ARE THE SWISS BIGOTED?

Switzerland has four mosques with minarets and a  population of  350,000 nominal Muslims of which 13 per cent  norm ally go to prayer.  outNo big problem.  Right?  Wrong.

Recently in a referendum 57 per cent of the Swiss voters opted for a constitutional ba n on minarets, allegedly because of worries about “fundamentalism” and the “creeping Islamization” of Switzerland.

Referendums are a measure of popular gut feeling and popular gut feeling is rarely liberal.  This vote would seem to be a cconservative backlash against excessive immigration from Muslism coun tries.  But just imagine if there were a secular backlash against Catholicism in Quebec.  Imagine there was a  vote against crosses on Catholic church and all the crosses had to be removed. What would we   thin k of that?

Clearly the Swiss re angry about the large number of Muslims in their country.

Are they also bigoted?

What do you think?

IS CLIMATE CHANGE A HOAX?

Have you heard of “Climategate?”  Seems a grou p of scentists at the University of East Anglia in England manipulated and hid  data  hat showed the earth may be cooling, not warming.  One scientist writes:  “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it’s a travesty that we can’t” e  Another scientist refers to a “trick”  that can be used to “hide he decline” in temperature.

Even sympathizers say this these E-mails are a public relations disaster.  Thry bring thr bitter c;omate change debate into the ope n. On one side are the “warmists”  characterized by their opponents as true believers who manipulate the science to make it look as if the world is about to end from heat. On the other side are the “denialists”  who, backed by Big Oil billions, are out to prove that global warming is a hoax. Both sides accuse the other of dirty tricks.

Is global warming a hoax?

What do you  think?

WILL AFGHANISTAN SIN K OBAMA?

Do you think many of those who voted for Barack Obama would have thought the defining moment of his first year in office would be to escalate a foreign war.  A curious move for someone who won the Nobel Peace prize.

Obama is sending 30,000 more troops which means he has tripled the force there since he took office.  O bama has now made the Afghan war his own.  His presidency would rise or fall with this one decision.  Ande there is no certainty that this strategy will work.

Obama is now hooked up with an illegitmate corrupt government in Kabul and with an Afghan fightingforce that is riddled with terrorists.

As if to cut his losses and hedge his bet, Ob ama has promised to begin wiyhdrawing US forces in July, 2011.  (About the same time the Canadians will be leaving.  Notice that this withdrawal is only four months before the 2012 elections.  But suppose at that time the situation in Afghanistan is still a mess.  What will Obama do then?   Remembert when Lyndon Johnson sent more troops into Vietnam.  It destroyed  his presidency.  Could the same thing happen to Obama in 2012?

Will Afghanistan sink Obama?

What do you think?

HAS TIGER’S IMAGE BEEN TARNISHED?

Tiger Woods is still refusing to talk to the police or the press about his alleged car accident.  This has left a vacuum.  Unfortunately for Tiger, that vacuum is now being filled by a narrative that is damaging to both Tiger and his family.

The narrative goes like this:  The Philadelphia Inquirer published a front-page story alledging that Tiger was having an affair with a New York woman.  Two days later, early  on Friday morning, Tiger and his wife, Elin, got into domestic dispute about his infidelity.  Elin scratched his face and pursued him outside all the while striking him with a golfclub, ;thus causing further injuries and the car accident. 

Whether or not the above narrative is true is not the point.  The point is that in the lack of any counter-narrative from Woods, that is the narrative that is now filling the world’s media.  It iery damaging to Woods and his family.

How could he have avoided this?  Remember David Letterman a few weeks ago.  Letterman announced on his program before millions of viewers that he had had affairs with some women o n his staff.  It was a bombshell.  But Letterman got ahead o f the curve. He controlled the narratuve.  In a few days the story blew over and Letterman is enjoying the best ratings in his career.

Not so Tiger Woods.  He and his advisors decided to hunker down and hope the story would go away.  But will it?

Suppose Tiger had gone on uTube, said he was sorry and that he and his wife were going to a marriage counsellor.  Or suppose hehad said he and his wife were splitting up.  That would have stopped all the speculation in its tracks.  Instead, as the Globeand Mail notes this morning, the  story is spiralling out of control.

Will this story be high up in Wood’s obituary?

Has this story tarnished Wood’s image?

What do you think?

 

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SHOULD PERSONS IN A VEGETATIVE STATE BE KEPT ALIVE?

Remember the Florida woman, Terry Schiavo.  For decades here doctors and husband said she was in a vegetative state with  no mindfulness andf should be allowed to die.  Her parents argued she was alive and conscious.  In the event, she  was alllowed to die.-

Now we have Rom Houben.  The 46-year-old Belgian after a car crash lay in hospital for more than 20 years  – silen t, imm obile and aapparently uncomprehending.  The doctors said he was unaware a nd in a vegetative state.  However, his mother was convinced that her son was very aware very much alive.

Because of the mother’s faith and persistence the doctors ran new tests on her son.  The tests showed that her son could see, could

hear and heard the medical staff discussing his condition.  It’s just that he was imprisoned in his   body and could not speak out loud. 

It also turns out that an experiment in Belgium showed that 18 of 44  patients who were being treated as in a vegetative state were in

some way conscious.  Four of them woke up.  Apparently these errors have no diminished although medicine has advan ced.

So should those diagnosed as being in a vegetative state be kept alive.?

What do  yo u think?

SHOULD THOSE IN A VEGETATIVE STATE BE KEPT ALIVE?

SHOULD THE MONARCH BE ABLE TO MARRY A CATHOLIC?

At the Commonwealth conferen ce this weekend in Trinidad, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is sounding out the members about the 1701 Act of Settlement that forbids the British monarch from marrying a Roman Catholic should be changed.  Thr chairman of the Monarchist League  in Canada is urging the Commonwealth to make the change.  A British private bill to make   thechange was scuttled earlier this year.

Should the monarch be able to marry a Catholic?

What do you think?

WHAT ARE THE CHANCES THAT IN A CAR CRASH AT 2:25 AM ALCHOHOL IS NOT INVOLVED?

When he attempted to leave his gated ommunity home in Florida at 2:25 in the morning, Tiger Woods crashed he Cadillac SUV into a fire hydrant and then crashed into a tree in his neighbour’s yard.  Woods was helped out of the car by his wife, then transported to the hospital with face lacerations, then released.  His wife told police he could not speak to them because he was asleep.  The accident was not reported for a full 12 hours.  The police said charges might be laid although they also said no alcohol was involved.

Is the crash the main story or was there a domestic dispute.?  The crash came only two days after the Nation al Inquirerer reported thst Woods was cheating on hiws wife and having an affair with a rich sociaslite in New York?

Why would Woods be trying to leave his home at 2:25  in the morning?

Why would his wife be up at that hour?

Why was the accident not officially reported for 12 hours?

Do you think no alcohol was involved?

Will this incident blemish Wood’s image?

SHOULD THE WHITE HOUSE GATE-CRASHERS BE PUNISHED?

As most of us know now, a young couple from Maryland without invitations got through Secret Service security and camarashed this week’s White House State dinner.  Not only that but thy had theirt picture taken with Joe Biden and Ram Emmanuel and they got mighty close to Obama and Michelle.

Turns out they are a harmless couple who want to get a spot on a TV reality show.  But what if they had not been harmless?   What if they wormed their way in because they wanted to harm the president.  The security people say theey went through the magnetizers so thy were not a threat.  Butwait a minute.  What if they had grabbed a knifefrom a table?  What if they had smashed a glass and attacked the president with its jagged edge.  As Re[publican Peter King from New York says  this incident couldhave had tragic consquences.

Should this couplebecharged with a felony and do time in jail?  If for nothing else to earn off others from such a caper.

What do you think?

IS THIS CENSORSHIP?

Most people know the 2010 winter Olympics are takiing place in British Columbia.  What most  people probably don’t know is that there is restrictions on what participants in the arts-festival portion of the Olympics can say.  All participants in the cultural side of the Olympics must sign the following pledge:  “The artist shall at all times refrain from making any negative or derogatory remarks respecting the organizing committee, the 2010 Olympic games, the Olympic movement generally, Bell and/or other sponsors connected with the Olympics.”

Some artists were no aware they had signed such a pledge.  Other artists are complaining their rights to free speech are being  curtailed.  Such a pledge does not seem to have been required in previous Olympics and international games.

One of the senior Olympic officials said the following:  “If someone were to get up in the middle of a production and all of a sudden start coming off  on an anti-Olympic rant, well that would be ompletely antithetical to the context of the work and theGames and the presenter.”

What does this example prove, if anything?

Should this pledge not to criticize aany aspect of the Olympics be dropped?