Grace took this shot while we were driving out to Vermilion. I got the chance to test out a couple of new Lightroom presets whilst editing it…in particular, a nice new preset for adjusting details in skies.

Personally, he wouldn’t have my vote. But that’s another matter.

‘I’m like a newborn baby,’ Dr. Henry Morgentaler told the CBC’s Evan Solomon about surviving a recent stroke and heart operation. ‘I enjoy being alive.’

The irony wasn’t lost on Solomon, who then asked the Canadian abortion doctor ‘how does a guy who’s seen so much death (in Auschwitz and Dachau, where he was imprisoned as a youngster) fight for a cause which many people believe is a form of killing?’

‘I won’t deny there’s an inconsistency,’ Morgentaler answered. ‘Maybe I’ve deluded myself.’

Like a newborn, eh, good doctor? One that you didn’t manage to chop up into bits?

Delusion is, I suspect, just the tip of the iceberg.

Wrong on so many levels. Have any of you heard of symbolism? Especially Biblical symbolism?

See if I ever buy your burgers again, Ronald! Oh, wait…

* one wonders how many of these same people would decry the use of the “ticking time bomb” argument as a justification for torture?

Yes, the sad little cracker has met its undignified end, so stop pestering me. The cracker, the Koran, and another surprise entry have been violated and are gone. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow for the details, what little of them there are. I must quickly apologize to all you good Catholics who were hoping to attend Mass, since you can’t anymore — I have been told many hundreds of times now that cracker abuse violates your right to practice your religion. I guess you’ll have to adapt. Secular humanism is a good alternative, if you aren’t already flocking to join the Mormons.

I suppose secular humanism is a decent alternative, if one wanted to live in an amoral vacuum in which the various social tenets of what constitutes moral behaviour are negotiable based on personal taste. Personally, I prefer something a little…stiffer (which rather emulates my taste in liquid spirits, I might note).

Myers is a sad, sad man and a bigot, rather a lost soul, and rather a textbook example of just how a hatred of God (as opposed to simple non-belief) is a gateway unto madness. He is to be pitied, and one can only pray that he be forgiven; he knows not that which he does.

Related: drunk atheist jerk storms into worship service, berates parishoners. But remember — he is the champion of reason; the parishoners who were insulted by him should have thanked him for enlightening them with his wisdom and rationality.

So over the last few days, Grace, my mother, and have been looking at various pieces of baby-related merchandise, and it’s been pretty fun so far. Contemplating the arrival of our little one in such concrete terms as “where do we put the crib?” and “what kind of stroller should we look for?” somehow makes the whole thing seem…well…even more real than it already is. It’s pretty cool, actually.

Even more cool is just being with Grace through this experience. Aside from the fact that lately we’ve been losing sleep, we’ve been growing closer and closer as the weeks roll past, and she has been just radiant for…well, for as long as I can recollect, to be sure. Just radiant — she really has that “pregnant lady” glow about her, and it’s both cute and touching just how much she obviously loves and cares about our little one.

I don’t think the English language has words I could use to adequately express my gratitude and awe.

One thing I just thought of: baby products…what a racket! One would think that baby products would be simple and straightforward, but in reality the opposite is true — worse (and more annoyingly) still, the stuff all comes in matching sets! You can get the playpen and crib in a matching colour scheme, and also the stroller and carseat, and even the bedding, all co-ordinated with the same patterns and earthy colour tones. Much of it seems cute, but much of it gives off a creepy vibe.

Baby as fashion accessory. Sometimes, society just gets under my skin, in a bad way.

Fortunately, we were able to cut through some of the B.S. and come away with a compact, functional, relatively simple stroller. It isn’t too big, doesn’t have the full cup-holder deck that one so often sees, and folds up neatly into something that could fit comfortably into the back of a Smart Car (we drive a Chrysler Sebring, though). And the crib we found is also fairly straightforward — finished wood railings, metal (not plastic!) sliding apparatus for opening the one side.

Cribs, though…there’s another racket. There’s not a single one these days that retails with a mattress included, at least not that Grace and I were able to track down. But then, we did manage to track down a smart-looking unit, with room to spare in our budget for a mattress and some bedding. It will look really nice in the corner of the apartment we have set aside to be “Baby’s Corner”.

Now we just need diapers and a couple of jumpers.

Also, I found the neatest little blog add-on, and it should be visible at the top of the main content pane. It’s a little…slider, I guess would be the best term for it — that shows (based on the projected due date) some basic information about the expected development of the baby. Very cool.

This is one that Grace took on a recent trip to Vermilion. She liked the look of the clouds.

EDMONTON - A law student representing one of the young men charged in connection with a violent group assault on an Edmonton soccer dad says the teens may take the case to the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

Gurpreet Gil says the parents of opposition team members made inappropriate comments to the players in the moments before alleged assault.

“There were some racist remarks,” Gill said outside court.

Of course, the allegation of Racism on the part of the victim totally justifies the fact that five people associated with an under-18 soccer team from Mill Woods swarmed and viciously beat Dean Smith, the father of one of the players on the LaPerle soccer team (which, by the way, the Mill Woods team defeated in a match). Indeed, the allegation of racism totally removes any culpability the five young men might have had in the beating of Mr. Smith, which required his jaw to be wired shut and has resulted in vision damage in one of his eyes!

I suppose it would be racist of me to observe that the only named attacker (the only one who is older than 18 years of age) has a vaguely…Arabic, or possibly Indian subcontinental, name?

This is a markedly better tactic than the insanity plea: if successful, the five attackers will probably be cleared on all charges. Meanwhile, Mr. Smith will be tarred and feathered as a racist hatemonger, and might even be made to pay damages to the youths who attacked him.

Justice, at last thou hast come!

When I went to Ethiopia* just over 20 years ago, I saw many things I never reported — such as the menacing effect of gangs of young men with Kalashnikovs everywhere, while women did all the work. In the very middle of starvation and death, men spent their time drinking the local hooch in the boonabate shebeens. Alongside the boonabates were shanty-brothels, to which drinkers would casually repair, to briefly relieve themselves in the scarred orifice of some wretched prostitute (whom God preserve and protect).

I saw all this and did not report it, nor the anger of the Irish aid workers at the sexual incontinence and fecklessness of Ethiopian men. Why? Because I wanted to write much-acclaimed, tear-jerkingly purple prose about wide-eyed, fly-infested children — not cold, unpopular and even “racist” accusations about African male culpability.

This follows from an earlier article that he penned, in which he noted still more problems:

The wide-eyed boy-child we saved, 20 years or so ago, is now a priapic, Kalashnikov-bearing hearty, siring children whenever the whim takes him.

There is, no doubt a good argument why we should prolong this predatory and dysfunctional economic, social and sexual system; but I do not know what it is. There is, on the other hand, every reason not to write a column like this.

…

Indeed, we now have almost an entire continent of sexually hyperactive indigents, with tens of millions of people who only survive because of help from the outside world.

They are now — one way or another — virtually all giving aid to or investing in Africa, whereas Africa, with its vast savannahs and its lush pastures, is giving almost nothing to anyone, apart from AIDS.

…

How much Morality is there in saving an Ethiopian child from starvation today, for it to survive to a life of brutal circumcision, poverty, hunger, violence and sexual abuse, resulting in another half-dozen such wide-eyed children, with comparably jolly little lives ahead of them? Of course, it might make you feel better, which is a prime reason for so much charity. But that is not good enough.

For self-serving generosity has been one of the curses of Africa. It has sustained political systems which would otherwise have collapsed.

And for saying as much, all of it good common sense, Mr. Myers could potentially be jailed…without benefit of trial. In Ireland, which is supposedly a free and democratic nation.

On the one hand, I expected some uproar in Ireland over my piece about Ethiopia on July 10. But there really wasn’t any. On the other, I didn’t expect an attempt to jail me by a state-sponsored body. Yet Denise Charlton, of the Immigrant Council of Ireland, has urged An Garda Siochana to investigate me under a special law, by which I could be tried and imprisoned for two years without even the benefit of a jury.

Oh, Denise, Denise, you silly, silly little girl: have you nothing better to do with your time and talents than to try to get someone jailed for saying something you dislike? So there we are. The apparatchiks of the equality industry merely have to contemplate the sector of their psyche wherein their self-righteous emotions reside: and if these are sufficiently overwrought, they decide that a hate-crime has been committed.

…

So, “a lot of Africans” are “all very offended”, are they? All of them? The poor dears. Well, if the countries on whose behalf they get so easily offended are so bloody marvellous — Sudan? Rwanda? Zimbabwe? Sierre Leone? Congo? Somalia? Eritrea? Etcetera? — why aren’t they enjoying themselves back home?

Just so.

The above are not easy words to read; I personally doubt that Mr. Myers intended for them to be easy to read. The reality of Africa — and even of the outcomes of the various aid monies that flow in to that troubled continent — is not an easy truth to hear, and I doubt there is any way to put it to paper in a palatable manner, save to gloss over the really nasty bits in favour of heart-wrenching stories about babies with bloated bellies.

And make no mistake: starvation, especially of infants, is a damnable tragedy. But nothing is really being done about this by simply pouring more money into the various countries that make up Africa — in the end, what is achieved is that governments are propped up which have no business being in power in the first place. The cycle of injustice is thus free to continue.

Positive developments do occasionally occur in Africa, admittedly, but one notes that many of these are intrinsically linked with foreign missions that see Westerners come in to Africa (once more) to take an active role in e.g. the construction of bridges and water systems.

But now, apparently, a man stands to be jailed in Ireland for saying as much.

* a quick note, for those who will attempt to lay blame for all this at the feet of the colonial escapades of e.g. Britain and France: Ethiopia was never a colony.

When we put it that way, we suddenly realize: Knowing that the baby is going to die sooner rather than later is no reason to kill the baby. It is, says Janet, a reason to love the baby for as long as you can while it’s here. That’s very painful, but that is the risk we take every time we choose to love because everything we love in this world is mortal. It may be objected that an anencephalic baby cannot appreciate our love. I would reply that a healthy baby does not appreciate our love either, because a healthy baby has no more mind than a baby born without a brain. The whole point of parenthood, especially in its earliest stages, is radical self-giving (like Christ) to a being who is wholly incapable of giving anything back besides a sucking reflex. It’s an analogy of the grace of God, the great wake-up call, enfleshed, that It’s Not about Me and What I Get from It. A short course in the life of the Blessed Trinity.

I think this hints at exactly what is wrong with abortion, both including and apart from the fact that an innocent life is take. What is seriously wrong is that the entirety of the act is marked by a profound lack of love, of a certain kind. Babies require unconditional, self-giving love from their parents if they are to have any chance of development, formation, and maturation; even a perfectly healthy baby will wither if it is not showered with affection to give it is first ever lessons about the existence of something that exists beyond itself.

Note, O Reader, that what I’m talking about is not the same as an inability to love; all human beings are capable of loving something. Rather like the question of Religion, the issue is not whether we love, but what we love. And in the case of abortion, all we demonstrate the capacity to love is ourself. And in so doing, we effect a most terrible destruction not only on human life in its most fragile and innocent state, but on the world around us as well.

Love is a terrible risk, and love of anything outside the self necessarily leaves us vulnerable to being hurt in a multitude of powerful, shocking, and terrifying ways. But that’s the risk we accept, because to love something outside ourselves is also an act of majesty and beauty that is unparalleled by anything else in this mortal, temporal world.

And love — that ability to love another — is what is truly lacking in the act of abortion and the desire to seek the service out. It is a depravity that is, quite frankly, horrifying. And here’s the rub: this is just as true in the case of a disabled/terminally malformed baby as it is in the case of a pregnancy due to rape. Whatever the deformity, and whatever the trauma, there is an innocent life there which we should only ever love and see brought into the world (if only for a few moments); any other response diminishes and demeans not only that new and innocent life, but us as well.

It speaks volumes about Canada that we saw fit to give a man a medal for his efforts in making such an abhorrent thing legal in this country.

So let’s take all that as read and get down to the nuts and bolts. In at least four countries today, Christians will lose their lives because they are religious believers and the state in which they live is ruled by atheists eager to stamp out religious belief from amongst the general populace.

There are four atheist countries in which atheists are presently jailing, torturing, and murdering Christians. These countries are China, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. (Cuba was doing the same in the past, but has shown some respect for religious freedom for nearly a decade now.) While American atheists customarily try to fall back on a spurious No True Atheist defense, government documents prove this defense to not only be illogical, but incontrovertibly false. For example, the motivation for China’s most recent wave of anti-Christian persecution was laid out in a government document entitled “Notice on Further Strengthening Marxist Atheism Research, Propaganda and Education“. This proves that the motivation underlying the persecution is atheism; specifically the Marxist variant which is the heart of a godless worldview that correctly sees Christianity [and other Religions — Ken] as a serious threat.

…

Given that at least 1,600 Falun Gong practitioners have been tortured to death and a number of recent Christian deaths have also been confirmed, such as the beating death of Ms. Jiang Zongxiu in prison on June 18, 2004 and the death of Bishop John Han Dingxian on September 12, 2007, there is absolutely no question that Chinese atheists are murdering Christians today and intend to continue doing so.

The situation is much worse in North Korea. In TIA, I quoted a 2004 article published by The Guardian: “The number of prisoners held in the North Korean gulag is not known: one estimate is 200,000, held in 12 or more centres. Camp 22 is thought to hold 50,000. Most are imprisoned because their relatives are believed to be critical of the regime. Many are Christians, a religion believed by Kim Jong-il to be one of the greatest threats to his power.” These North Koreans are not “Kim Jong-ilists”; they are atheists and correctly identify themselves as such.

…In Vietnam, the atheist regime is currently persecuting the Montagnards, a predominantly Christian minority. This is probably done as much for ethnic reasons as anti-religious ones, but the persecution has been purely religious and directed against ethnic Vietnamese Christians in the recent past.

…In Laos, Christians are considered to be enemies of the state and have been viciously persecuted since 1975. Although the persecution has not been as intense in the last three years, it still continues: “At least thirteen Christian villagers who were falsely accused of stirring rebel dissent have been killed by authorities in Laos over the past month, according to an August 7, [2007] report from Compass Direct. The report also states that approximately 200 Christians in the village of Sai Jerern have been arrested and imprisoned.”

The long and short of it is this: the atheism of the ruler can be strongly correlated with the state engaging in brutal and murderous campaigns against its own populace, to the tune of over 50%. In just shy of a century, the bodycount of regimes headed by atheists and/or espousing atheism as state policy has launched itself well clear of 100 million, and the estimate I see most commonly given tends to be on the order of about 148 million (if memory serves). That is a number against which Christian regimes simply cannot compete in the modern era, and I’m pretty sure that if we took a 91-year slice of history — any 91-year slice will do — we would not be able to see a similarly high bodycount generated by Christian hands, even allowing for the fact that technology back then wasn’t geared toward mass-casualty destruction.

And yes, I’ve heard it said that what’s really to blame is the sociopathy of the leader, not his atheism. Sociopaths are, essentially, those who lack any innate moral sensibility. When advantageous, they may adhere to the morality of the surrounding culture. When advantageous, they will flout that same morality in the pursuit of a selfish end. Obviously, their own philosophcal point of view will play a role in determining when and how they do this.

Of course, sociopaths come in all sorts of philosophical colours — funnily, though, history demonstrates to us that it would seem to be the irreligious ones that have the stongest tendency toward mass murder and large bodycounts.

Eh, atheist persecution of Christians is nothing new, any more than was pagan persecution of Christians way back when. In the end, the Church will emerge stronger for its suffering and blood, and the ones who set themselves against her will vanish into the dusty pages of the history books. ‘Twas ever thus.

In other words, they have sunk to the point where they have to pay people to join them. This will doubtless be followed by reaching the yet-lower point where they couldn’t pay people to join them if they wanted to.

The last white pride rally in Calgary drew out 25 people; this is not a movement which is any kind of threat. And yet some people insist on using them as justification for the persecutorial operations of the various HRCs in Canada.

Hidden agenda, much?

Ayatollah-prescribed fatwas are so pre-9/11. Nowadays, as liberal elites rush prophylactically to ward off charges of tolerating “Islamophobia,” the fatwas (in all but name) against damn good books like Mark Steyn’s America Alone aren’t bruited in mosques; they issue forth from human rights commissioners.

…

Many Canadians believe the nation’s human rights commissions (HRCs) are motivated by high ideals and good intentions. But in conspiring to silence what a handful of Muslims deem “hate speech,” these good intentions are paving the way for the hell of global “soft jihad.”

The soft jihad is gradualistic and law-abiding, but no less desirous of Islamic domination of the West than its violent counterpart. Soft jihad strategy exploits liberal discourse and weaknesses in our legal system to induce guilt about a largely mythical “Islamophobia.”

The list of complaint-triggering speech offences is long in all Western countries, and ranges from the trivial to the politically existential: A decoration on a lid of ice cream distributed by Burger King offends because it resembles Allah in Arabic script; Fox Entertainment’s drama 24 portrays South Americans, Bosnians, Germans and Muslims as terrorists, but only Muslims complain; a Turkish lawyer sues an Italian soccer team because the red cross on their jerseys reminds him of the Crusades.

…

One way or another we must stop the fatwa industry in its tracks. Begin with removal of speech-regulation from the HRCs’ legal mandate. Build on that with legislation that imposes costs and damages on litigious third parties who seek to chill journalists.

Canada should also pass legislation imitative of the U.S. Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) law, presently active in 24 U.S. states, which disallows harassment of those writing on matters of “public concern,” as well as the Libel Terrorism Protection Act, a New York state initiative that will combat libel tourism.

The HRC crisis is not a tempest in a teapot. Stanley Kurtz, senior fellow at the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, says: “I don’t think it’s too strong to say that the [HRC] complaint against Mark Steyn is a totalitarian document.”

It is therefore no exaggeration to say that Levant and Steyn are fighting for the defining ideal of Western civilization which, once lost, would spell the beginning of the end of all our other freedoms.

Freedom of speech/expression is the cornerstone human right in truly free societies — without it, all the other rights we enjoy will crumble. And in their zeal to protect the smaller rights, the HRCs will destroy this most important right unless we are able, somehow, to reverse their course or cast them down.