I'VE GOT TO KEEP UP WITH THE NEWS

Blushing embarrassed. I didn't realize that Dennis James Kennedy, a prominent Religious Right figure died on September 5, 2007. Mr. Kennedy was an outspoken advocate against gay rights. I have since remedied the tracking problem by creating news alerts on several remaining conservative figures. My apologies. Anne

In other (and more current) religious news, Regent University has suspended a student for allegedly posting a picture of Pat Robertson giving the finger on Facebook.

Adam Key was told to report to mental health services at the University and harassed about Mr. Key's possession of a gun that he denies owning.

Gee, I don't know if Pat Robertson giving the finger is that out of line. The digitus impudicus (warning: the Wiki account shows the finger) is an ancient Mediterranean gesture for thwarting the evil eye . Robertson might need it if James Dobson and other religious conservatives who are disgruntled with the current slate of Republican candidates, form a breakaway political party. This would just be the thing to put the Clintons back into the White House. And, oh, wouldn't Pat Robertson be tempted to flip someone off then?

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I'M WITH STUPID UPDATE

The Sooke school board reprimanded schoolteacher Kathryn Sihota. Sihota is the teacher who refused to give her students a standard reading test after

a little girl burst into tears.

In fairness to Ms. Sihota, here is her speech that she gave at a rally for her defence. My gut reaction to the speech was to feel queasy at the touchy-feeliness of the diatribe. Nowhere in the speech is there mentioned a way how to somewhat accurately measure the students' aggregate performances. While it is good to be concerned about the individual student, that is not how governments determine funding.

Furthermore, life does not coddle. Ms. Shiota's worries that the students are subject to unfamiliar material on the test and that this will somehow damage them is specious. Each day brings some new event or challenge in a person's history. New material on a test only preps kids for adulthood when life will be a constant test.

Technorati Tags: british columbia,canada education,kathryn sihota

BULLETS ARE BAD FOR BIRDS

I realize that this may be a silly title to some but the topic is very serious. Lead in carrion left by hunters is killing off the California condor, an endangered species.

If there are any remnants when a hunter shoots an animal, condors ingest the lead in the corpse. The condors mistake the bullets for the bones that they need for calcium. Since the bullets do not digest, the lead sits in the condor's gut and gradually poisons the condor to death.

Currently, there is legislation, Assembly Bill 821, the Ridley-Tree Condor Preservation Act, to outlaw lead bullets in California. Please help save the condors. Write to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and ask him to sign the bill.

Here is the letter that I wrote to him:

October 12, 2007

Dear Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger:

My political blog has an international readership. I have urged my readers to contact you regarding the Assembly Bill 821, the Ridley-Tree Condor Preservation Act. Please sign the bill not only for the sake of an endangered species but for the care of the environment.

As a parent, I think it is important to create a healthy world for children. Lead ammunition in the environment is dangerous for humans as well as birds. Condors are an indicator of lead's toxic and fatal qualities to all species.

Please do what is right for the environment and for future generations. Please sign the Ridley-Tree Condor Preservation Act.

Sincerely,

Anne Cagle
http://radiofreedomcanada.blogspot.com

Please write to the Governor.
Thanks,

Anne

Technorati Tags:condors, governor arnold schwarzenegger

WORKS OF ART UPDATE

A survivor, Charlie Neitzel is in serious condition. The 21-year-old is recovering at a local hospital.

The dead are:

Katrina McCorkle

Leanna Thomas

Lindsey Stahl

Aaron Smith

Bradley Schultz.

More details emerge from the shooting. The killer used a AR-15 rifle, basically a semi-automatic, to murder his victims. He fled to another town and briefly held a family hostage. It is currently unclear whether a police sniper killed him or he killed himself.

Technorati Tags:crandon wisconsin,guns

WHY CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS IS WRONG

I read an article in the Vancouver Sun about Christopher Hitchen's visit to Vancouver. I disagree with his stance on the Iraq war because it is not well considered. I know in challenging Mr. Hitchens on his opinions on the war, that I might as well be ingesting poison hemlock for the efficacy of the conversation. However, since I have the personality that likes this kind of challenge ---the bravo gesture such as the time I took down a mugger--- here goes.
Christopher Hitchens is wrong in his support of America's war in Iraq because he thinks it will wipe out Islamic fundamentalism in that country. He is dead-on about that aspect of the war that is troubling. No one would like to see the imposition of sharia law in Iraq. No thoughtful person would want to see Iraq's oil riches in the hands of the Parties of God. However, there are similar "Parties of God" in America that cannot be entrusted to wisely use oil reserves. Politicians, of both the conservative and so-called liberal parties, in that country have strong theological biases. Religion clouds their ethical judgements and their public policies. If the United States captures Iraq's oil reserves , the result will substitute the supremacy of one theological world view for another. The moral equation does not change with an American win in Iraq, just the cast.

Technorati Tags: christopher hitchens,iraq, religious right

WORKS OF ART

I gave a groan of horror when I read about vandals who broke into the Musée d’Orsay and punched a hole into a painting,“The Argenteuil Bridge,” by Claude Monet. No cultured person would ever imagine such a deed. To destroy a treasured work is uncivilized. The authorities should severely punish the perpetrators.

I thought this barbarism disgusting until I scrolled down the page to read the other news stories. In Crandon Wisconsin, an off-duty sheriff 's deputy shot and killed six people at a party before himself dying under circumstances that police have not yet released.

Tyler Peterson stormed into the house and began shooting. Some of the victims were young, in their early teens. Others were graduates of the same high school. One victim was 14-year-old Lindsey Stahl. From the news photo, she looks like a pretty redhead. A child that any parent would be proud to call their daughter. Would have been proud to call their daughter.

The four inch hole in the Monet can be easily repaired. The lifelong hurt from these senseless gun deaths won't.

Technorati Tags: monet,crandon wisconsin,guns

AT LEAST THEY KNOW HOW TO SHARE

Who says fundie Christians don't have big hearts?, Despite Oral Robert University president Richard Robert's greed, the Religious Right seems to play nice with each other. Recently Mike Jones, the male escort who dated Ted Haggard, said that disgraced Senator Larry Craig came to him for services. Mr. Jones was rather coy about whether Sen. Craig had received any attention but half the fun is speculation. I'll leave that thought, without further comment , for my readers.

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RELIGION IN THE NEWS

The Religious Right just plops news stories into my computer.

The most notable article from the fundie camp is about Oral Roberts University.ORU president Richard Roberts,son of Oral, is caught up in a scandal that questions his use of university funds.

Allegedly, Roberts has misused donors funds to pay for swanky cars, a red Mercedes convertible for him and a Lexus SUV for his wife, Lindsay. He diverted funds for home remodelling, use of the university jet to give his daughter a trip to the Bahamas, and that the university maintains a stable of horses exclusively for the Roberts family. Richard Roberts says that he pays for all family expenses out of his own pocket. An audit is on track for ORU funds.

This would all be simply an accusation of financial impropriety but sex, as it usually does in Religious Right scandals, rears its ugly head. Allegations have been made that Lindsey Roberts suffers from oniomania, shopaholicism with a kink for underage boys. The allegations are that she had a maintenance worker fired to favour one of her underage boy toys for the job. One of those perhaps she text-messaged, at the cost of $800 a month, on cell-phones provided by the university.

Geez, where is God and how can I get my cut of that action? Not the underage boys. Ew. The cash. Being a humanist has not been very lucrative.The Roberts family allegedly gets hot tubs, wide-screen televisions, and fast Internet connections courtesy of the university. They get a private soda vending machine. Perhaps ---just maybe--- if I became a Bible thumping fundamentalist Christian, my revenue would pick up?

Try to sell that one to Focus on the Family in their present economic condition. FOF has laid off 30 people in Constituent Response Services and has reassigned 15 more. FOF has increased its revenue but inflation, the religiously impartial judgement of economics, has cut into the increase in the organization's budget. James Dobson and crew have felt the invisible hand, not of God, but the marketplace.

Technorati Tags:focus on the family,oral roberts university

THERE ARE NO WORDS

The military junta in Burma has massacred thousands of people, including hundreds of Buddhist monks.

At least four, perhaps six, journalists, have been arrested.

A Japanese cameraman, Kenji Nagai,was shot and killed by military police. NOTICE: This link takes the reader to YouTube which shows the killing. This video is only for people 18 or older. Although someone my age cannot comprehend the incident.

Hell was not created by any one.... The fire of the angry mind produces the fire of hell . . . When a person does evil, he lights the fire of hell, and burns with his own fire. {Mulamuli*}
*Meaning: "beginning"

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SPEAKING OF MEDS

Find of the Week:
George W. Bush blotto

at a wedding in 1992.

"So drink, tra la la,
Drink, tra la la,
Drink, drank, drunk last night,
Drunk the night before;
Gonna get drunk tonight
Like I never got drunk before;
For when I'm drunk, I'm as happy as can be

For I am member of the Souse family..."


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PASS THE MEDS

Child killer Ian Huntley in Great Britain has been found in his cell for the third time with a drug overdose. In August 2002, Huntley killed ten-year-old friends Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells.

Kudos to the person who brought the drugs into Huntley's confinement. It is terrible that prison discipline has broken down so that drugs are available to the inmates but the phrase "It couldn't happen to a nicer guy" is apt. After all, he murdered two innocent little girls and had previously been accused of rape. The more perps that off themselves, the much better and safer the world will be for the remainder of us. If one of that disgusting type is reading this, be my guest and go ahead with the dive. The child you save may be our own.

Technorati Tags: ian_huntley,jessica chapman and holly wells

I'M WITH STUPID IN DC

The Lieberman/Kyle amendment has passed in the Senate. Essentially, the amendment would authorize "the prudent calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence and military instruments". In other words, it is a call for war against Iran.

Hello? What have Senators Kyle and Lieberman been smoking? Ain't nothing kosher. Let's look at some pertinent realities before America rushes off to yet another disastrous war:

The military is overextended in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The American credit and housing markets have gone flop belly up.

America imports most of its food.

The United States manufacturing base is gone.

American domestic infrastructures, bridges , roads, schools, and sewers, are shaky.

Now is not the time for more war talk in the United States. It is necessary to have a domestic policy that focuses on America's problems to place the country on firmer economic ground.
Technorati Tags: lieberman,iran,american economy

I'M WITH STUPID

A teacher on Vancouver Island is facing disciplinary action for refusing to give her students a standard reading test.


Kathryn Sihota refused to give her students the District Assessment of Reading Team test (DART) after a little girl in her class cried about taking the test. Sihota complained to an assistant superintendent that she would not give the test again because she couldn't do that to her students anymore.

Well, waah...There are few problems with Ms. Sihota's attitude. First, it is in her job description to administer tests. If she were so heartbroken about making her students work, perhaps another line of employment would be better for her. Students need firm guidance, not some New Age type who succumbs to a child's meltdown. Children need to learn that, in real life at jobs, they will face performance evaluations. A standardized test is a just a performance evaluation of skills. There is nothing wrong with assessment of the capabilities of either children or adults. Of course, this needs to be in the context of work outside the test such as practical application of those skills. In the classroom (and in life) application and evaluation should compliment one another.

Second, Ms. Sihota is not teaching her students very good business and employment skills. When the children become adults they can't be teary eyed at the idea of performance evaluation, a job interview, or a presentation in front of a client. Life is hard, an unforgiving bastard. If teachers coddle their students in this manner, let them off homework and testing, how will the children learn to survive the adult world? The sad fact is that they won't learn to manage their lives without a childhood foundation of discipline.

Ms. Sihota gets an “F” in Life Skills.

Technorati Tags: british columbia,canada education,kathryn sihota

A MOMENT OF SILENCE

For Marcel Marceau

Mime, actor, and French Resistance fighter

March 22, 1923 to September 22, 2007

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CONDI RICE CRAPS OUT

Meanwhile, as Her Maj cleans ups with her winning soap raffle, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice gets the thumbs down from Il Papa. Seems our woman in DC asked for an audience with Pope Benedict (Latin Mass) XVI about Middle East foreign policy. However, His Holiness was taking a vacation at the Residenza Papale at Castel Gandolfo. The Vatican has been at odds with the Bush Administration over America's foreign policy by condemning the violence in the Middle East.

The official word from the Holy See was that the Pope never sees diplomatic officials during his vacation. Condi won the booby prize of speaking to the Vatican's number two official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

Now, it should have been obvious to Ms. Rice that the Pope was en vacances, and did not want to be disturbed. But just like her boss, George Bush, Condi had to be a pushy American about the situation. The rebuff from the Vatican should be taken as a very strong hint, not only about m-a-n-n-e-r-s but also p-o-l-i-c-y. You have to spell it out for the Bushites.

Of course, Condi did not take the heave-ho from the His Holiness as a message (from God? from the Acme Sign Company?). She got a cold shoulder from the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, with both refusing to speak directly to each other at a United Nations shindig about a small incident involving private American military contractors killing eight Iraqi citizens. One would think, by now, Ms. Rice would have a clue that she is not representative of America's best interests. A graceful bow to the world stage would be the best career move for the current Secretary of State.


Technorati Tags:condoleeza rice,pope benedict XVI

HER MAJESTY HITS THE JACKPOT

Let it be known that Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
has won two bars of soap and bath oil,worth $20,
in the

Fox Hill Primary School raffle.

She also, according to news reports, has a rubber ducky with a crown that she floats in the bath.

Stay sweet, your Maj.

Technorati Tags:Queen Elizabeth II

LOCK UP YOUR (YOUNG) SONS AND DAUGHTERS

Lordy, those Republican perverts keep my fingers busy...on the keyboard. The latest scandal is that John David R. Atchison, an associate attorney from the United States Justice Department, has been caught travelling to Detroit to solicit from a police officer posing as the mom who offered her five-year-old daughter for sex.

Yeepers... these are the guys who are supposed to keep children safe. With a nod toward traditional values, Atchison called himself "a family man" in the e-mails sent to the detective. The perp attorney was also the head of a sports organization in Florida. One worries about the children he coached. Especially when he arrives at the rendezvous with a doll and hoop earrings for the purported girl, and sexual materials such as petroleum jelly. Is this the type of person Alberto R. Gonzales hired after the prosecutor firings? Gack ...the sooner the whole sorry lot of the Bush administration is keel hauled out of the White House the better.

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SALUTE TO THE BRAVE / PRAY

Many of the rescue workers for Crandall County Mine are still in recovery. Please pause a moment to acknowledge their sacrifice.

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Please?

While RadioCanada does not advocate violence toward anyone, we cannot help but note the recent threats of Muslim terrorists against Madonna and Britney Spears. Muslim terrorists have threatened to execute the aforementioned faded pop stars because they tempt men to wickedness.

Hokay... obviously they have not seen the photos of a bald Britney Spears. Or seen stories about her failed comeback on MTV? I saw a Madonna video about a year ago and my first thought was that cellulite happens to the best of us. You could see the pock marks on the Material Girl's thighs. This is why the term "washed up" exists. If Muslim terrorists are serious about offing randy pop stars, can't they keep a little more current with their celebrities? Please. The tabloid stories about the two don't even,um,tittilate anymore.

Muslims who decry those like Spears and Madonna or Paris Hilton need only wait until the starlets trip over their own egos. Spears and Madonna are not indicative of sexual immorality but of intellectual sloth on the part of Western culture. Tabloids exist because people would rather not think about issues that are of importance. Like world poverty or a failed war in Iraq that creates destitution for thousands.
Technorati Tags: Britney Spears,Madonna

PRAY: THE END

The search is over for the Crandall Canyon miners. The owner of the mine plans to seal the mine to further mining.

The resident in chief, George W. Bush and Laura Bush have offered their condolences to the miners' families. Crocodile tears. What is needed, and it won't happen under a Republican government, is a complete ban on retreat mining. Retreat mining consists of pulling down coal pillars behind the miners to dig out the last shard of coal off the supports. Without this reform, coal mining will continue to be a dangerous --- and deadly --- occupation.

UPDATE: According to news reports, Utah American Energy, Inc. was operating the mining at the Crandell County Mine illegally, since they did not inform the Bureau of Land Management about the mine activities. Furthermore, UAE did not inform the Mine Safety and Health Administration about previous mountain collapses at the mine.

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