of the service. Conscription in time of war should make provision for conscientious objectors (on religious grounds) to serve their nation in non -combat roles."
     
     Okay, I have a few issues here. For one thing, we all know what you mean by "unnatural" lifestyles - and despite what your read-along-with-Father book might say, they're every bit as natural as you or I. Second, the only valid conscientious objection is one based on religious grounds?!? While I would willingly defend my country against an aggressor, what about a moral objection to an unjust war that isn't founded in religious twaddle?
   
   
   • 2.1.9 - ROLE OF WOMEN - "Without diminishing the worth of the individual, government should respect the inherent God-given differences (physical and psychological) between men and women within the context of national defense. The role of women in the armed forces should be restricted to non-combat roles."
     
     So, to summarize, "No offense intended, but we're just going to keep you away from any real fighting for your own safety. Not because you're necessarily weaker or less capable with a weapon than our other recruits, but because of your gender." I'm not a huge supporter of the military, but if a person can do a job, where in the hell does gender come in as a consideration?
   
   


3. National Prosperity. This section has so many bible-reference footnotes, I'm not even going to try.


4. National Finances. This section hardly mentions God at all, and is broadly in line with my own fiscal conservatism. Except, of course, one of their precepts is getting more money into the hands of the taxpayer by means of tax breaks - and we all know how well that works. However, aside from that, very little objectionable here.


5. Resource Management
   
   • 5.0.3. GREENHOUSE GASES - "Both water vapour and carbon dioxide at all historical levels be recognized as beneficial greenhouse gases..."
     
     Water vapour, being mostly a magnifying effect, I'm willing to cede as a neutral greenhouse gas. But beneficial? Are you guys nuts? Oh, wait...
     
   
   


6. The Law
   
   Now, there's way too much for me to list here, so I'll just hit the highlights:
   
   
   
   • Original Sin under the law.
   
   
   • Consultation of the Bible before making legislation.
   
   
   • The Bible's rules are beyond reproach in Parliament.
   
   
   • Special government protection for Christian institutions. Not religious, mind you. Just Christian.
   
   
   • No euthanasia.
   
   
   • Abortions are bad and should never be performed. Not in the event of rape, or hazard to the mother's health. Never.
   
   
   • Pornography? Illegal.
   
   
   • In-vitro fertilization, sperm donors, and pregnant lesbians? Right out.
   
   
   • Gay marriage? Please.
   
   
   • One that I have to quote in its entirety, just to emphasize the asshattedness of the policy: "It should be beyond the power of any legislative or administrative body to recognize, affirm, condone, or discriminate in favor of, identifiable sexually aberrant individuals or groups." (Emphasis added.) So not beyond the power of the government to discriminate against. They just can't recognize them publicly. Hm.
   
   
   • Mothers should be encouraged to stay home. Not "caregivers", mind. Mothers.
   
   
   • Banning the teaching of positive viewpoints on abortion, homosexuality, and the occult, among others.
   
   
   • No laws banning hate speech.
   
   
   • To reiterate: Porn == Bad.
   
   
   • Capital punishment. But not abortion!
   
   
   • Laws based on the Bible, rather than current events.
   
   
   
   Whew.
   


7. Civil Government
   
   
   
   • 7.0.2. CHURCH AND STATE
     We affirm that government and some belief system are inextricably intertwined, and that faith and government, therefore, cannot be segregated. Though the mandate of church and state are different, we deny that God and His Word should be separate from either institution.
     
     Seriously. WHAT THE HELL?
     
   
   
   • You know what? It keeps getting worse. So again, I'll try to hit the highlights.
   
   
   • Human rights come secondary to the rule of the Bible.
   
   
   • Human beings are human beings from conception onwards!
   
   
   • Proportional representation. Gee, I wonder why?
   
   
   • Want to be a Supreme Court Justice? Then you'd better be a God-fearin' Christian!
   
   


8. The Public Service
   
   Pretty inoffensive. No mention of God, or of the moral decrepitude that is clearly overwhelming our country.


9. Welfare Services
   
   Quick summary: Fewer welfare cases, sex should only be in marriage, because that would stop the spread of STDs.
   


10. Arts and Communication
    
    
    
    • 1. CODE OF ETHICS
      
      In view of the awesome power of the media and entertainment industries to shape public sentiment and attitudes, we favor the adoption of national codes of ethics to restore objectivity and to uphold wholesome traditional values. In the past, censorship implied the suppression of legitimate view-points or facts. In our own time 'censorship' is necessary to protect the weak and gullible from the avaricious. Therefore, a code of ethics incumbent on the mass media and entertainment industries, both printed and electronic, is necessary to halt the debauching of public morals, particularly those of the young.
      
      I am, somehow, unsurprised.
      
    
    
    • 2. FREEDOM OF THE PRESS
      ... [I]f the media and arts are unable to regulate, by a self-imposed code of decency, those things which are calculated not to inform but to titillate or disinform, then censorship by authority becomes essential.
      
      Again, I'd like to say I'm surprised that they want to slap a muzzle on media. I'd like to.
      
    
    
    • 4. GOVERNMENT SUPPORT OF THE ARTS
      Government support of the arts should continue, but it must not be left aimless -- a condition in which it is susceptible to misuse or abuse by anti-social, anti-religious, immoral or unpatriotic ideologues. Instead, government funding should be targeted to works that ennoble the human spirit, educate, preserve and transmit the values of our culture and the Christian principles upon which they are based, encourage the aspiration to be better human beings, and glorify the Creator. (Emphasis added.)
      
      So, we'll keep paying for the arts - but only the arts that we want the people to see. And yet this is the group who says totalitarian regimes are a bad thing.
      
    
    
    • 6. NATIONAL FILM BOARD
      The National Film Board should be reduced to an archival facility with a limited budget to purchase Canadian-made productions which document Canada's culture, history, natural history, and educational standards.
      
      And as a last bitter stab, we'll go and gut a prominent Canadian institution.
      
    
    
    
    

There are hundreds of pages of stuff, which may be revisited in the future, if there's a slow day, but the long and the short of it is that the whole party's insane. They want to turn the clock back to 1920, legally and socially.

News flash, CHP. It's not a lack of proportional representation that's meant your party's never landed a seat in Parliament. It's the fact that your policies are thinly-veiled bigotry, sexism, and theocratic mutterings. It's the fact that you're clearly hypocritical and, frankly, apparently unstable. It is, more than anything else, the fact that you purport to know what everyone needs better than they themselves do.

You want to evangelize? Take a lesson from what happened to the smokers, and so it in the privacy of your own home. Don't take it into a political forum.

Addendum - this is just too juicy.

So, get this. The CHP posted a bit about climate change, the danger of the UN, and the IPCC. If I had an irony meter, it would probably have exploded - take a gander:

Thousands of respected climatologists have raised their voices (and signed a document) in vain to warn that the "science" behind the IPCC's fear-mongering is in fact woefully unscientific: it tolerates no questioning of its basic premise, which is not a scientific orthodoxy but a religious dogma: "Human activity is altering the world's climate, and disaster portends." Saints Gore and Suzuki have uttered the decrees, and doubts are heretical and sinful.

Is it possible that they miss the massive cognitive dissonance involved in a party which defines itself by religion using a comparison with religious dogma to throw science into a negative light?

Asshat of the Day - January 30th, 2009

Today's candidate - fellow blogger Big Blue Wave.

Now, granted, she's a staunch Conservative supporter, but we won't let that count against her - not when she does so well on her own. I know some otherwise quite sane Conservative supporters - but Suzanne here is emphatically not one of them.

Her primary cause is that of the anti-abortionist - but, as is the wont of those people involved in disputes of this nature, she categorizes her viewpoint as "pro-life", and that of her opponents on this field of battle as either "pro-abortion" or "non-pro-life" (making them, perhaps, pro-death?). She's also one of those who believes that a new human being is formed the moment a sperm and an egg kiss.

Well, I have some issues with that viewpoint. First, it means a lot of human beings are dying every day. A LOT. It means that instead of the six billion deaths we think occurred in human history, it's actually more like eighteen billion. Second, it means that a woman who is barren due to uterine scarring who then (having no reason to worry about pregnancy) engages in unprotected sex with her partner a murderer. Third - what then of twins? Are they forced to share the same human-beingness, as they came from the same union of sperm and egg? Or is that definition suddenly flexible enough to allow it to be assigned to two?

I also have issue with the propaganda photos on her site. Given her viewpoint, she should be more vociferous about IUDs and the Morning-After pill than the controversy of late-term abortions, given that the former, beyond a doubt, "kill" far more "pre-born human beings" than the latter. (250 000 Canadian women use IUDs, 8% of Canadian women use the morning-after pill annually; a vanishing 0.4% of all surgically/medically induced abortions in Canada are late-term (potentially viable fetuses), or about 200 annually.) Why then the focus on late-term abortion? Because it's photogenic. Show people pictures of cells dividing and then being washed away, and you're not going to get anyone to identify. Late-term fetuses look sufficiently like infants that abortions (particularly using the most popular method in the US, DX (Dilation and Extraction)) produce the kind of images shown on her site. (Here in Canada, late-term abortions are performed by inducing labour. Since the reason for a late-term abortion is almost always for the health of the mother or due to a critical birth defect in the child, the result is almost always a stillbirth. This is not a "partial birth" abortion, as the term has been coined in the States.

She also directs a lot of her ire towards "feminists". Apparently, "[g]irls are secretly dying for [gentlemanly behaviour]. I know. They might seem liberated. Most girls aren't." That's a pretty sweeping statement. Now, if you define "gentlemanly" behaviour as polite behaviour... well, you'll find a lot of guys dying for that too! Most (I'd almost go so far as to say "all") the girls I know are very much liberated. They don't need a guy to open doors for them, they don't need a man to make their life feel complete, they aren't eagerly awaiting the day they can be a mother. They have a healthy sense of their own sexuality and sex drive, and can communicate their desires to their partners, rather than slavishly kow-towing to their needs. They may want children, but it is not the acme of their existence. Once they have children, that will not be viewed as their final worthwhile accomplishment. Suzanne paints a picture suggesting that every abortion performed is a victory for the feminists, who celebrate in their conspiratorial black chambers and drink the blood of infants. Well... perhaps not quite that extreme. But pretty close.

Finally, we come to faith. Now, this clearly nails down where her "an embryo is a person from the moment of conception" malarkey comes from. Clearly, God waits eagerly for the moment an egg and a sperm meet, and *bam!* soulifies it then and there. But... what about the stuff I wrote earlier? Doesn't that mean for every soul that winds up in a human walking about on the earth, one (or more!) gets kicked back out of what might have one day been a body and sent to heaven or hell off the bat? (Hell, by the way, if you believe in Original Sin. No chance to get baptized or saved there. Straight to hell.) That would be... well, for one thing, incredibly wasteful, but for another, profoundly unfair, which is not really what one would expect from a "just and loving god". Mind you, the guy really is a jerk. He's the one who makes the rules, and yet heaven is barred to those who don't believe in him? Talk about insecure!

Now, that aside, she goes on to say that the word of the Pope on matters of morality and faith is infallible. I'm sorry, you're going to let someone else dictate to you what is moral and what is not? How you should worship? How you should pray? This despite Jesus, the guy who's sorta important to Christianity, saying "But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." (Matthew 6:7). And you trust a man who looks like Emperor Palpatine in a funny hat to be this guiding light?

You know, come to it, Suzanne, I think I understand why you say the things you do. I just need to work on why you are the way you are. Someone failed you, at some point. It just must've been pretty early.

*sighs* Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the AotD.