As IF Times

link Iranian cleric defends earthquake-promiscuity link.

There must be some restlessness among the natives.  The Islamic cleric in the article seems to be trying to quell the waters of discontent or perhaps address growing skepticism among once blindly faithful followers by issuing this new theory on hell.  Some smart Ahmed may have posed the question of why the West isn’t under constant earthquakes if their promiscuity and sinning ways are so vile.  The answer offered is that there are deeper pits of hell for the really bad sinners.  If the threat of going to that permanently warm spot wasn’t scary enough, now we learn that there may be levels of hell! 

As is the case with all wars from the beginning of time, they are fought by young boys being sent to their deaths by old men.  If the vision of the afterlife that is portrayed by the clerics is so wonderful why aren’t they already up there going through their inventory of virgins?  Or are they content to suffer mortal life while the younger, dumber guys go on to permanent bliss? 

The notion that there may be different levels of hell for the sinning Westerners is supposed to be a comforting thought for the jihadists.  Heck, not only for them but also if you happen to be a sinning Westerner.  According to the cleric, there are levels of hell, like an inverse condominium.  The mild sinners occupy the top levels but the elevator buttons would show descending floors in a panel with increasingly negative numbers.  If promiscuity itself is something to be banished to hell for, you’d have a fair number of people up at the top floors.  Some moderately promiscuous sinners such as basketball athletes and porn stars would occupy the middle levels.  At the very very deepest levels, your only neighbours would be Warren Beatty, Wilt Chamberlain and Hugh Hefner.  It would be 3 day’s travel in the elevator to get that deep.

If promiscuity brought on earthquakes and natural disasters, the only solid land mass left on the earth would be Antarctica, unless you count the indiscretions of penguins.   It’s all fine to threaten eternal damnation, fire, brimstone etc, to keep the rabble in line and in fact perhaps even desirable in the mortal world.  If people didn’t believe there were special places in hell for the truly heinous among us, it would be difficult to have faith in anything.  For the information of the cleric however, there already is an hell on earth for promiscuous sinners.  It’s called herpes.

link Tories say Gay Pride “well looked-after” – thestar.com.

Everybody loves a party.  We are accustomed to celebrations by all kinds of groups in our society and we can probably agree that’s evidence of vibrancy and diversity in a culture.  Sadly, many of these events have morphed from being proud celebrations of various visible groups to become overt political statements.  In the old days, you celebrated St. Patrick’s day with a parade of green, or Chinese New Year with the obligatory dragon parade and firecrackers.

Nowadays, all kinds of groups clamor to be recognized and be allowed to proudly showcase whatever segment of society they happen to represent.  All that’s fine, except that now, funds are expected from governments to support these displays of multi-culturalism and diversity.  Even more sinister, politicians visibly place themselves as champions for any particular group in order to curry favour with them. 

What has really happened is the opposite of what you’d expect.  Instead of promoting understanding and embracement of all groups, separation has now been created from the rest of the population since people will choose to identify with certain groups.  As we’ve seen, these groups often turn into political blocs.  As a politician, you can’t afford NOT to be present as a display of support for that community.  Unfortunately, we’ve recently witnessed the use of these “cultural” events to promote  agendas which are not exactly kumbaya fests.  In Vancouver,  politicians actually were obliged to back out of appearances at a particular cultural parade because of inappropriate comments and actions offered by event organizers. 

In the case of Gay Pride parades, these displays have been around for decades now and they are usually robust and interesting shows.  However, it’s not clear to me that government money should be spent on promoting these types of events.  It’s one thing to show your colors and express your pride, it’s another to make someone else pay for it.  Logically if tax money at large is being spent to promote anything, it should be directed towards the collective pride of our nationhood on July 1st.  It’s annoying therefore that this gay pride group is looking for federal funds to sponsor their events.  Logic tells me that they should be no more eligible to receive money for their celebration than the Church of Scientology would to fund their gala.   Politicians of course are hard pressed to ignore the expected claims of intolerance but in the big scheme of things, somebody has to stop the myriad drains on money better suited for legitimate needs.

“…Canadians see this for what it is, blatant discrimination and political pandering among the Conservative right-wing base,” said Liberal critic Navdeep Bains.

According to the piece, NDP leader Jack Layton said the success of the Gay Pride event is not a reason to pull funding, but rather a reason to promote it further.  Jack Layton, for the uninformed, is the leader of the NDP, a political party well past its sell by date in function, but which exists today only because unions think they actually represent working people.  Sadly, logic and common sense are strangers to Mr. Layton.

“…The point is you can attract more and more people to Canada if the financial assistance is available for advertising and promotion,’’ Layton said.

He said with unemployment still high in Ontario “big events like this can create work, especially in the summer tourist season. So it is a bad decision, it is ideological but then again, we have come to expect that from the Harper Conservatives.” 

 Funny,  I never thought of it that way.  Promote Canada’s wilderness, it’s clean air and water, tourist havens, and the Gay Pride parade.  Maybe it looks better on the posters.