ripped from the headlines

[electricland]

azerbic isn't letting the maybe-we-should-bomb-Al-Jazeera-ha-ha-ha-just-kidding thing go, and by the sound of it, she's quite right. Go, read. (She also points out that Al-Jazeera staffers have a blog, "Don't Bomb Us". Worth checking out.)

In other news... dammit, I thought the no-confidence vote was scheduled for 4:30? (Love that photo of PM the PM with pink horns -- OK, fine, I know they're flowers.) Not that it will make a lot of difference. I do sort of hope the GG tells Stephen "All right then, do you think you can make a government? Be my guest."

I was quietly applauding Stephane Dion on the radio this morning -- not sure if it was the news or Metro Morning or The Current. Something along the lines of "Stephen Harper doesn't believe in global warming, and Gilles Duceppe doesn't believe in Canada, but I thought better of Jack Layton because he believes in both those things." It was shameless politicking, but he made the point well. Made a nice change from John "Nobody in the world outside of the Liberal government believes there's anything remotely enviable about the Canadian health care system" Crosbie on Friday.

Quite liked the guy from the ACLU (he's in Part 2, about 11 minutes in) this morning on the ever popular "They're trying to abolish Christmas!" argument. (I was in the shower when the guy from the Liberty Council was on, which is probably just as well although it does not qualify me as a balanced commentator.) He made, I thought, several good points, but the best part was when he said "If a store, or a person, or a community, decides that they want to have holiday spirit rather than Christmas spirit, it is not Christian to threaten to sue or to threaten to take actions or boycotts because the politically correct term, or the term that is politically acceptable to Liberty Council or others, is not used." Well, that and when he pointed out that back in the 19th century Christmas trees were evidence of creeping paganism in Christmas and needed to be stamped out, and now certain groups get all bent out of shape if someone decides to call them holiday trees.

I am not a Christian (it's probably telling that that's what I automatically say, rather than, e.g., "I am not a Jew" or "I am not a Buddhist"), but I grew up more or less in the Christian tradition and went to an Anglican high school and lived in an Anglican theological college for a year and have many Christian friends of various denominations, and it does seem to me that people would be better occupied worrying about the rampant commercialization of Christmas rather than its imminent demise. Its possible demise in the public sphere is another question (although in my opinion it's unlikely, at least in Canada -- of course I'm all for celebrating every possible holiday in the public sphere). Utterly Obvious Insight of the Day: I think episodes like this have a lot in common with what happens when automatic assumptions of white privilege or male privilege are challenged. Liberty Council is probably an outgrowth of that feeling.