I'm with York University

This may be unpopular but I commend York University for standing by their decision to instruct a professor to allow a student taking an online course to opt out of a group assignment because the student did not want to work with women for religious reasons. Professor Paul Grayson forwarded the request to the dean's office for human rights which said the professor should honour the student's request given that this was an online course and the professor had given exemptions to another student who was unable to participate. The professor was "shocked" by the student's request and angered by the university's response so he refused to comply and has generated a media outcry against York University for their decision to stand by the student.

The professor's radio interview with CBC was particularly revealing early in the interview he said:

My main concern was that for religious beliefs we can also justify not interacting with jews, blacks, gays you name it and if this were allowed to go through than presumably all these other absurd demands could be made.

The professor's issue was simply that the student used his religion as the reason to make the request, and that if the university accommodated the request however insignificant it was it could lead to all sorts of terrible consequences. So it appears the professor refused the request simply to make a point. The interviewer asked, "Could you have accommodated him?" Professor Grayson's responded:

Physically sure because it's a web based course and if for example you live afar I can't expect you to fly to Toronto to conduct a focus group, but that is a completely different situation from a student who wishes not to interact with females in class out of preference. The analogy I like to use is two students come to class on Monday morning without completing their assignments, the first didn't complete it because his father passed away ok that's a very good reason, the second didn't complete it because he got drunk all weekend, well that's not a good reason.

So the professor is now equating having a religious faith with being drunk and saying explicitly that making a request as a matter of conscience is not a very good reason. In fact freedom of religion and of conscience is a foundational right in any free society.

No one would have been harmed by accommodating the student, and I'm sure the professor would have accepted almost any other reason to grant an exception from this assignment. It should have been granted.

Paul Grayson asked for a principled response from the University and I'm pleased to say he received one. Another principled response would be to discipline Grayson for deliberately refusing to follow his dean's direction.

We're All Bullies

Thousands of teachers and students across the country donned pink t-shirts to take a stand against bullying today. No one likes a bully. Too bad we're all bullies.

A couple of years ago I volunteered to help with a self esteem workshop for young children. We led a small group of kids through a morning session and there was a 10 year old boy at my table who was very outspoken about how he was bullied at school. Naturally, I was sympathetic to the young guy and he hung out with me through various activities the whole morning. Part way through a new boy from his class joined our group. The first boy said, "You can't sit here fatso." I politely said that the new boy was welcome to join us and we moved on. Soon we had an activity sorting candy, again the first boy says, "this won't work. Fatty is going to eat them all!" Finally I pointed out to the first boy that he was being the bully, but he just couldn't comprehend that he could be a bully too.

I thought of this a few months back when some radio announcers convinced a nurse caring for Kate Middleton that they were part of the Royal Family she shared way to much information and the prank went viral. The nurse committed suicide shortly after the prank presumably because of her shame at the incident. The radio jockies lost their jobs and had to go into hiding because of all the threats that they received after the incident. Nobody looked good in this situation the radio hosts and hundreds like them make a living tormenting and ridiculing vulnerable and trusting people and they are enabled by their audiences. After the news of the nurses death, the pile on of criticism and the threats the djs received were their own form of bullying.

In fact the pink shirted crusaders are likely shaming non conforming students that are uncomfortable wearing pink - they are inadvertinely bullying the students in the name of anti-bullying. It's typical, some of the worst bullies are those who seek conformity in the name of diversity, in fact the National Review Online has an excellent interview about a new book, Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America.

Let's stop bullying for good. Maybe the first step is to have the courage to wear blue next pink day.

Reflections on the Fornight for Freedom

In the 14 days leading up to July 4th, American Catholics and many others who are concerned about religious freedom participated in the "Fortnight for Freedom," a campaign of prayer and teaching in support of religious freedom.

The campaign was kicked off in response to the Obama administration's new regulation forcing all employers including religious institutions such as schools and hospitals to pay for contraceptives, and chemical abortions for their employees. But as Dwight G. Duncan (not Ontario's Finance Minister) noted, there are numerous signs that religious liberty is being threatened world wide:

Now we are implicated in this battle over the HHS mandate concerning contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization. It could’ve been another flashpoint. Denmark, for example, has just passed a law requiring the official state Lutheran church to solemnize same-sex weddings. In Ireland, the government is seriously proposing to abolish the centuries-old priest-penitent privilege, thus enabling the government to force priests to violate the sacred seal of confession, something that has been well-settled in the common law since the days of Henry II and St. Thomas Becket. In Nigeria, in what seems like a weekly ritual, Christians are being killed for attending church.

It's an incomplete list to be sure. Ontario Catholic schools will now be forced to sponsor gay clubs for students, and a German judge has just declared it a crime to circumcise a child.

Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia kicked off the campaign with an excellent explanation of situation that was neatly summarized by Frank Weathers:

1. First, religious freedom is a cornerstone of the American experience.


2. Freedom of religion is more than freedom of worship.

3. Threats against religious freedom in our country are not imaginary. They’re happening right now. They’re immediate, serious, and real.

4. Unless we work hard to keep our religious liberty, we’ll lose it.

5. Politics and the courts are important. But our religious freedom ultimately depends on the vividness of our own Christian faith–in other words, how deeply we believe it, and how honestly we live it.

It's true, we must live our faith and not shy away from expressing its principles in public if we want to keep our freedom and contribute to a just and vibrant society.
Archbishop Chaput also gave an inspiring homily to close the fortnight:

In coming years, we’ll face more and more serious challenges to religious liberty in our country. This is why the Fortnight for Freedom has been so very important.


And yet, the political and legal effort to defend religious liberty – as vital as it is – belongs to a much greater struggle to master and convert our own hearts, and to live for God completely, without alibis or self-delusion. The only question that finally matters is this one: Will we live wholeheartedly for Jesus Christ? If so, then we can be a source of freedom for the world. If not, nothing else will do.

And so we have been called to "live wholeheartedly for Jesus" so that "we can be a source of freedom for the world." I pray that I can follow that call by taking every opportunity to defend religious liberty and by living faithfully so that I can be a credible witness.

I hope that a similar effort can take place in Canada in the near future.

Vote Your Conscience

I just came across this video urging Catholics to vote for life, marriage, and freedom in the upcoming US election. The same should be said for all of us up here in Canada. Our religious freedoms are rapidly being eroded here as well. With Prime Minister Harper stifiling debate about protecting human life and Premier McGuinty forcing Catholic schools to sponsor gay clubs, its time to realize how much our governments are working to marginalize people of faith.

KW Life Chain and the Counter Protest

On October 2, 2011, KW Right to Life marked its Annual Life Chain Memorial in front of Grand River Hospital on King Street in Waterloo and approximately 150 people attended to bear a silent witness for life. The cold wet weather didn’t seem to dampen the spirits of the crowd that lined the streets holding umbrellas over signs that read, “Abortion Kills Children,” and “Life is Precious.” We were joined by over 30,000 people nationwide who decided to stand up for life in their own communities.

This year, I had the privilege of addressing everyone at the end of the event. The theme of my talk was Hebrews 3:13, “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” The message was simple: The ‘bad news’ highlights how important our work is to protect life at every stage, and the ‘good news,’ including the progress that we make and the large number of people standing up for life, reminds that we can be successful and encourage each other along the way.

I spoke of the importance of our work and how travesties of justice, like the mother who strangled her newborn baby and was set free by an Alberta Appeals Court using the justification that Canadians accept abortion and would sympathize with the mother, demonstrate how hard we need to work to change our culture.

I also spoke about the fact that we have had a number of successes. That there are many pro life MPs and MPPs, that the federal government has prevented abortion funding from being included in international maternal health funding, and that a new movement is beginning to lobby for the defunding of abortion. (On October 22, a rally at Queen’s Park hosted 2,300 pro life witnesses.)

The really interesting part about this year’s life chain was the presence of a counter protest with 12 pro-abortion protesters on the other side of King Street. Their presence was a clear sign that our work is having an impact. They were not nearly as prepared for the weather as the pro life crowd, as they did not have umbrellas and were soaking wet by the end of it. At one point, I wanted badly to cross over the street and offer to hold my umbrella over them. I chatted briefly with some of the protestors afterward. They were passionate but polite and real. I left hoping that I would get another opportunity to talk to them, to better understand what they are thinking, but more importantly to stress the value all human life.

A New Level of Crazy

I wouldn't be a *gasp* climate change skeptic if these so called scientists didn't makes such ridiculous claims. These excerpts from an article in The Telegraph show a series of unsubstantiated alarmist claims. Here are some gems:

Warming ocean waters are causing the largest movement of marine species seen on
Earth in more than two million years, according to scientists.

In the Arctic, melting sea ice during recent summers has allowed a passage to open up from the Pacific ocean into the North Atlantic, allowing plankton, fish and even
whales to into the Atlantic Ocean from the Pacific.

The discovery has sparked fears delicate marine food webs could be unbalanced and lead to some species becoming extinct as competition for food between the native species and the invaders stretches resources.

Rising ocean temperatures are also allowing species normally found in warmer sub-tropical regions to into the northeast Atlantic.

A venomous warm-water species Pelagia noctiluca has forced the closure of beaches and is now becoming increasingly common in the waters around Britain.

. . . Plankton sampling in the north Atlantic over the past 70 years have also shown that other species of plankton, normally only found in the Pacific ocean, have now become common in Atlantic waters.

. . . The scientists, who have been collaborating on the Climate Change and European Marine Ecosystems Research project, found the plankton species, called Neodenticula seminae, traveled into the Atlantic through a passage through the Arctic sea ice around that has opened up a number of times in the last decade from the Pacific Ocean.

Larger species including a grey whale have also been found to have made the journey through the passage, which winds it’s way from the Pacific coast of Alaska through the islands of northern Canada and down past Greenland into the Atlantic Ocean, when it opened first in 1998, and then again in 2007 and 2010.

Professor Chris Reid, from the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, said: “It seems for the first time in probably thousands of years a huge area of sea water opened up between Alaska and the west of Greenland, allowing a huge transfer of water and species between the two oceans.

. . . “The implications are huge. The last time there was an incursion of species from the Pacific into the Atlantic was around two to three million years ago."

My favourite part is it's the first time the Northwest Passage has been open in 'probably thousands of years' and therefore we will experience the largest transfer of water and species in 'two million years.' I though scientists were supposed to be good at math!

A Gay 'Rights' Trifecta

"It makes no sense that Mr. Lusk could be acquitted in a Quebec court and then found liable for moral and punitive damages in front of a human rights tribunal," Mr. Angers said. "These tribunals are just in another world."

That's a pretty good summary of the situation after the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal fined a man $12,000 for saying a bad word:

The case against Mr. Lusk, a retired lieutenant colonel of the Canadian Forces, stems from an April 2004, incident in which Mr. Thibault is alleged to have driven recklessly down their street in the Montreal suburb of Pointe Claire while neighbourhood children, including Mr. Lusk's son, were playing road hockey.

A witness testified that Mr. Thibault had run a stop sign and driven at high speed toward one of the kids, nearly hitting the child. . . When Mr. Lusk heard about the latest encounter with Mr. Thibault, he decided to take the matter up with his neighbours.

Messrs. Thibault and Wouters allege Mr. Lusk showed up at their home yelling and hitting their metal gate, an accusation Mr. Lusk steadfastly denies. The couple said Mr. Lusk accused Mr. Wouters, who had not been in the car, of driving dangerously and endangering the lives of his children, calling him a "f---ing faggot." . . .

Police also charged him with assault and uttering death threats, but he was later acquitted.

Still, the Human Rights Tribunal, using surveillance footage of the encounter captured by cameras Messrs. Thibault and Wouters had installed on their home, ruled "by a preponderance of evidence, that the defendant, by his behaviour, his comments and his attitude, has violated the rights of the plaintiffs, on the basis of their sexual orientation."

I really don't know where to start. This is a grave injustice. First it was a matter between neighbours. It's pretty common for neighbours to have disagreements, and it is a father's responsibility to protect his children. I can't imagine the police treating this type of complaint seriously under any other circumstances.

Second Mr Lusk was acquitted of all charges related to the incident. We have a constitutional right not to be tried twice for the same crime so the Human Rights tribunal seems to be tramping all over Mr Lusk's rights.

Finally, I came across the story via a comment on my last post about the disturbing pace our rights are being eroded in the name of 'human rights.' That post referenced a court ruling that marriage commissioners cannot op out of performing marriage ceremonies for same sex couples and the silly censorship of the 1980s hit song Money for Nothing. That makes 3 decisions in one week that tramped on the rights of individuals in favour of the gay lobby.

I suppose now is the time for a disclaimer. I have nothing against gays individually or as a community, but when our basic rights are trampled on to appease a vocal minority we must stand up to protect them.

Stop the Madness Now!

First things first: Faggot, Faggot, Faggot. Take that you silly censors!

The ridiculous ruling by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council to ban the original version of Dire Strait's hit song 'Money for Nothing' is part of a very disturbing trend this week. It follows a decision earlier this week by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal that concluded marriage commissioners have no right to refuse to marry same sex couples.

In neither case are the rights of homosexuals harmed or challenged, but in both cases the rights of others are seriously threatened. Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Conscience are fundamental to democracy, both have been harmed this week.

Fortunately, many Canadians are willing to stand up to the censorship decision. Q104 Halifax and K97 Edmonton are both publicly defying the ruling by playing the song, in their report, the Toronto Sun helpfully published contact information to complain to the CBSC. Anyone can contact the CBSC national chair Ronald Cohen at ron.cohen@cbsc.ca or 1 (866) 696-4718. I definitely plan on doing that, but I wish it were as easy to fight the Saskatchewan decision on conscience rights, because I think that's more serious.

In the meantime here's the unedited version of the song



and the offending lyrics:

See the little faggot with the earring and the makeup
Yeah buddy that's his own hair
That little faggot got his own jet airplane
That little faggot he's a millionaire

'Sky Cake' is More Profound than This Dude Thinks

Patton Oswalt is deliberately offensive in this video implying that anyone who takes their faith seriously might as well believe in 'sky cake.' His athiest fans love it and if you're not offended too easily it's kinda funny:



The interesting thing to me though is that it actually makes a pretty profound point. Right of the top he says, "if we didn’t have religion we wouldn’t be here by now . . . there’d be no civilization."

I don't think I could have said it much better. Maybe his athiest fans can take note the next time they try to remove any reference to God from the public sphere.

Polar Bear Panic

I still can't believe that one cheap animation in an Al Gore presentation has had so much effect on our culture. The imminent extinction of the polar bear has been well documented over the past 3 weeks. Mercifully, at least one Ottawa Citizen reader is doing his part to insert logic into the debate:

Since your newspaper is so deeply interested in current scientific opinion, you are undoubtedly aware that another polar bear specialist, Dr. Mitchell Taylor
(Department of Environment, Government of Nunavut) has declared that, "It is entirely appropriate to be concerned about climate change, but it is just silly to predict the demise of polar bears in 25 years, based on media-assisted hysteria ... Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present. I understand that people who do not live in the North generally have difficulty grasping the concept of too many polar bears in an area. People who live here have a pretty good grasp of what it's like to have too many polar bears around."

After two weeks of shovelling snow and feeling my nostrils freeze, I'm sure the Arctic ice will be just fine and the polar bears will have tasty seal for dinner soon. Wait, aren't we supposed to save all the baby seals? No I'm sorry that was last year's cause du jour.

Disastrous Arrogance

Barack Obama's disastrous arrogance apparently knows no bounds. Only hours after being handed a nearly unprecedented rebuke in yesterday's congressional elections Obama suggested he would force changes to the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy during the lame duck session of Congress:

President Barack Obama on Wednesday renewed his call for repealing a ban on gays serving openly in the U.S. military, voicing hope that action could be taken before a new Congress is sworn in.

Obama said legal wrangling in the courts over the issue had created confusion for the armed forces.

"We need to provide certainty. And it's time for us to move this policy forward," Obama told a news conference.

Speaking a day after his fellow Democrats suffered a major defeat in legislative elections, Obama suggested the law could be changed in the current Congress before a newly-elected Republican majority takes over the House of Representatives in January.

With the Pentagon about to complete a review looking at the effect of lifting the ban, Obama said there was still time to repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law in the final weeks of the current Congress.

"There's going to be a review that comes out at the beginning of the month that will have surveyed attitudes and opinions within the armed forces," he said.

"I will look at it very carefully. But that will give us time to act in -- potentially during the lame-duck session to change this policy."

American voters have clearly signalled they want a change from the Democrats' extreme left wing agenda. Now instead of being humbled, it seems the President will deliberately push through as much wrong headed legislation as he can before he faces a new congress that will hold him accountable. Too bad it's still another 2 years before Americans can finally turf this radically arrogant disgrace of a president out.

8 Minutes . . .

Was all it took for Rob Ford to claim victory in Toronto's race for mayor.

Carol Wilding, president and CEO of the Toronto Board of Trade, said Mr. Ford ran a “really strong campaign” focused on an issue hot among Torontonians.

“He was very focused on an issue that is incredibly important to Torontonians,” Ms. Wilding told the National Post, noting that Mr. Ford is pushing for a “cultural shift” in the way City Hall is run. “He tapped into a sentiment that people were feeling and he’s delivering on that.”

Ms. Wilding is clearly right that there's been a cultural shift in Toronto and I'm going to say that's a good thing. Although it's mind numbingly simplistic the 'Stop the Gravy Train' message is a lot more appealing than the shrill voices of his opposition.

As someone who doesn't live in the city of Toronto, the very best news tonight is that soon I won't have to hear anymore coverage of Toronto's election campaign on my commute.

Keep Enforcing the Law

I somehow missed the news that an Ontario Court ruled that laws against prostitution are unconstitutional. Fortunately our government and at least some police are taking the right course of action. The Federal government is appealing the ruling and asking that the decision be put on hold pending appeals and Vancouver Police made headlines by shutting down a brothel today:

Vancouver police spokesman Const. Lindsey Houghton said at a news briefing the
force won't stop prosecuting such offences.

"We're aware that there are some court challenges to some prostitution offences in other provinces but that has absolutely no effect on how we're doing business right now," he said.

"Until the Parliament of Canada strikes those offences from the Criminal Code, we will continue to enforce them."

Hat's off to the the Vancouver Police. I hope that police in the rest of the country take the same position. I also hope that the government's appeals are successful and that our current laws remain in force despite this radical ruling.

At a time when the travesty of human trafficking is becoming ever more apparent, now is not the time to allow our laws to be changed. Otherwise there will be even more incentive to continue enticing people from poor countries to come to Canada only to be forced into the sex trade.

Honestly I really don't know how the ruling can hold. Even the so called feminists that support the ruling seem to be contradicting themselves:

"While we agree with the decriminalization of women in prostitution, we feel that it's only a half-measure," said Trisha Baptie of the Vancouver-based advocacy group, Exploited Voices now Educating. "There's still a further step that needs to be taken to air on the side of women's equality and see prostitution for what it is, which is violence against women."

If prostitution really is violence against the prostitute, and I believe it is, then there is only one logical response. Keep our laws in force.

Brand New ProLife Hero

Ruth Lobo is an eloquent and brave young woman who was arrested along with four other university students at Carelton University. They've been charged with trespassing after refusing to take down pro-life signs that they were holding. It's been clear for many years that conservatively minded students at Canadian Universities are subject to ridicule and unfair treatment. This is a brand new low.



My bet is that Carelton picked a fight with the wrong girl. In this video Ruth is eloquent and confident even as she is being arrested. The university should drop the charges immediately. Miss Lobo should launch a civil suit against the university for violating her rights as a student.

Stay Strong Ruth!

h/t Christian Conservative

Safety First

So called 'equality' crusaders set off alarm bells Thursday as they tried to spin a court decision that ruled that Canadian Blood Services has the right to refuse to accept blood from homosexual men. How inconvenient that on the same day another study confirmed that homosexual men have the highest risk by far of contracting HIV:

Transmission of the AIDS virus seems to be "out of control" among gay men in France despite an overall fall in the number of new HIV cases in the country, according to a study published on Thursday.

Scientists from the French National Institute for Public Health Surveillance found that nearly half of the 7,000 people newly infected with HIV in the country in 2008 were gay men, and the incidence among homosexual men is 200 times higher than in the heterosexual population.

The health data is similar in Canada as the National Post's Mark Gurney notes:

Over half of the new cases [of HIV/AIDS] reported in Canada each year are a result of sexual acts between male partners. That’s triple the rate from intravenous drug use. HIV/AIDS is not, as it was originally claimed by many, a gay disease, but it remains a disease that hits the gay community with disproportionate lethality.

That activists are seeking to put their bizarre agenda ahead of the health of Canadians is unconscionable. Canadian Blood Services CEO, Dr. Graham Sher, and the judge who made the ruling were absolutely correct in their analysis. Sher said:

"Firstly, blood donation is not a right. There is no law or obligation that requires Canadians to be blood donors and Canadian Blood Services is under no obligation to receive a donation. Blood donation is a gift; it's not a right."

Secondly, Sher said, the court decided that his agency's policy to not accept blood donations from men who have sex with men does not distinguish on the basis of sexual orientation, but rather, is based on health and safety issues -- in particular, the much higher prevalence of HIV and other diseases in the men-who-have-sex-with-men population.

Thank goodness for some sanity. No amount of screening can make erase the fact that accepting blood from practicing homosexual men is exceptionally risky. The health of Canadians must always be put ahead of the ludicrous demands of these homosexual activists.

Who's the Extremist?

The federal Liberals have spent the last several months trying to slander our Prime Minister by making him look like an pro-life extremist as he works to focus government aid on improving impoverished women's access to health care without directly promoting abortion. Harper has finally spoken on the matter:

“Canadians want to see their foreign aid money used for things that will help save the lives of women and children in ways that unite the Canadian people rather than divide them,” Harper told the House of Commons in Ottawa Tuesday.

“We understand that other governments, that other taxpayers, may do something
different,” Harper said. “We want to make sure our funds are used to save the lives of women and children and are used on the many, many things that are available to us that frankly do not divide the Canadian population.”

That sounds pretty darn reasonable. It sounds all the more reasonable given the way left wingers continue to push the envelope and find new ways to offend mainstream Ontarians. Last week's controversies on explicit sex education for grade 3 students, and shopping in Toronto on Christmas Day, demonstrate that it's the left wingers who are intent on constantly pushing the envelope as they race toward evermore extreme positions not our conservative Prime Minister.

So Pathetic

The students and faculty at the University of Ottawa have completely embarrassed themselves, their school, and our country. I wish this were an isolated incident, but it is emblematic of the complete lack of freedom of thought or discussion on our university campuses. It was a clear problem at Western when I went to school over 10 years ago, and it's only gotten worse. For years student councils at various universities have been trying to defund and shut down pro-life clubs.

Today's news of a threatening letter from the university's academic vice president combined with demonstrations from loud, aggressive and potentially violent students has taken the situation to a new low. I hope that the media, the public, and especially more reasonable students and faculty at our universities will point out the complete hypocrisy of those who wish to forcibly silence opposing views in the name of tolerance.

Ignatieff Miscalculates

Michael Ignatieff had momentum. The Liberals had been successfully hammering Stephen Harper for proroguing Parliament. They had tied the Conservatives in most polls.

Now Ignatieff has changed the story. He's demanding that Stephen Harper drive a hard pro-abortion agenda at the upcoming G8 conference in June. That's simply wrong headed and the prime minister's office has already responded:

“Saving lives of mothers and children should not be a political football,” said Mr. Harper's press secretary, Dimitri Soudas. “This has nothing to do with abortion. This has nothing to do with gay marriage. This had nothing to do with capital punishment.” He called Mr. Ignatieff's remarks “sad.”

“Far too many lives have already been lost for want of relatively simple health-care
necessities such as clean water, inoculation, better nutrition, or well-trained health care workers,” Mr. Soudas said.

Mr. Soudas is right, there are many easy ways to improve the lives of mothers in developing countries - if the G8 can help they certainly should. The Liberals have been trying to make Harper look like a pro-life extremist (whatever that is) since he became leader of the Conservatives and it hasn't stuck. It won't stick this time either. Instead the Liberals will look like extremists for bringing an issue that nobody wants to talk about and trying to make it a hot button.

The Liberals only need to look at two recent examples to see that over-reach by abortion promoters only alienates the rest of us in the real world. Funding abortion in Obama's health bill, and an effort to prevent a pro-life Super Bowl ad from being aired have both back fired on the left wingers. Ignatieff's latest overreach will too.

Merry Christmas!

It was just over 10 years ago at a university Christmas party when it struck me as odd when a friend of mine wished me happy holidays. I questioned, "Don't you mean Merry Christmas?"
"No, I mean Happy Holidays" she replied. I left the conversation perplexed and ever since I've been intensely aware of the 'war on Christmas.' Some years I've let myself get quite worked up about it. This year seems strangely different.

Now I find the ridiculous and supposedly inoffensive greetings that companies and "progressively" minded individuals simply humourous in a sad and pathetic kind of way. In a way the fact that Christmas is out of favour among progressive types makes saying Merry Christmas that much more powerful because it really means something. It's a thrill to see faces light up when you say the simple phrase. For me it's a thrill just to say it. It's a statement of Faith and that's powerful in itself that reminds us we are created beings who are loved and supported by our God who was willing to come to Earth, become human, sacrifice himself and rise again. So . .

Merry Christmas!

Climate Shame

Can't believe I missed this story about leaked emails showing 'scientists' trying to spin and suppress data that contradicted the global warming thesis that has gotten politicians whipped up into a world wide frenzy. I always had a suspicion that we were being sold a faulty idea with the hype surrounding global warming, now I'm sure:

Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change.

The e-mail messages, attributed to prominent American and British climate researchers, include discussions of scientific data and whether it should be released, exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skeptics, and casual comments — in some cases derisive — about specific people known for their skeptical views. Drafts of scientific papers and a photo collage that portrays climate skeptics on an ice floe were also among the hacked data, some of which dates back 13 years.

In one e-mail exchange, a scientist writes of using a statistical “trick” in a chart illustrating a recent sharp warming trend. In another, a scientist refers to climate skeptics as “idiots.”

Some skeptics asserted Friday that the correspondence revealed an effort to withhold scientific information. “This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud,” said Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist who has long faulted evidence pointing to human-driven warming and is criticized in the documents.

Some of the correspondence portrays the scientists as feeling under siege by the skeptics’ camp and worried that any stray comment or data glitch could be turned against them.

This is scary stuff. How many millions of dollars have been spent on fighting 'climate change'? How many people have been genuinely fearful of an imminent environmental disaster because of the one-sided coverage of climate data? Maybe the upcoming Copenhagen conference will finally provide an opportunity for an honest discussion about the data.

Then again, maybe not.