A presentation aimed at combating human trafficking.
All photos here.
Joy Smith, MP for Kildonan-St. Paul:
Unveiling the Myths, Dundas Square, Toronto
Reply
How many police officers does it take to arrest one 69 year old grandmother?
Six, including a deputy sheriff. In fairness to the police officers, she was armed with a pretty menacing placard.
From here:
TORONTO, August 4, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – LifeSiteNews reporter and managing director Steve Jalsevac was live-blogging and taking photos from the Mogentaler abortion mill on Hillsdale Ave in Toronto this morning as pro-life activist Linda Gibbons was arrested. Gibbons has spent 8 of the last 14 years in jail for breaking a 1994 ‘temporary’ court injunction which forbids pro-life presence outside various abortion centers in Toronto.
Gibbons arrived at the Morgentaler abortion mill this morning shortly before 9am and was arrested just after 11am. As is her normal practice Gibbons paced back and forth silently in front of the mill carrying a sign with a live baby’s photo reading: “Why Mom When I have so much Love to Give”.
She spoke to several women entering the centre to offer them aid to carry their pregnancies to term.
Six police officers took part in the arrest, including the sheriff and deputy. Gibbons was read the injunction and led to the squad car peacefully. While in years past she sat immobile allowing the officers to carry her to the vehicle, the 69-year-old grandmother walked with them this morning.
Rev. Debra Haffner, Unitarian Universalist sexologist and abortion enthusiast
I’m still trying to untangle whether for a Unitarian Universalist sexologist, when it comes to sex, Unitarianism takes precedence – in which case one has sex with a singularity – or Universalism, one must try to have sex with absolutely everything.
In the case of Rev. Haffner, I suspect the latter since she boasts that she has counselled thousands of women faced with unintended pregnancies to view abortion as a “moral” decision: presumably the sex was neither unintended nor particularly selective.
In a stunning example of weasel reasoning, devious Debra tries to make the case that we should abort unborn babies because life is sacred. Rather than being intrinsically sacred, life is only imbued with sacredness when it is our intention that it should be sacred – leaving us free to finish off anyone whose sanctity coefficient doesn’t make the grade.
It is because of my religious beliefs that I am unwavering in my support for abortion, family planning and sexuality education. It is because life is sacred and parenthood so precious that no woman should be coerced to carry a pregnancy to term. Millions of people ground their moral commitment to abortion in their religious beliefs. We understand that the sanctity of human life is best upheld when it is created intentionally. As religious leaders, we seek to create a world where abortion is safe, legal, accessible, and rarely a decision that women and couples need to face.
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
It’s either The Mummy Returns or, judging by the other obvious resemblance, a new Larry Page cloud computing project.
Rev. Gary Nicolosi enlightens us on being “right wing”
From here:
[T]he media—both in Canada and the United States—have not been helpful in reporting the Norwegian tragedy. They have repeatedly characterized Anders Breivik as a “right wing, Christian fundamentalist.” However, at least two of these three assertions are not true.
[…..]
To put it bluntly, Mr. Breivik is a racist and a bigot who upholds a Scandinavian version of a master race—an ethnocentric superiority that views foreigners, and especially Muslims, as a virus to be eliminated. Whatever else his philosophy may be, it is NOT Christian.
Nor is Mr. Breivik a fundamentalist, if one means a Christian fundamentalist. I know some Christian fundamentalists, and none would ever consider murdering innocent people.
Only two assertions not true? According to Rev. Nicolosi, Breivik is definitely not a Christian or a fundamentalist. That leaves us with his being merely “right wing”, just like William F Buckley and Ronald Reagan.
How helpful, Rev. Nicolosi.
Photo shy Muslims in Toronto
This person really didn’t want her photo taken.
From here:
What constitutes a physical assault in Toronto these days?
This would appear to be straightforward. If, for example, one individual punches another, surely that’s assault. Especially if the punch in question was witnessed. And photographed.
But as I learned firsthand on Sunday, a fist in the face doesn’t necessarily constitute assault in our increasingly culturally sensitive Toronto.
The details: I was at Yonge-Dundas Square with my nine-year-old son. We ate pizza. We drank bubble tea. And I used my new Canon camera to take photos of this neon shrine.
Suddenly, a woman wearing a hijab ran toward me. She was part of a group that included two women wearing full face-covering burkas. She was screaming: “We are Muslim! You do not take pictures of us!” (Odd. I can’t find the “no photos” rule in the Qur’an.)
I informed the lady I was in a public square in a democracy. I can actually take pictures of whomever I please.
And then: Ka-pow! Her fist collided with my face. Worse, she almost knocked my new camera from my hands.
When I was in Turkey, where Islam is the predominant religion, I photographed a lot of people; only a few of them seemed less than happy about it. None of them tried to slug me.
This particular gentlemen kept wagging his finger at me, but ended up laughing when I took more photos of the wagging:
Internet Explorer attracts dummies
According to this:
Internet Explorer users have a lower than average IQ, according to research by Consulting firm AptiQuant.
The study gave web surfers an IQ test, then plotted their scores against the browser they used.
IE surfers were found to have an average IQ lower than people using Chrome, Firefox and Safari. Users of Camino and Opera rated highest.
The report has sparked anger from IE supporters, who have threatened AptiQuant with legal action.
Researchers gave over 100,000 web surfers a free online IQ test. Scores were stored in a database along with each person’s web browser data.
The results suggested that Internet Explorer surfers had an average IQ in the low eighties. Chrome, Firefox and Safari rated over 100, while minority browsers Opera and Camino had an “exceptionally higher” score of over 120.
I can’t help noticing that the IP addresses belonging to the Anglican Church of Canada that access this blog are all using Internet Explorer. It must be a coincidence.
Update: The BBC is now reporting that this was a hoax.
British taxpayers funding Homotopia Art Festival
Having led a sheltered life, I had never heard of “Homotopia” and assumed it was a new process for sterilising milk. But, no.
From here:
Liverpool’s Homotopia art festival has been granted funding for the next three years.
The annual art and culture event will receive £70,000 a year for the next three years from Arts Council England.
Judging by a sampling of last year’s “art”, it all sounds like a bit of harmless fun the average taxpayer would be only too delighted to pay for:
Midnight Mass Peaches Christ presents All About Evil
A San Francisco phenomenon, the underground hit that is Midnight Mass makes its UK debut starring horror hostess Peaches Christ in this Rocky Horror-style celebration of bad, trash and cult movie making. The infamous pre-show includes free lap dances with every large popcorn from a retinue of dude girls, a roller girl conga line, audience makeovers and unspeakable live participation.
Will the Anglican Church of Canada get out of the marriage business?
The Anglican Church of Canada has been considering getting out of the marriage business and, instead, just “blessing” the state version of marriage.
An obvious reason for this is that the state has altered the meaning of marriage from the union of one man and one woman to the joining in a sexual, but otherwise indeterminate fashion, of men with men and women with women. The Anglican Church of Canada, applying its typical reverse-prophetic sycophancy, wants to go along with this, but has to overcome one minor hurdle: the Bible.
The answer to the problem is simple: stop marrying people altogether, just “bless” what has already been done.
From here:
A small group of bishops will lay the groundwork for a discussion of marriage within the life of the church at the November House of Bishops meeting in Niagara Falls.
The impetus for this discussion is a General Synod request to the faith, worship and ministry committee to consider the implications of having Anglican clergy cease to solemnize marriages.
It all makes perfect sense: by devaluing the idea of marriage, the church has rendered it meaningless, so why keep on doing it?
What’s more, there is a efficient replacement:
When Miguel Hanson and Diana Wesley get married today, they won’t stand before a gray haired minister holding a Bible.
Instead, they’ll be looking at a 30-inch monitor.
On one half of the screen, they’ll see a virtual minister with an animated, square face with blue eyes and thin, oval glasses.
His voice will be heard over a sound system while the text of what he’s saying will show up on the other half of the screen.
And the sermon would be shorter and make more sense.
Coptic Christians kicking the Toronto Catholic school board where it hurts
From here:
The Coptic Orthodox Churches in Toronto are threatening to withdraw 4,000 families from the Toronto Catholic District School Board if it does not amend its controversial equity policy to protect Catholic teaching in the schools. According to one expert in Ontario education, if the threat were carried out, the board could lose upwards of $40,000,000 in annual public funding, and over 150 teachers.
If the board implements its policy, wrote Fr. Jeremiah Attaalla on June 22nd, “we will not hesitate to withdraw our children at once from attending any Catholic school within Toronto or [the Greater Toronto Area].”
The equity policy, passed earlier this year as part of the Ontario government’s sweeping equity and inclusive education strategy, has sparked an unprecedented mobilization of parents who fear that it will give homosexual activists a foothold in order to further subvert already weak Catholic sexual teaching in the schools.
The Canadian separate school system has always been one of – well, inequality. Why should Catholics have a state funded school system when evangelical Christians or Muslims have either to send their children to a secular, increasingly anti-religion school, or pay to send them to a private school in addition to paying taxes to fund public schools?
That isn’t the inequality that could be the undoing of the Catholic school system in Canada, though: it is the hellish “equality” that demands the levelling of human values, particularly sexual values, to the point where copulating with just about anything, animate or otherwise, holds equal significance as raising what used to be thought of as a normal family.
And the Toronto Catholic school board, wishing to protect its government funding, is acquiescing to this.
It seems to be backfiring, though: perhaps the school board should have stuck with its principles and inequalities.