The Year That Was

Is it possible to sum up an entire year in a few words?

Maybe.

In January, Obama took the country he was elected to lead over the fiscal cliff. He would later screw the American electorate with his unworkable Obamacare (and this coming year, they’ll still be paying for it! Suckers! You were warned!) and raise the debt ceiling. His performing monkey Hillary Clinton declared her indifference at hearings on Benghazi. I’m sure that will go over well in 2016. Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spense continued her diet and would later on in the year expect the government to help after a fire left her badly-governed reservation partially destroyed. Cue financial transparency for reservations. The French cried: “NON!” to same-sex marriage but their grand-socialiste president Francois Hollande would have none of it. Still, France pulled its weight in Mali, for whatever good that would do.

In February, it was becoming disturbingly apparent how bad Obamacare was going to be with revelations that children and those with pre-existing conditions would not be covered. It would only get better and by better I mean devastating and ruinous. Malala Yousufzai remained alive despites Islamists’ efforts for her not to be so. She would not get the Nobel Peace Prize. Not Obama enough. He was probably too busy thinking of reasons why he was not where he was supposed to when his ambassador was being killed in Benghazi. Pope Benedict XVI decided to step down. What came after was a papal election that resulted in a pope who is never going to change Catholic doctrine no matter what. Park Guen-Hye becomes the first woman president of South Korea (polite applause).  She needs the spine of a concrete elephant to deal with the perpetually aggressive North Korea in which purges and weapons testing are the still the norm. Screw you, UN.

The merry month of SMarch saw the usual year-round persecution of Christians and the passing of former Alberta premier Ralph Klein. No matter how often it was tried, Harper refused to entertain even moderate discussion about abortion, thereby stifling Conservative MPs motions on the matter. Coward. Russian President Vladimir Putin got off to a rolling early year start by controlling Twitter, bailing Obama out in Syria, making a Russian claim for the North Pole and the Sochi Olympics. The life of an autocrat is never dull. Kenneth Bae, an American pastor, was arrested in North Korea and remains (as of this writing) in prison. Pray for him. Pope Francis celebrated his first Easter Mass. Awesome.

In April, bombs went off at the Boston Marathon yet, somehow, it really isn’t anyone’s fault because we don’t want to rile certain people who rhyme with Mislamists or Mechens, especially not Justin Trudeau. Get baked, man. At roughly the same time, an explosion in West, Texas revealed the shocking quality of American geography lessons.  Kermit Gosnell went on trial for murder and infanticide. He would eventually be found guilty. Rot in hell.

In May, the circus surrounding the surviving accused Boston bomber, Dzhokar Tsarnaev, continued as his mother plead for him to the popular press. Convicted murderer Omar Khadr was transferred to an Edmonton prison and still attempts to be released. Swedish authorities fined what they claimed were illegally parked cars burned out by thugs in a display of douchebaggery that is just gob-stopping. Lee Rigby was brutally murdered on a London street. His killers were eventually convicted mostly due to their filming their crime and insisting Islam had everything to do with it.  BC Liberals won a critical election. No surprise there, really.  March for Life- it happened. Testimony revealed intimidation against telling the truth about what happened in Benghazi.

The merry month of June saw the following: Section 13 was eliminated, self-important people illegally blocked an Enbridge pumping station, starting a trend that would work its way east, former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty dismissed important questions about costly gas plant cancellations as partisanship with an air repeated by his successor, Kathleen Wynne, whose cavalier manner toward Ontario’s slow economic death and her friendship with an accused child pornographer have yet to result in her being fired into the sun, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was ousted by Kevin Rudd who in turn would lose to Tony Abbot, a flood ran through much of southern Alberta, Justin Trudeau wobbled on repaying charities he took money from, NSA leaker Edward Snowden fled to Hong Kong and then Russia, and testimonial evidence against the IRS mounted up.

In July, Kathleen Wynne continued being corrupt, a train derailment killed eighty people in Spain, George Zimmerman was found not guilty for killing some punk, Detroit had to declare bankruptcy, China rattled its sabre, hoping to control all of Asia proper. Japan does not like. Prince William and his wife, Kate, had a little boy named George. Panama caught Cuba smuggling arms for North Korea. A train explosion destroyed much of Lac Megantic, Quebec. Senate scandal, blahblahblah. August was a little more sedate with the usual violence against Christians in Egypt and Syria (its chemical weapons were handily taken care of by Putin), Nidal Hasan was sentenced to death for killing fourteen people, testimony concerning human rights abuses in North Korea went relatively unheard (screw you, UN), Parti Quebecois’ attempt to stamp out the real divisive nature of political multiculturalism met with hostility, Ted Cruz is awesome and the CRTC refused to give Sun News mandatory carriage but will review its practices.

In September, Kenneth Bae still remained in a North Korean prison while Canadian douchebags were freed by Egypt and Russia respectively. Not fair. Obama made good on his meeting Iran without pre-conditions. His lifting sanctions while allowing Iran to continue enriching uranium is an effective a measure for preventing war as kicking a hornet’s nest. David Suzuki embarrassed himself on Australian television. A mall in Kenya saw usual Islamist violence. A mentally ill man opened fire in an unusually not-protected naval shipyard and very little else was heard about it. Justin Trudeau is campaigning on one issue which he cannot get right. Wow.

October is both Thanksgiving and Halloween month. However, if one was a student at McKay Public School, one would not be thankful that Halloween was cancelled because of the Puritans who are gainfully employed as educators.  Violence in New Brunswick by anti-fracking thugs. Oh, and Rob Ford smoked some crack, whatever. Marcia Wallace, who played Mrs. Krebapple on “The Simpsons”, passed away.

In November, by now, pretty much everyone thinks Obamacare is expensive and soul-crushing bunk. Iran is free to continue enriching uranium.

At last, December, the Christmas month. No matter how hard they try, militant atheists can’t remove the spirit of Christmas from the hearts of people who love cheer and goodness, especially people who live under the constant threat of death because of their beliefs. However, this month saw the passings of Peter O’Toole and Joan Fontaine. Not every Christmas was a happy one (damn you, global warming…).

As this old year passes, let us hope that, at the very least, the new year is better than the one before it.

Monday Post

The last Monday Post of the year...

I know, Sad Cat. I know....

Two separate bombings in Russia have claimed thirty-one lives:

Two suicide bombings in as many days have killed 31 people and raised concerns that Islamic militants have begun a terrorist campaign in Russia that could stretch into the Sochi Olympics in February. Russian and international Olympic officials insisted the site of the games, protected by layers of security, is completely safe.

The attacks in Volgograd, about 400 miles (650 kilometers) from Sochi, reflected the Kremlin's inability to uproot Islamist insurgents in the Caucasus who have vowed to derail the games, the pet project of President Vladimir Putin.

No one has claimed responsibility for Sunday's blast at the Volgograd railway station or Monday's bus explosion in the city, but they came only months after Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov threatened new attacks on civilian targets in Russia, including the Olympics.

In addition to the dead, the bombings wounded 104 people, according to Russia's Health Ministry. As of late Monday, 58 remained hospitalized, many in grave condition.

It is purported that these bombings are a distraction by Chechen "black widow" bombers.  Also a distraction, the scorched earth policy Putin no doubt intends to enact. One must keep in mind that one is speaking of a former KGB agent, not a useless empty-suit whose willing shills in the popular press STILL deny Benghazi was an organised attack.

Maybe in the new year...

3.3 million hectares of China's farmland is unusable due to pollution:

China's pollution woes have been in the news fairly often lately, with reports of post-apocalyptic levels of smog and water quality so bad that locals won't even trust the bottled water. However, the latest news from China's government raises even more concerns, as millions of hectares of the country's farmland has been found to be far too polluted to safely grow crops.

This new information was presented at a news conference on Monday by Wang Shiyuan, a deputy minister of China's Ministry of Land and Resources. It was taken from a 2006-2009 soil survey published earlier this year, but kept out of the public eye as a state secret until now.

According to Shanghai Daily, Wang said that around 3.33 million hectares — which is roughly 2.5 per cent of China's more than 135 million hectares of arable farmland — was identified as being too badly contaminated by heavy metals and chemicals to be used for farming. However, according to the Associated Press, some scientists have said the contaminated area could be much larger, closer to 24 million hectares.

Wang said in the news conference that much of this polluted land is located in developed regions of eastern and central China, "such as the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, the old industrial base in northeast China and central China’s Hunan Province."

One of the main concerns comes from the heavy metal cadmium, which is naturally-occurring, but gets concentrated in the environment from sources like smelting and industrial waste. Cadmium that gets into the water and soil is readily absorbed by plants and can end up in our food supply. When cadmium-contaminated food or water is consumed, high levels can cause vomiting and diarrhea, and in some cases can lead to death. Low levels collect in the liver and kidneys and can remain there for a very long time. This can possibly result in kidney damage. Cadmium has also been identified as a human carcinogen.

High levels of cadmium, in excess of China's environmental standards, were found in rice being sold in Guangzhou, northeast of Hong Kong, from samples taken from restaurants and canteens in January, February and March of this year. According to the Guangzhou Food and Drug Administration, eight of the 18 samples taken during that time tested higher than the standard.

It's a good thing people are singling Canada out for reclamation.


Damn you, global warming:

Three icebreaker ships have tried to reach the Akademik Shokalskiy so far, after it became stuck in thick Antarctic sea ice on December 24th. The French ship L'Astrolabe and the Chinese vessel Snow Dragon made the first two attempts, but were both forced to break off their efforts on Saturday, when the ice became too thick. A third, the Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis, which apparently had the best chances of reaching the stranded ship, was expected to arrive on Sunday. However, they were forced to turn back to open waters after the weather took a turn that threatened to trap them as well.

**

A fast-moving Alberta clipper storm is spreading dangerous winter conditions through southern parts of Manitoba today. Roughly 10 centimetres of snow fell, with a heavier band of snowfall stretching from Dauphin to Selkirk and Whiteshell National Park, but it's the strong winds and extreme cold that are the biggest concerns from this storm.

**

Power crews are arriving in big numbers to New Brunswick, from all over the Maritimes and south of the border.

A trio of power trucks from Prince Edward Island took the ferry to the Kingston Peninsula Monday morning.

The rural area north of Saint John is one of the hardest hit, where hundreds are without electricity ...

Many people in the area have been without power for more than a week.

Crews have been racing against the weather forecast that says temperatures are expected to get much colder as this week goes on.

But... but... science-y stuff!

Concerned by the unreliability of scientific research in the field of psychology, an international group, the Many Labs Replication Project, began fact-checking major research. Of the thirteen studies it reviewed, only two were proven completely unreliable – and both had to do with conservative political behavior.

Both studies concerned “social priming,” a phenomenon by which people are made more likely to endorse a view or act in a particular way by first being exposed to certain stimuli.

The first study, published in May 2013, was thought to show that exposure to money influenced one to become friendlier to free-market capitalism. According to the study's abstract, this exposure made subjects more likely to endorse the current American social structure and to assert that “victims deserve their fate.”

The second study alleged that exposure to the American flag leads to “a shift toward Republican beliefs, attitudes, and voting behavior” for up to eight months afterward.

Neither study's results could be replicated.

(Sigh)

The only Palin worth giving a damn about these days is the American one:

Michael Palin of the Monty Python comedy troupe was interviewed by London's Daily Mail as the Python gang plans a lucrative reunion, and he announced that there's no way Islam could be mocked today in the way Python ripped into Catholicism and Christianity in their heyday in films like "The Life of Brian" and "The Meaning of Life" (with its "Every Sperm Is Sacred" satire).

He said: ‘Religion is more difficult to talk about. I don’t think we could do 'Life of Brian' any more. A parody of Islam would be even harder."

"We all saw what happened to Salman Rushdie and none of us want to get into all that. It’s a pity but that’s the way it is. There are people out there without a sense of humour and they’re heavily armed." Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa in 1989 insisting on a death sentence for Rushdie, who wrote a novel titled "The Satanic Verses."

Palin tried to dismiss the idea that they had an animus or an agenda when it mocked religion: "Python has always been about dealing with things you’re not meant to deal with. It’s like being at school - as soon as the teacher said ‘it’s not funny’ you started laughing."

Were you ever edgy, Michael? Were you?


And now, a somewhat happy story:

Tinsel the bear was struggling to survive in the area of Midway, B.C., and wound up sharing a coop with chickens to subsist on their feed. The Charles family transported the cub to Smithers to be rehabilitated at the Northern Lights Wildlife Shelter.

Friday Post

Your post-Christmas Day round-up...


What Christmas was like in countries where police escorts are a must:

Militants in Iraq targeted Christians in three separate Christmas Day bombings in Baghdad, killing at least 37 people, officials said Wednesday.  In one attack, a car bomb went off near a church in the capital’s southern Dora neighborhood, killing at least 26 people and wounding 38, a police officer said.

Earlier, two bombs ripped through a nearby outdoor market simultaneously in the Christian section of Athorien, killing 11 people and wounding 21, the officer said…

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but Iraq’s dwindling Christian community, which is estimated to number about 400,000 to 600,000 people, often has been targeted by al-Qaida and other insurgents who see the Christians as heretics.

**

The embattled GKI Yasmin congregation in Bogor, West Java celebrated yet another Christmas in a makeshift worship space this year, in exile from their own church, which remains sealed off despite two Supreme Court rulings in the congregation’s favor.

If I was a Christian Arab, I would enlist because my life truly does depend on joining the army:

Dozens of Israeli soldiers respectfully rose from their seats as the Israeli national anthem began playing. The tinny recording of “Hatikva,” an ode to the Jewish yearning for the Land of Israel, wrapped up a ceremony, held in Hebrew, during which speakers thanked the troops and handed out awards.

It looked like a typical motivational gathering for soldiers of the Jewish state — except that nearly all those in uniform weren’t Jews and Hebrew wasn’t their first language. They were Christian Arabs, a minority that has historically viewed itself as part of the Palestinian people and considered service in the army as taboo.

The gathering — a pre-Christmas nod to Christian soldiers, who nibbled on cookies and chocolate Santas — was part of a new push by Israel’s government and a Greek Orthodox priest to persuade more Christians to enlist.

The campaign has set off an emotional debate about identity among Christians, a tiny minority within Israel’s predominantly Muslim Arab minority. So far the numbers of Christian Arabs enlisting is negligible, but with the community’s fate possibly at stake, tempers have flared and each side has accused the other of using scare tactics and incitement.

Father Gabriel Nadaf, the priest promoting enlistment, said Christians must serve in the army if they want to integrate into Israeli society and win access to jobs. “I believe in the shared fate of the Christian minority and the Jewish state,” he told the conference, held at a local hotel.

His spokesman warned that unlike Israel, the rest of the Middle East is a dangerous place for Christians. “They are burning churches, they are slaughtering them (Christians), they are raping the girls,” said the aide, Shadi Khalloul, referring to the targeting of Christian communities in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere by Islamic militants.

 Some people are STILL without power after winter storms.


Fearing being exposed as incompetent or wasteful lost information,  the Department of Aboriginal Affairs wanted to ban the use of USB drives to transport data:

Fearing it may lose sensitive information on First Nations peoples, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs decided earlier this year to ban the use of USB keys to transport data — then realized instituting the new rule without an alternate plan was doomed to fail.

That conclusion came after a security blitz in March that found “vulnerabilities that needed to be addressed” within the department, according to a briefing note to the deputy minister. That briefing note went on to say that a ban on the use of portable data devices “is known,” but enshrining it in policy was no simple task.

“Issuing direction before it can be enforced and before the tools are available to support compliance, encourages people to disregard it. This increases the risk of intentional breaches,” the note says.

That note is dated July 29.

One would think the "worst ordeal" was being in a Russian prison:

Even after getting arrested at gunpoint, spending two months in a Russian jail, and a third in limbo while awaiting his exit visa, Greenpeace activist Alexandre Paul says the protest was worth it.

(Sidebar: arrested at gunpoint? Really?)

In fact, the 35-year-old Montrealer doesn't hesitate when asked whether he would do it again.

"Give me two weeks vacation and I'd go back out there (on another boat)," Paul said in an interview Friday at Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport, shortly after arriving home.

The Russian authorities should have shuffled these morons to one of its prisons on the far side of the country and released them the following year.

Why is it everyone's fault that they never read "The Gulag Archipelago" or any book, really?


Yet another problem with China's draconian one-child policy:

Chinese travel far and wide to join their families for the Lunar New Year holiday, but for 60-year-old Xie, whose only child died seven years ago, China's biggest holiday is a reminder that she faces old age with little in the way of financial support.

Her daughter, Juanjuan, was 29 when she died, leaving her parents in the ranks of China's more than a million "shidu" families, or those who have lost their only child, in a country where parents have traditionally relied on their children to look after them in old age.

"We Chinese always consider the child as the most important thing. If the child is gone, the whole family breaks down," said Xie, a retired senior technician living in southeastern Jiangxi province, who declined to give her full name to protect her family's privacy.

Many shidu parents are victims of China's strict family planning policy, which since the late 1970s has restricted most families to one child, and have stepped up calls for compensation.

China says the policy has averted 400 million births, preventing the population from spiraling out of control. But now it plans to ease the restrictions, fearing that they are undermining economic growth and contributing to a rapidly ageing population the country has no hope of supporting financially.

On Thursday, the National Health and Family Planning Commission announced an increase in compensation for shidu couples - although it failed to raise much cheer ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, or Spring Festival, at the end of January.

Because nothing says: "sorry about your one dead kid" like a payout that never comes.


Laying it on thick for a total moron:

Mr. Rodman, I cannot presume to tell you to cancel your trip to North Korea. It is your right as an American to travel wherever you wish and to say whatever you want. It is your right to drink fancy wines and enjoy yourself in luxurious parties, as you reportedly did in your previous trips to Pyongyang. But as you have a fun time with the dictator, please try to think about what he and his family have done and continue to do. Just last week, Kim Jong Un ordered the execution of his uncle. Recent satellite pictures show that some of the North’s labor camps, including Camp 14, may be expanding. The U.N. World Food Programme says four out of five North Koreans are hungry. Severe malnutrition has stunted and cognitively impaired hundreds of thousands of children. Young North Korean women fleeing the country in search of food are often sold into human-trafficking rings in China and beyond.

(Kamsahamnida)


And now, a happy story:

A Halifax woman had a very Merry Christmas after her seven-month-old black cat ‘Meow-Meow’ returned home.

Meow-Meow went missing Sunday evening, near North and Clifton streets, wearing a festive red sweater with the Peanuts’ character Snoopy on the back.

Owner Chantelle Rideout was thankful to have him back.

“3 a.m. on Christmas morning, and we found Meow-Meow!Thanks everyone for your help and kindness!” she tweeted.

Rideout was especially worried because Meow-Meow is an indoor cat.

“We’re hoping, a little bit, for a Christmas miracle and that he makes it home by Christmas,” said Rideout, a few days after her cat ran away.

In terms of Meow-Meow’s festive Christmas sweater, Rideout said it’s not his only outfit.

“We just bought him a couple of shirts and people said he probably wouldn't like them but he at least doesn’t seem to mind them. He always has one on,” she said.

Mid-Week Post

It's Christmas.

Go eat some fudge or something.

Drive safely.

Be good to each other.

In the Night Sky

"Christmas Star"

A wind was blowing from the steppe
In that deep winter tide
Where in a cold cave slept a child
Upon the curved hillside.
An ox’s breath was all his warmth
And every farmyard beast
Beneath the warm haze of the cave
Was stabled and at rest;
While, shaking hay-seed from their coats
Which they drew round them tight,
Some drowsy shepherds from their rock
Gazed far into the night
At fences, and a field in snow,
A cart snowed up for hours,
A cemetery, and over it
A heaven full of stars.
And, shyer than a watchman’s light,
Nor till now seen by them,
A star rose shining on its way
That led to Bethlehem.
It flamed out like a haystack, far
Away from God and sky,
As though it were a farm ablaze,
A fire sparkling high
Which rose up like a flaming rick
Of burning thatch and hay
Amid a startled universe
That saw the new star’s way

(Boris Pasternak)

 

Squeaky Wheels

In the wee hours before Christmas (a clearly Christian holiday that anyone can enjoy), let us remember those who are truly persecuted for their beliefs.

But not these guys:

That's right- the truly persecuted this season are... the militant atheists whose efforts to ban toy drives and Nativity scenes are as welcome as hornets' nests in one's bed. They defend their right to be annoying with such paranoid and unintelligent vigor, too! How can one tell who is an atheist if one can freely express his or her non-belief without fear of punishment... Oh wait.

Such are the problems for the well-fed and entitled in the Western world. If Christmas inspires such loathing and cockamamie fables of its origins, one must wonder what a perfect world for them would look like and how it would be terrible to live in a world where one's own certainty is based on shoddy reasoning and the best way to handle discourse is with knee-jerk over-reaction.

But this guy says it so well:




Merry Christmas.

Monday Post

Two more days until magic time!


What about all that solar and wind power?

A nasty ice storm that left hundreds of thousands without power in Ontario and Quebec tracked through the Maritimes on Monday as authorities worked frantically to clear tree-strewn roadways, restore downed hydro lines and get stranded travellers to their destinations.

Hydro companies in the Greater Toronto Area — which appeared to be the hardest hit by the weather system — warned some residents to brace for the possibility of being without power until Boxing Day or later.

Related: can it, paid American activists:

Dear America:

Please stop sending us your environmental rent-a-mobs, funded by wealthy American foundations backed by American billionaires, to protest against our oilsands and oil pipelines.

We’re tired of your self-righteousness, your hypocrisy and your ignorance.

The oilsands are an insignificant contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, especially compared to America’s massive use of coal to generate electricity, which we don’t do in Canada.

If you want to protest against a national leader who, by your standards, is indifferent to climate change, stop whining about our prime minister, Stephen Harper, and go home.

Protest against your own president, Barack Obama.If you don’t know why, by your lights, you should be doing that, chew on this:

“By the time Obama leaves office, the U.S. will pass Saudi Arabia as the planet’s biggest oil producer and Russia as the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas combined. In the same years, even as we’ve begun to burn less coal at home, our coal exports have climbed to record highs. We are, despite slight declines in our domestic emissions, a global-warming machine.” Your president knows this. He has described the U.S, accurately, as “the Saudi Arabia of coal.” You want to fight a national leader who, by your lights, is recklessly exploiting fossil fuels and endangering the planet?

Fine. Stop carping about Harper.

Cue fire-bombs:

Bishara Shlayan, a Christian Arab from Nazareth, is hoping to build a huge statue of Jesus on Mount Precipice, near his home city.

Shlayan told The Jerusalem Post in an interview that he has already begun fund-raising for the project and that he is getting positive feedback from the Israeli Arab Christian community as well as some Jews.

Whatever will Hamas say?


Related:

Earlier this month, the Islamist-led opposition in Syria broadcast a video clip of a militant threatening the nation’s Christian minority, with a focus on the Cherubim monastery and the large Jesus statue recently erected in the region of Saidnaya in Damascus.

In the video, images of militants firing rockets at the ancient monastery and setting the building on fire appear (confirmed elsewhere). The Christ statue also appears being targeted, though it is unclear if it was damaged.

The 128-foot tall bronze Christ statue, christened “I have come to save the world,” was recently erected in war-torn Syria, with support from the Russian Orthodox Church.

Patronising gesture or well-rehearsed attempt at dragging one to a re-education camp?

Having leaned on A&E to suspend their biggest star, GLAAD has now moved on to Stage Two:

“We believe the next step is to use this as an opportunity for Phil to sit down with gay families in Louisiana and learn about their lives and the values they share,” the spokesman said.

Actually, “the next step” is for you thugs to push off and stop targeting, threatening and making demands of those who happen to disagree with you. Personally, I think this would be a wonderful opportunity for the GLAAD executive board to sit down with half-a-dozen firebreathing imams and learn about their values, but, unlike the Commissars of the Bureau of Conformity Enforcement, I accord even condescending little ticks like the one above the freedom to arrange his own social calendar.

Any well-organised and well-funded special-interest group that can even entertain this sort of mind-bending bullying should be treated like patient zero in a zombie apocalypse. This sort of action isn't even insulting anymore; it's threatening.


Does anyone think this broad looks like a clown?

"Our fate should not be decided by the church. We are a secular nation," said former prostitute Valerie Scott of Toronto, one of three principals in the case, along with retired dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford and Vancouver sex worker Amy Lebovitch.

What a ridiculous woman!

What isn't ridiculous is the harm legalising prostitution does:

Countries where prostitution is legal experience larger reported inflows of human trafficking, according to new research that investigates the impact of legalised prostitution on what is thought to be one of the fastest growing criminal industries in the world....

The researchers used a global sample of 116 countries. They found that countries where prostitution is legal tend to experience a higher reported inflow of human trafficking than countries in which prostitution is prohibited.

The article’s authors also looked in more detail at Sweden, Germany and Denmark, which changed their prostitution laws during the past 13 years. Sweden prohibited it in 1999, while Germany further legalised it by allowing third-party involvement in 2002. Denmark decriminalised it in 1999 so that self-employed prostitution is legal, but brothel operation is still forbidden.

Germany showed a sharp increase in reports of human trafficking upon fully legalising prostitution in 2002. The number of human trafficking victims in 2004 in Denmark, where it is decriminalised, was more than four times that of Sweden, where it is illegal, although the population size of Sweden is about 40 per cent larger.

And now, finish your Christmas baking with these.

 

An Open Letter to Indonesian Muslims

Dear Indonesian Islamists,

I would like to wish you the merriest of Christmases.

What's that you say? Christmas is not a part of native Indonesian culture? Well, neither is Islam but let's not peck over the finer points. Let us instead share warm wishes on the birth of the Jewish Savior.

That's right. The same Savior who rose from the House of David (down Israel way), whom many of your number now call "a dog", whom even Mohammad believed was a prophet, has His birthday this Wednesday.

I hope you've finished all of your Christmas shopping.

I hope Christmas Day (Jesus' birthday) is filled with all manner of things that make the less volatile of us happy: wine, song, friendship, pork (perhaps in the form of bacon?), praise of Him who actually died for us but then rose from the dead, despite what some of your folk think.

I hope you forgo your annual displays of pig-ignorant intolerance and violence against your own countrymen who would much rather worship the one true Jewish Christ than gather around houses of worship with signs that read "Kill the Christians" or bags of filth or heavy machinery with which to tear down churches. I don't remember other people doing that to you but I do remember Christians the world over helping your lot out after a destructive tsunami, when the others in the ummah made a concerted effort not to give a rat's @$$.

Don't you think you could pay it forward?

No?

Are you sure? This is the kind of thing people remember the next time there is a huge natural disaster which your country is really prone to.

Just saying.

Anyway, you have yourselves a Merry Christmas. Have a beer. Relax. Take it easy.

No one likes a thuggish frowny-face on Christmas.

Yours,

the Universe


(Thanks)

Friday Freakout

For your festive freakout, it’s time to sing along to these multicultural Christmas favourites:

“Jingle Bells” in Arabic:

“Silent Night” in its original language, German:

“Joy to the World” in Japanese:

(Domo arigato)

“Silent Night” AND “O Tannenbaum” in Russian.

 “O Come, All Ye Faithful” in Spanish.

 “Il Est Ne, Le Divin Enfant” in French.

Only five more days until Christmas.

Go here for even more awesome Christmas music selections.

 

Christmas Myths (BUMPED)

They came to worship Him and got comfortable.

An older blog post bumped up for this time of year.

***

 This essay was sent to me and it is re-printed with kind permission.


Christmas was placed to moved out Roman holidays and phase in Christian ones

This idea is not a "new" idea as many people think that we have "come to realise this" in our more modern times. It was suggested by German Protestant Paul Ernst Jablonski (does anyone else detect the irony here?) that Christmas was placed on December 25 to muscle out Dies Natalis Solis Invicti. This however would be incorrect.

While there were debates as to when Christ was born (or if we should even mark the date at all), the date being settled upon as December 25 was done in 221 AD. The cult concerning Sol Invictus (the unconquerable sun god) existed during this time, but was small and eventually ceased by 222 AD. While it was celebrated, it was done on December 17. In 274 AD, Emperor Aurelian restored the festival of Sol Invictus and designated December 25 as the date of celebration. This may have been an attempt (to the contrary) to appropriate Christmas. Recall that Christians were still persecuted in this time.

Christians have also been accused of bastardising Saturnalia, another Roman holiday. This argument is flawed as well for several reasons. When the Romans celebrated Saturnalia, it was celebrated from December 17 through December 23. It was not one day. In fact, given the Roman calendar as being as it was, it would be hard to place a Christian holiday on any day in December with out being accused of appropriation. It would be hard to place Christmas on any day of the year with out facing similar accusations. Remember that the Romans had many holidays. Over 120 days of their year had a holiday on it. You could barely go more than 5 days with out celebrating something.

If Christmas was moved to take over Saturnalia, why would an existing Roman holiday be moved to the same day as Christmas? Why not put extra effort into what was already placed there? The two accusations of Roman appropriation clash.

Christmas was placed to moved out pagan European holidays and phase in Christian ones

This idea is also not new, and has been suggested as early as the 17th century by men such as Isaac Newton. However, this idea does not stand to scrutiny.

As already addressed, Christmas was being celebrated in December by the early 3rd century. This predates the spread of Christianity to the Germanic areas of Europe. Christmas is accused of taking over Yule, but history clearly indicates that the Christianising of Scandinavia did begin until (approximately) the 8th century, and in some parts didn't finish until the 18th century.

Still we are brought to the issue of the date itself. With the insurmountable issue of placement to avoid "scheduling conflicts", why place Christmas on the date it was? Unless of course they believed the date to be correct.

Reasons for believing this to be the correct date vary. Many people who made the decision for the placement of Christmas were around when various texts existed, that are no longer extant. Also, much information was considered still part of "recent memory."

Part of the reason for placing Jesus' birth on the 25th (of December), was because there was an ancient Jewish belief that the great prophets were to have an "integral age" (where you die on the same day as either your birth or your conception). Examples of this belief exist in history. It was believed that Jesus was conceived on March 25 (according to some historians, such as Sextus Julius Africanus), so a nine month count would place his birth on December 25. However, modern understand of biology would say that the date could shifted days of even a few weeks one way or the other. This does not negate the fact that ancients people's truly believed this date to be accurate.

Likewise, some traditions traced back from the date ancients people's believed Jesus was crucified. This was believed to have been either March 25 or April 6.

Ultimately the "final decision" was made in the 4th century, but this does not legitimise the claim that it was to ease transition from paganism into Christianity (no one seems to agree which person made the decisions, only that it must have been to force out old ideas), as evidence exists that this practice was already in place. However, Christmas is still celebrated at different times of the year (still in December or January) by various people's world wide.

Christmas is actually a mish-mash of various pagan holidays

Among the reasons for the idea that Christmas is actually pagan in origin, is the belief in Santa Claus. He has been likened to a horned god in the myths of various European faiths. Likening the horned god and the reindeer to Santa is specious as the reindeer are not Santa but the beast of burden used to pull his sleigh. In reality this practice is not uncommon for the cold areas to which reindeer are native. Hence the name reindeer. Reins being the straps used to tie the deer to the sleigh. Similar to the name "sled dog." A flying reindeer however is unheard of.

It should also be remembered, that St.Nicholas was a Turk, not a German. He was a bishop of Myra in Turkey. He was not Germanic figure as modern art depicts him. To liken him to and Germanic gods would be specious. The image of Santa Claus that has been popularised came from the poem "The Night Before Christmas" written in 1822 by Major Henry Livingston Jr. That image sprung up in that time. Saint Nicholas was a very real man, not mythological. People still had beliefs that Saint Nicholas gave gifts on Christmas before the poem was written, though their mental picture of him was different. In fact it was this belief that inspired the poem. St.Nicholas' feast day is December 4. Also we should remember St.Martin who shares similar status as St.Nicholas, but that he has not come under fire equally.

The use of Christmas trees and Advent wreaths also feed into this notion. This is true and these were taken from various customs of pagan peoples, but this still fails to establish "pagan origins" for several reasons:
1) Christmas existed independently from these customs and the peoples who practiced them
2) these customs are not required to celebrate Christmas
3) these customs have no religious significance
4) no culture holds a patent on trees, wreaths or candles

Other religions have also borrowed customs. It was decreed that if possible, the missionaries should allow the converts to keep their old ways, should they not conflict with Christianity. Such as the change from a Celtic Cross to a Celtic Crucifix. Anything that could be kept and Christianised, was. This doesn't change the fact that Christ was born. As such, He would have a birth date.

The Advent Wreath has a debated date of origin, but is is commonly believed to be of German origin. However, when it was originally conceived, it was intended to have a candle for every day of advent until Christmas.

While the use of decorative pines trees with candles existed before hand, it is not a requirement. When this custom was adopted, the use of candles was not included. It was not until Martin Luther (does anyone else detect the irony in this as well?) placed candles on the tree to represent the stars over Bethlehem, that this custom was adopted.

While it is true that traditions from other religions have been borrowed to supplement cultural pass times, these are mere games and decorations. It does not borrow or supplement doctrine. These practices are secular, and are distinguished from Christmas. It is easy to confuse these two when one remains ignorant of what Christmas is about, and what the activities are for.

Christmas is not:
- about trees-
about lights
- about candles
- about winter
- about rebirth (actually, only one birth was needed thanks)
- about frivolousness

Jesus was not some Roman or Germanic hero, Christianised upon the arrival of strange new men who wanted to have words with the local priests, and The Three Wise Men were not members of the Thule.

While we can see that some things are borrowed from the traditions of other peoples, it changes nothing when defining Christmas as truly Christian. Using a wreath concocted by Germanic peoples doesn't change the motivations for using it in the first place. It will not change the fact that Jesus is widely considered to be a historical figure (while the supernatural nature of His being is debated) and as such people would chose to mark the date He was born.

There is also the origin of the word "Christmas" (being Criste-Maesse, or Mass of Christ) first being used in 1038, St. Boniface cutting down a fir tree to prove to Germanic tribes that it was not a god, the decorating of fir trees with apples to mimic Paradise Trees in the Garden of Eden, the census ordered by Caesar Augustus, stars and the fact that feasts like Saturnalia are not only different from Christmas but no longer exist. This essay says quite a lot, actually.

And so does this:

Merry Christmas.