The death penalty for Russell Williams?

Posted on October 26, 2010 by David

From here:

Russell Williams has gone off to prison, where he will have ample time — the next 25 years at least — to reflect on the evil he unleashed: the brave young women he tortured and killed, and the pain and suffering he inflicted on their loved ones.

It is more likely, however, that he will choose to reflect on how much he misses his cat, or on the bad luck of having tires with a unique pattern, and the misfortune of there being snow on the ground to make that pattern visible to police. Who knows what sociopaths reflect on when they are incarcerated? Who cares?

If ever there was a moment for a national discussion on a return to capital punishment, this is it. We have before us a serial torturer and killer, and a nauseating superfluity of evidence attesting to his crimes, not to mention his own detailed confessions.

Williams’ crimes were born of neither passion nor insanity. On the contrary, his crimes are distinguished by the dispassion and sanity he brought to bear in committing them. Williams led a double life with chilling efficiency and organization. He was so competent at compartmentalizing his professional life and domestic life from his life of perversion that his own wife and closest associates were totally bamboozled. That takes a high order of intelligence and ruthless planning to carry on. Everything he did was premeditated.

Williams has no right to live. He should die.

The arguments against the death penalty generally run along the lines of:

To kill someone is always wrong. It is difficult to maintain this pacifist position without hypocrisy while living in a society whose order and well-being are maintained by force or the threat of force.

To kill someone to punish them for murder makes the state as bad as the murderer. If that were true, the state could not imprison kidnappers or use force at all to maintain order since it would always be as bad as the criminal.

From a Christian perspective, to kill someone gives them less time to repent and turn to Christ. Alternatively, as Dr. Johnson noted, the threat of one’s imminent demise serves to concentrate the mind, so it could lead to accelerated repentance.

Capital punishment is not a deterrent. The original article addresses this to some extent. Common sense would tell us that insofar that any punishment is a deterrent against crime, the ultimate punishment for the ultimate crime should be more of a deterrent than imprisonment.

Capital punishment is wrong since human life is sacred. True, but if capital punishment is a deterrent, it would save lives and protect the innocent.

Capital punishment is irreversible. True; and the impossibility of correcting a mistake is one of the few convincing arguments against capital punishment.

Temporal justice has always seemed to me to be tinged with fraudulence; as Pascal noted, “if magistrates had true justice, and if physicians had the true art of healing, they would have no occasion for square caps; the majesty of these sciences would of itself be venerable enough”. Nevertheless, if temporal justice has any meaning, I find it hard to see how someone like Russell Williams should not be put to death.

Anglican Archbishop calls for transparency on toilets

Posted on October 26, 2010 by David

From here:

The Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba has joined the call for the City of Cape Town to release an internal report on the Makhaza toilet saga.

Last week, members of the Social Justice Coalition marched to the Civic Centre and demanded to see the report into the construction of the open air toilets.

“I believe that transparency is fundamental to building trust. Withholding information is guaranteed to undermine that information,” he added.

One can only hope that the Social Justice departments of Anglican Churches everywhere are inspired by this effort and mount their own campaigns for Waste-Justice.

Toronto picks Ford for mayor

Posted on October 25, 2010 by David

Toronto’s liberal elite gets a well deserved poke in the eye and the left – reeling in blinkered denial – wails and gnashes its teeth: lovely.

“Anger trumps hope,” says NDP MP Olivia Chow. Chow says she hopes Ford reaches out to progressives on council to achieve consensus on issues.

NDP MPP Rosario Marchese says the economy drove people to seek change. “I think people are financially stressed. When you find yourself pinched, you want to take it out on somebody.”

Wimpy Wikileaks founder

Posted on October 25, 2010 by David

Question: What is the one thing you cannot afford to be if you plan to make a name for yourself by exposing someone else’s secrets?

Answer: thin skinned.

Julian Assange, feels “contaminated” by personal probing, poor dear. I have considerable difficultly in believing that Assange’s revelatory exertions are a product of his disinterested, big-hearted largesse: the whole Wikileaks enterprise is an exercise in a pompous ass’s self promotion. Nothing remarkable about that, I suppose, but when something that really is all about him turns into something less than flattering that is all about him, he takes his ball and runs home crying to mummy.

Poetic justice at its most satisfying.

The Episcopal Church faces a “life or death decision”

Posted on October 25, 2010 by David

From here:

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori challenged the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council Oct. 24 to avoid “committing suicide by governance.”

No need to worry about governance, the Episcopal Church is already using the method much preferred by Anglicans: suicide by heresy.

Jefferts Schori said that the council and the church face a “life-or-death decision,” describing life as “a renewed and continually renewing focus on mission” and death as “an appeal to old ways and to internal focus” which devotes ever-greater resources to the institution and its internal conflicts.

Does that mean Jefferts Schori will stop using ever-greater resources to sue recalcitrant parishes into submission? No, that is not a serious question.

Later in her remarks, Jefferts Schori said “we need a system that is more nimble, that is more able to respond to change,” calling for “a more responsive and adaptable and less rigid set of systems.”

Good idea, a less rigid set of systems would allow for so-called cross-border interventions.

In case anyone wonders what “mission” means to TEC, the following clarifies that it has nothing whatsoever to do with winning souls for Christ and everything to do with marrying homosexuals:

For example, the ongoing work of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to respond to General Convention Resolution C056’s authorization to collect and develop theological resources and liturgies for blessing same-gender relationships is what she called the work of mission.

As for the future:

Jefferts Schori said “we don’t know what the future will look like … but what we do know, if we’re honest about it, it will look different than it did last year or 10 years ago.”

It will look different: there will be even fewer TEC Anglicans.

According to Sam Harris, “All we need is science”

Posted on October 25, 2010 by David

It sounds like the cue for a song, but it is actually another atheist trying to demonstrate that morality can be derived from science. Read the whole thing here (my emphasis):

How could we ever say, as a matter of scientific fact, that one way of life is better, or more moral, than another? Whose definition of “better” or “moral” would we use? While many scientists now study the evolution of morality, the purpose of their research is to describe how human beings think and behave. No one expects science to tell us how we ought to think and behave. Controversies about human values are controversies about which science officially has no opinion.

However, questions about values are really questions about the well-being of conscious creatures. Values, therefore, translate into facts that can be scientifically understood….

The highlighted section above is itself a value statement that cannot be derived from science; it assumes that the well-being of conscious creatures is “better” than their non well-being. Everything that follows from Sam Harris is grounded on this value, a value that is not based on science: Sam Harris’s claim that his values can be deduced from science is false. Even worse, his foundation is thoroughly antithetical to scientific method, since a concious creature’s longing for well-being is the ultimate expression of subjectivity – at least a theist’s attempt at finding meaning for the word “better” is one which assumes an objective moral reality that was created by a Person who exists independently of “concious creatures”.

Richard Dawkins sues an employee

Posted on October 24, 2010 by David

From here:

GLENDALE, Calif. (CN) – Evolutionary biologist and best-selling author Richard Dawkins claims an employee of his Foundation for Reason and Science embezzled $375,000 from the online store he ran for Dawkins’ charity, by claiming it made only $30,000 in 3 years.

Dawkins says he founded the charity to “support scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and human suffering.”

Dawkins hired Josh Timonen in 2006 to run his website and produce videos for him, according to the Superior Court complaint. Timonen began working for the Foundation in 2007.

As we can see, scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world doesn’t make a person honest. And why would it? If the employee’s critical thinking led him to conclude that he would get away with it, pilfering $375k would be a satisfying example of the fittest acquiring the means to improve his likelihood of survival.

Dawkins should be able to see that and is just being an old meany-pants for suing Timonen instead of applauding his Darwin inspired initiative.

The Vatican does a spot of recreational Israel bashing

Posted on October 24, 2010 by David

And sides with that most demonically corrupt organisation, the United Nations, while ignoring the routine persecution of Christians in just about every Middle-Eastern country other than Israel.

All of which goes to show that the Catholic Church is no less susceptible to foam-flecked lunatic leftist fantasies than its Anglican cousin.

From here:

Bishops demand that Israel accept UN resolutions calling for an end to “occupation” of Arab lands; Pope calls for religious freedom.

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon slammed the Vatican synod after bishops called for an end to the “occupation,” in a statement released on Sunday.

In a communiqué issued Saturday, at the end-of a two-week conference to discuss the future of Christians in the Middle East, the bishops demanded that Israel accept UN resolutions calling for an end to its “occupation” of Arab lands, and told Israel it should not use the Bible to justify “injustices” against the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, the Pope, Cardinals and Bishops continue to occupy Italian land in the enclave known as the Vatican City State. It even has a wall around it, forcing visitors to go through humiliating checkpoints before they enter the occupied territory.

The West’s new weapon against Al-Qaeda: Rowan Williams

Posted on October 23, 2010 by David

From here:

Wrong understanding of religion and God was often the cause of terrorism and religious fanaticism, archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams observed in Thiruvananthapuram today.

Stating that he did not think that universal military action against terrorism would solve the problem, he said trying to understand why some people were driven to “dreadful and evil actions” would help addressing the problem of terrorism.

This certainly has potential: as Rowan tries to “understand” terrorists he will undoubtedly pull out his big guns and employ dialogue. They won’t stand a chance; bored to death before they can reach for the nearest suicide belt. If Rowan is feeling particularly vicious he will organise them into indaba groups to reduce them to drooling idiots first.

Tony Blair’s sister-in-law converts to Islam

Posted on October 23, 2010 by David

Lauren Booth, sister-in-law to Tony Blair and journalist – or shrill harridan – for the Islam Channel has decided to become a Muslim. She is not known for accuracy in her reporting, is the recipient o Add an Image f the Dishonest Reporter of 2008 Award and is creating great anticipation as millions wait for her to don a full body burka and finally keep quiet.

From here:

Tony Blair’s sister-in-law has converted to Islam after having a ‘holy experience’ in Iran.

Broadcaster and journalist Lauren Booth, 43 – Cherie Blair’s half-sister – said she now wears a hijab head covering whenever she leaves her home, prays five times a day and visits her local mosque ‘when I can’.

She decided to become a Muslim six weeks ago after visiting the shrine of Fatima al-Masumeh in the city of Qom.

‘It was a Tuesday evening and I sat down and felt this shot of spiritual morphine, just absolute bliss and joy,’ she told The Mail on Sunday.

When she returned to Britain, she decided to convert immediately.

‘Now I don’t eat pork and I read the Koran every day. I’m on page 60.