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Eco-Tax Rally: Saturday, 18th of September 2010
September 13, 2010 — xanthippaWhere: Jim Watson’s campaign office, 1355 Richmond Rd.
Time: 12 noon
Date: 18th of September, 2010
Here is the email from Debbie Jodoin, one of the protest organizers, announcing the rally:
“Are you tired of Premier Dalton McGuinty and the Ontario Liberals taking money out of your pockets?
Maybe you are tired of Dalton and the Ontario Liberals playing hide and sneak with your tax dollars?
Or, maybe you are just tired of Dalton and all his broken promises.
Come out at 12:00 pm, Saturday, Sept 18th to Jim Watson’s Campaign office . 1355 Richmond Road.Let’s ask Mr Watson about his 6 and half years as a Cabinet Minister under Dalton McGuinty.
He has to be held accountable for our high provinical taxes.
Bring your signs, bring your water, bring your chairs and show Dalton he can no longer take advantage of us.
With your HELP, ONTARIO CAN LEAD AGAIN!!!”
Bacon-wrapped Koran?
September 11, 2010 — xanthippaBreaking news:
Following a private meeting with Imam Fido Rowf, the Roverand Terry Bones held a press conference where he announced that he would continue with his plans to celebrate the Islamic feast of Eid by feasting on a Koran. “I’ve had a look at the Koran,” stated Bones, “and it appears kind of dry, so I figured I’d add some bacon or pork sausage. I mean, you can’t have a fatwa without ‘f-a-t’, right?” Jones continued, “I’m not against the Koran as a whole, in fact, I’ve book-marked some of my favorite parts…on a Persian rug!”
Humour IS the best medicine!
‘Moderate’ imam Musri: is he ‘al-Qaida in Armani’?
September 10, 2010 — xanthippaThunderf00t: ‘The Real threat from Islam’
September 10, 2010 — xanthippaOooops!
It seems that, yet again, Thunderf00t needs to explain that by treating Islam exactly the same way he treats ALL religions and creeds, he is not a ‘bigot’ or a ‘racist’ who is ‘picking’ on Islam:
Was the ‘Koran-burning preacher’ Terry Jones duped by the moderate imam Musri?
September 9, 2010 — xanthippaWhile checking out TheReligionOfPeace, I came across this story.
Instead of trying to simply retell what the article says, let me try to re-construct some plausible approximation of how it might possibly had happened.
First, we have the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’. And, yes – the undercarriage of one of the airplanes that hit ‘The Towers’ on 11/09/2001 actually fell on top of this building and damaged it: this makes the building ‘Ground Zero‘. Imam Rauf, who is building the Ground Zero Mosque cannot, by any reasonable person, be called ‘moderate’ – not with what has been learned about him… and certainly not based on his behaviour.
Anyhow…
Yesterday (Wednesday), imam Rauf is quoted in the linked article as saying that
‘nothing is off the table’ when asked whether he would consider moving the site.
Today, (Thursday), Donald Trump is reported to have offered that he would buy the building from imam Rauf for 25% more than it had cost him: not because he wants the building, but because he would like to end the controversy amicably. Considering that imam Rauf and his gang had paid $4.8 million for the damaged building, Mr. Trump is truly putting his money where his mouth is.
So far so good.
But things go from good to bad rather fast.
A nutty and, by the sounds of it, somewhat unpopular preacher Terry Jones from Florida got annoyed by something and declared September 11th, 2010, to be ‘International Burn-the-Koran Day’. (No, not a ‘Burn-an-imam Day’ – just destroying some inanimate objects he owns.)
Could it have been the very existence of the Mosque at Ground Zero? Or, perhaps the speed with which it’s breezing through all the building permits while St. Nicholas Orthodox Church, the tiny little churched destroyed as the South Tower collapsed on top of it, appears to be fatally entangled in the red tape which denies its reconstruction? Or was it hearing about the hundreds of bibles burned by Iran?
Perhaps he was expressing solidarity with the Muslims in Iran who have posted this video of themselves, burning the Koran, as a symbol of protest against the oppressive theocracy which is ruining their country? (Thanks, BCF, for digging this one up.)
Perhaps it was a little bit or everything.
Perhaps he was simply exercising his freedom of religion!
Whatever the cause, the fact remains that preacher Jones is well within his rights to destroy his own property, however he chooses to, and nobody has the right to meddle!
Of course, meddle they did.
And this is where it gets rather ugly…
‘Everyone’ has been meddling!
It was just ugly when it was just the usual media lackeys who condemned him.
It was emotional blackmail and just idiotic when people ‘all over’ tried to make him somehow responsible for the potential actions of other people. Yet, that is exactly what happened!
But when General Petraeus, the American Troops top commander in Afghanistan, came out and started telling anyone who’d listen that how a specific citizen of the USA chooses to exercise his Constitutionally guaranteed rights, he’ll be guilty of putting American troops into danger – that is when it gets downright scary!
Since when do we live in a society which permits military generals to dictate who gets to exercise their Constitutional rights, and how? Do we even WANT to live in such a society?
Of course, the media ignored the constitutional rights issue and instead of demanding that General Petraeus be stripped of his position and dishonourably discharged from the military (the minimum reasonable reaction to a general caught bullying civilians out of their civil rights) , they have given the military man a pass and continued to beat up on the nutty preacher. Sad, even if predictable.
Of course, this is not where it ended.
US President Obama – the guy who found nothing offensive in decades of reverend Jeremiah Wright‘s ‘God Damn America’ sermons – condemned his own citizen for exercising his freedom of religion. In this abc piece, Obama is quoted as saying (regarding Terry Jones’s plan to exercise his freedom of religion):
“If he’s listening, I just hope he understands that what he’s proposing to do is completely contrary to our values … this country has been built on the notions of religious freedom and religious tolerance,”
In other words, Obama says that the USofA ‘has been built on the NOTIONS(?!?) of religious freedom’, but believes that exercising them is ‘completely contrary’ to American values. (I am presuming here that when Obama says ‘ours’, he actually DOES mean ‘American’.)
Does Obama really not realize what is coming out of his mouth?!?!?
Last night, the internet provider pulled the plug on the prea
Today, when Secretary of Defense Gates did not only not fire Petraeus, but actually personally phoned Jones up and parroted Obama and the disgraceful general, preacher Jones began to show cracks.
So, let me recap.
So far, we have tons of pressure on preacher Jones to cancel his ‘Burn-a-Koran Day’ day, which he is ostensibly holding as an exercise of his freedom of religion, because he is so annoyed with imam Rauf’s arrogant project which has created so much discord in the American psyche.
We also have imam Rauf claiming ‘nothing is off the table’ when he was asked if he would be willing to move the mosque’s location to a less controversial spot.
Donald Trump takes imam Rauf seriously and offers to buy out the ‘Park 51’ property from him while giving imam Rauf a 25% return on his investment.
In comes the ‘moderate’ imam Musri,reportedly an influential Muslim from Florida.
Preacher Jones meets with imam Musri and comes out of the meeting convinced (rightly or wrongly) that since the Ground Zero Mosque builders have agreed to move their project, he is calling off the ‘Burn-the-Koran Day’!
Yes, he has called the ‘Burn-the-Koran Day’ off!
But, he has done so in the honest belief that the reason for his decision to so publicly exercise his freedom of religion by burning the Koran was no longer there – that the thorn has been removed from his side!
Once the ‘Burn-a-Koran Day’ was called off, the ‘moderate’ imam Musri says that there must have been a misunderstanding: he only promised that the two of them (Musri and Jones) would travel to New York to seek an audience with imam Rauf in order to ask him to, please, be so kind as to consider, may be, perhaps, moving his project elsewhere.
If he’d like to.
Pretty please.
Gee – how could such a misunderstanding have come about?!?!?
On a completely unrelated note – have you ever heard of the Islamic concept of ‘taqiyya’?
A letter from Afghanistan to Dalton McGuinty’s EA
September 9, 2010 — xanthippaFirst of all, I would like to thank this soldier – both for what he is doing for all of us in Afghanistan, putting himself in danger tto keep us and our kids are safe, and for taking time to write to Dalton McGuinty’s EA and asking for an explanation of how ‘freedom of speech and assembly’ became ‘privileges’.
Now, to explain…
There has been a series of recent protests against Dalton McGuinty, the Premier of Ontario, organized by two Ottawa taxpayers, Debbie Jodoin and Shirley Mosley. Ms. Jodoin is so upset with Mr. McGuinty’s policies, she has decided to seek a nomination for the Conservative Party to run against Mr. McGuinty, in his riding, during next year’s Provincial election.
The protests have attracted some attention – and Mr. McGuinty’s ‘office’ began subtle intimidation tactics against the demonstration organizers, especially Ms. Jodoin. This culminated in a letter Mr. McGuinty’s Exacutive Assistant, John Fraser, had written and emailed to Ms. Jodoin.
Not only did Mr. Fraser see fit to email it to Ms. Jodoin at work, he also emailed it to each and every one of her co-workers – and her boss. In the email, Mr. Fraser admonishes Ms. Jodoin not to forget to obey the laws…. Yeah, employer’s just LOVE to get emails addressed to their employees which imply that without a ‘friendly reminder’ from the office of the Premier, this employee could not be counted on to obey the law of the land!
If the intimidation were not enough, Mr. Fraser’s letter (officially sent as coming from the Premier’s office) also included the following phrase:
“I think we can agree that free speech and the right to assemble are both a privilege and a cornerstone of our democracy.”
With Ms. Jodoin’s permission, I posted the full letter, along with the context (Mr. Fraser thought it necessary to come up to Ms. Jodoin just prior to the demonstration and ensure she agrees to follow the laws – the Ottawa Police were there in force, and even brought along a paddy-vagon…you know, just in case!)
Well, a few other blogs picked up on this, thanks to a great deal to MooseAnd Squirrel, BlazingCatfur and all the rest of the bloggers who picked up the story. The story made it around the world. Yesterday, BlazingCatfur posted a letter which a soldier, serving in Afghanistan as a member of Canadian Armed Forces, had sent to Mr. Fraser in response to the Jodoin letter.
He writes:
“One can not even imagine the sheer delight, as I try in many ways to convey to my troops that free speech and the right to assemble are a privilege.”
Read the full letter here.
And, if I ever have the honour to shake this person’s hand, the beverages will be on me!
‘Religions’ do not have ‘rights’ – only PEOPLE have rights!
September 8, 2010 — xanthippaLet’s get this straight, once and for all: INDIVIDUALS have rights – groups do not!
Each and every individual within any and every group has rights.
The group – as a whole – does not.
This is a fundamental distinction.
We must NEVER permit anyone to ‘fudge’ or sweep this distinction away.
If we do, if we permit a group of 10 people, 100 people, a million people, to have rights different from simply the rights of the individuals who make up the group, make no mistake about it: we are endorsing a tyranny of the majority, which is not substantially different from simple ‘mob rule’!
Coming up on the anniversary of the 11/09 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York, some obscure priest in the US has announced that he’ll burn the Koran as his expression of freedom of religion.
This has generated huge publicity all over the world – quite out of proportion to the act itself.
Now, don’t get me wrong: I do not like book-burnings. It is too Jesuit-like… (Except that the Jesuits would traditionally shut the whole family, including the kids, in the house in which they found books, before burning the whole structure down. To the best of my knowledge, this preacher does not plan to burn any people – just paper on which some words are printed.)
Now, the Vatican has issued a statement that:
“every religion has the right to expect that its sacred books, places of worship and symbols will be respected and protected”
OH, NO, IT DOESN’T!!!
No ‘religion’ has ‘rights’!
Only individuals have rights!
And YOUR right to religious freedom stops where MY actions begin!
Let’s stop paying lip service to faux rights.
Let’s stop cowering in fear of reprisal for exercising our fundamental rights and freedoms!
I urge each and every one of you to take some ‘holy book’ – does not matter which one, as long as it is considered ‘holy’ by someone… or, even better, one of each of them – and burn them. At least in effigy…
Not because you disrespect them.
But because you have the right to do so!
Because our fundamental rights and freedoms are above any creed or faith or doctorine!
If you don’t use it – you WILL loose it.
Freedom is to important for such a gamble. Don’t loose it – USE IT!
On September 11th, go and burn some ‘holy’ books!
Mosque being built on top of Christian cemetery – and NOT in New York
September 3, 2010 — xanthippaHave you ever heard of a Muslim cleric named Mirza Abdul Ghani?
When India and Pakistan were partitioned in 1947, some provisions were made for ‘hallow’ land (like, say, cemeteries) of religious minorities. This was the case with a Christian cemetery off New Rasool Road in Mandi Bhawaldin, Pakistan.
16 years ago, Mirza Abdul Ghani, the above mentioned Muslim cleric, decided to build a Mosque on the land legally set aside for the local Christian cemetery. The local Christians were not particularly thrilled with this interfaith outreach – but they were intimidated into silence with threats.
So, the mosque was built. The constitution of Pakistan forbids the demolition of places of worship, so the mosque has stood there ever since.
Three months ago, Mr. Ghani began building an addition to the mosque – complete, with basement. The addition is reported to also include ‘shops’.
When the local Christians realized what was happening and that more graves were being desecrated and destroyed, they sought and received a legal injunction which ordered that all work be stopped. The cleric and his crew have ignored the injunction and the project is reportedly nearly complete; they are at the ‘plastering stage’.
Of course, once built – there is nothing anyone can do…
Next time you have musings about the tack record on the levels of sensitivity to desecrating hallow ground of other people by Muslim clerics intent on building mosques – think of the town of Mandi Bhawaldin and Mr. Ghani’s little mosque on the cemetery!
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 