American's knowledge of religion shallow?
Stephen Prothero, author of the recently published Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- And Doesn't,
agrees that the Good Samaritan story is germane to the immigration debate because it is all about how Jesus said we should
treat strangers.
"First of all, how many Americans actually know the Good Samaritan story? I'm not sure many do," said Prof. Prothero,
chairman of Boston University's religion department. "Second, should we be basing policy on biblical passages? If we're going
to, how can we have any reasonable conversation if we don't know the story?"
Amazing -- I did twelve years of Catholic school and entirely missed the section where Jesus picked up a
half-dozen Samaritans to build him a new back porch so he could avoid paying the local Jewish boys the minimum wage he
otherwise strongly supports. What Gospel was that in again?
An awesome little project, via Danny:
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The first article title on
the Wikipedia Random
Articles page is the name of your band.
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The last four words of the very last quotation on the Random Quotations page is the
title of your album.
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The third picture in Flickr's Interesting Photos From The Last 7 Days will be your album cover.
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Use your graphics programme of choice to throw them together, and post the result.
Making the most of the first snow of 2008 by going skating with Trinity-Anne (unfortunately, at the poor ice Nathan Phillips
Square) and then sliding at Hogg's Hollow.
We were watching Futurama -- Bender's Big Score -- this morning and
Trinity-Anne asked me "Is there really an Al Gore?". Answer: "Nobody knows, Trinity, nobody knows".
My brother made a lengthy
reply (that's the only kind he does, I'm afraid) to my post on Catholic education rights in Ontario.
Youcan go read it in it's entirety, I shan't quibble on legal points, that's for sure. However, he misreads my
intentionre: protection of Catholic rights.
I'm not overly fearful for Catholic rights in Ontario, Canada, or elsewhere nearby. What I do like is all the weird stuff
inour system: funny wigs, QCs, "God" in the constitution, a free pig and
two comely lasses of virtue true for the police chiefs, the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, etc.. It's good to
givethe Svends, Jacks and Justins frequent reminders -- preferably up the side of the head -- that none-of Mike Pearson,
FidelCastro or Tommy Douglas were Fathers of Confederation.
I prefer cities laid out like St.John's to
that of Toronto also.
The Canadian Criminal code 718.2:
A court that imposes a sentence shall also take into consideration the following principles:
(a) a sentence should be increased or reduced to account for any relevant
aggravating or mitigating circumstances relating to the offence or the offender, and, without limiting the generality of
the foregoing,
(i) evidence that the offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national
or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or any other
similar factor,
If you'd like to read more about the rationale behind hate law provisions in the Criminal Code, here's a lengthy (50 page) PDF. On page 10
of particular interest:
The main distinguishing feature with hate crimes is that such offences include a specific motivating factor not found in
other crimes.
Now, some mean spirited citizens have suggested that these provisions are mainly about "sticking it to whitey", but
certainly there's few cases more clearly falling in to the definitions and rationales above that Aqsa Parvez's murder -- "honor
killing" -- (allegedly) by her father for refusing to wear the
strict public symbols of Islam.
If this not a factor in sentencing, then this case should be Exhibit A why this provision needs to be struck from the
Criminal Code.
Heh: "...Lessing’s words should be taken somewhat in
context: the ditherings of an ignorant old women..."
I just read on Gateway Pundit that the media had fallen for another "insurgents slaughter many"-type story, likely fed to
them by an AQI propagandist / stringer. I was currious
about what CBC had said about this story but when I click on the
link .... Curious. Probably just a server error.
Robert on Latimer:
My own view is that the Court arrived at the right decision when it held that Mr. Latimer's conviction and sentence had to
be upheld. In Canada we have not even come to a societal consensus on the issue of assisting a person of full mind commit
suicide (see the Sue Rodriguez case). The
issues around a parental killing of child who is disabled and unable to communicate her wishes on an informed basis are
hopelessly more thorny. The fact of the matter is that it is impossible to genuinely appreciate the true significance of the
genuinely held belief "I must kill her because I can not bear to watch her suffer any more" -- who is truly being shown mercy
when that sentiment is acted upon? Is it mercy for the suffering child or is it mercy for the suffering caregiver? Moreover,
there is a strong sense of ownership over a child that is being asserted in such cases -- "This is my child so I can decide
whether she lives or dies."
This, however, does not make the Parole Board's decision right. Our society has sent a clear message about Mr. Latimer: he
murdered his daughter contrary to the law and was given the full sentence mandated by the law. Now he is going through the
process that every criminal in Canada is entitled to go through to ease their re-introduction to society.
Wow, I'll let others worry more about the "one
laptop per terrorist supporter" issues and say, WTF? They city's spending almost $11,000,000 / year to give computers and
high-speed Internet to 3000 families? That's about $3500 / family! Who are they buying these things from, Dash Domi? Why not just give half to the schools and half
to the local libraries to put computers for everyone?
Now, this sounds more like a "social justice" program -- i.e. Bucks for Buzz and his Boys -- than it does a meaningful
attempt to help anyone, but I've got a better deal for the city and the disadvantaged: outsource it to me and I'll save the
city lots of money and double the number of disadvantaged kids getting computers.
The logistics are fairly simple. Dell will ship directly to their apartment and I'll handle the Rogers billing from here.
I'll assume I can get Rogers and Dell to eat GST & PST given the size of the order we're making, plus the potential for a
tax write off for everyone. Rogers and Dell will also handle tech support directly, which is a reasonable part of becoming
computer literate. The city will provide the names and addresses who to ship to. I'll need 5 people at say $50,000 / each to
handle paperwork and logistics. One person will be dedicated to Googling names to weed out friends-of-terrorists. Let's also
posit that I'll maintain another 6000 Internet accounts for people who have already got their computers.
So here's the budget:
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Internet connection: $1.65 million (6000 @ 22.95/month * 12 months)
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Legacy internet: $1.65 million (6000 @ 22.95/month * 12 months)
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Computers: $2.7 million (6000 @ $450 / each)
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Employees: $250,000 (5 @ $50,000)
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Offices: $150,000
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Subtotal: $6.4 million
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Management fee: 1.28 million (20%)
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Grand total: $7.68 million
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Savings to City of Toronto: $3.08 million
That'll buy Dave Miller a lot of food
carts. I'm available on my cell during normal working hours.
Nerve (via Kottke):
The Lands' End fall catalog is porn for the heartsick man. Who thought sixty pages of stylish-yet-practical clothing would
employ models who are disturbing approximations of the lovely thirty-something woman who doesn't want to put up with your
shit anymore?
...
For a second, studying the supposedly idealized images of men in the catalog — the ideal man for these uber-women? Your
replacement? — the old anger flashes: These guys are dorks! They're wearing clothes chosen by their women -
turtlenecks and non-Levi's jeans, monogrammed, $50 button-down shirts with matching ties. . . khakis.
...
Each page of Lands' End fantasy is a perfect scene in the wonder of her new life without you.
This post should show up on Onaswarm in the next 15 minutes.
My company BlogMatrix has just launched it's latest product -- Onaswarm. If you use
Facebook, Flickr, blogs and especially if you have other likeminded friends online, you should go over there and get an
account.
What does it do? Simple: it imports all your feeds -- your content -- from the services you use on the net and collects it
into a single place -- a "lifestream". If you have friends online, you can link your Onaswarm accounts together to create a
"swarm", displaying what all of you doing.
What's really neat is that you can take these pages and put it on your own blog or webpage, to create (for example) an
"active blogroll" showing what all your friends are doing, or an events calendar showing all the things you're doing.
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