Shorter Hillier: The Dead Didn't Tell Me

From CP and Globe and Mail:

"Hillier told a special Commons committee Wednesday that the reports by Richard Colvin in 2006 wouldn't have been passed to him because they contained only second-hand information"

Second-hand?

I suppose that, if a guy were killed through torture, Hillier would demand that the dead guy come forward and say so himself. These things are second hand by nature. The question is whether or not all of the second hand reports are corroborating.

He also finds it unrealistic that all detainees are tortured in Afghanistan. He says he would disregard any report that made that claim and that Colvin's report made that claim. "How ludicrous a claim is that?"

I guess it is ludicrous unless you listen to those bleeding hearts at Amnesty International.

"Reports of torture, ill-treatment and arbitrary arrest are so widespread in detention centres ... that Amnesty International wants NATO troops in Afghanistan to stop handing prisoners over to authorities there."

Frankly, I can't give a fig over Hillier. I don't care to go after people in the military. They were put in a terrible position and given few options. I'm after the bastards, Liberal and Conservative, who put them there in the first place and have kept them there since. I'm after the ministers who knew - or should have know if they were reading their memos - that torture was taking place. I'm after the people who gave the orders to let our nation continue to be an accessory to that torture.

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They Ought To Push a Law Against Premarital Sex

Seriously. A Congressman in the U.S. was (not quite) excommunicated because he took the position that abortion ought to remain legal.

Church asks Kennedy to forego Communion.

In case you're not a Christian, here's how it works: symbolically eating Jesus gets you in to heaven; not symbolically eating Jesus means you can't go to heaven; if you're Catholic, it's not symbolic, you're really eating Jesus. Communion is where you eat a cracker and pretend really, really hard that it's Jesus.

So the Catholic Church is upset that Kennedy supports abortion rights and wants to keep him from eating Jesus because the Catholic Church thinks abortion is murder and murder is a sin.

There's a problem, though. (Okay, there are lots of problems, but let's focus on just one).

What if all the Congresspeople simply didn't pass any legislation pertaining to abortion? What if no bills were ever even raised? Wouldn't the Church have to excommunicate all of the Catholic legislators for the sin of not even trying?

I'd think so, just in the name of ethical consistency (not the Church's strong suit, I admit).

The Church also believes that premarital sex is a sin. Should not the Church also be cracking down on any Congressperson who isn't actively trying to pass bills to ban premarital sex?

I don't see that happening though. Know why?

Because it would be stupid, that's why, and people don't like being laughed at.

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Evil Muslims: What the Media Won't Tell You!

I got in to this discussion about the Fort Hood killings. Apparently the media are hopelessly remiss in not telling us how the Islam is the religion of evil. Heck, just look at the Koran (or Qu'ran, but let's not get all "literate")! Evil!

Sure, whatever. I have no doubt that, being a religion, it's full of hateful stuff: genocide; murder; rape; whatever. I can say the same thing about the Christian bible and that whole "Judeo-Christian" philosophy that some people think exists.

So why doesn't the media tell us how evil Islam is?

Well, first of all, it does. Second of all, it does tone it down a bit. There are two reasons for this

1) We've been trained to have a completely unreasonable reticence about criticizing religion. "Hm, a fourteen year old girl is pregnant and claims to be a virgin ... that's, um, totally reasonable." Somehow, it's acceptable for religious people to spout off the most ridiculous notions and it's taboo for the rest of us to call them on it.

2) The United States already has a lot of simmering anti-muslim attitude. Remember on September 12 when Sikhs were getting beaten up? Double-plus ignorance with a backflip, Batman.

The problem is not Islam or Christianity or Judaism or any other religion. The problem is that the people who devote themselves to these religions do so and abrogate their own moral filters. What do I mean?

The bible says to kill homosexuals. Do you? No, you don't.
The bible says to kill witches. Do you? No, you don't.
The bible says not to wear mixed fabrics. Do you? All the time.

See how that works? If your religious text tells you to do something completely stupid and immoral, you ignore it. You still call yourself Jewish, Muslim or Christian, but you don't obey the stupid, immoral rules. There's a bit of cognitive dissonance, but you can live with that. You've been trained to believe that your religion is right, but you have a moral centre which prevents you from blanking out.

Some people don't have that moral centre. Some people blank right out and do whatever their priest, imam or rabbi tells them their holy book says. Go smash a plane in to a building. Drive Magog and Gog out of the Middle East. Seize the Promised Land. Help the Jews seize the Promised Land so Jesus can return.

All of those examples are stupid and immoral and yet many, many people support the stupidity and immorality. That's what religion does. It tells you to obey without thinking. And that's where I disagree that humanism falls in with other religions. If a humanist leader told his followers to strap on suicide bombs, he would be turned over to a psychiatric hospital.

So rant on all you want about the evils of Islam. Hell, I might even agree with you on some of the finer points. But really, there's nothing especially evil about it that I can't find in any other mainstream religion.

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Those Awful New Atheists

Frank Schaeffer, former fundamentalist, is angry about the "New" Atheists, who have a level of fundamentalism that he feels is on the level of Pat Robertson (lesbians caused 9/11) and Ted Haggard (anti-gay rights gay hypocrite).

The leaders of this movement make loud, repeated, and bold claims about atheism being better and more moral, more ethical, and a vastly improved alternative to religion.

The difference between the bold claims of atheists and the bold claims of christians is that the atheists can actually back theirs up. The christians have a book that advises wholesale slaughter of enemies and their children and the willingness to sacrifice one's own son to please one's deity.

Atheists can actually point to a thing called "humanism" for guidance in moral matters.

If we are to dismiss Christianity and other religions partly because of the likes of Oral Roberts, Ted Haggard, and their shenanigans -

You may as well stop right there. I don't dismiss Christianity because of the immoral acts of its followers. I dismiss it because a) it's factually incorrect and b) it encourages immorality. Whether or not atheists are mean people has nothing to do with whether they're right. And since atheism has no dogma, you can't claim that it has a dogma that causes atheists to be immoral. The argument doesn't wash, so don't bother.

Mostly Schaeffer seems to be annoyed that atheists are declaring their opinions stridently, selling t-shirts with those opinions printed on them, and getting other people to stop following religions.

Schaeffer goes on for a long time about all of Richard Dawkins' sins, but none of them seem to me to be on the level of the divorce from moral reality that comes from adhering to the doctrine of a religion. There's nothing in my appreciation of Richard Dawkins (or any other atheist's appreciation) that would lead us to obey Dawkins if he were to tell us to - for example - smash a plane in to a building, shoot a gynecologist, deny condoms to starving, diseased people or blame a terrorist act on completely unrelated gays and lesbians or women wearing pants.

That's just not our thing. You see, atheism relies on reason.

In a nutshell:

If Richard Dawkins becomes demented and tries to get his followers to do something vile or insane, they will balk. Can you say that for the followers of Pat Robertson and Ted Haggard? No, you can't.

h/t to the PZ.

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That's A Lot Of Credulity

I mean, wow.

This is a lot like that time I was traveling through Chicago and overheard an American soldier in O'Hare airport tell his compatriot, "We saved their asses in world war II, why ain't they helping us in Iraq!?"

I mean, sure, I knew that this sentiment existed, but it's still a shock to hear it expressed.

But this particular thread is full of ignorant, naive people claiming to have experienced ghosts. Now I know that Huffington Post is a gathering place for all kinds of woo, from the anti-vaccination crowd to homeopaths, but it's still powerfully strange to see so many of these people in one place. It's enough to make me fear for humanity.

There are no ghosts. There's never been any convincing evidence for ghosts. They either turn out to be the result of pranksters (think "crop circles"), the result of dreams or hallucinations (especially the night-time experiences) or outright fraud (the medium who kicks the table). No one has ever presented any evidence that could withstand the light of scientific examination.

I know. The pro-ghost faction are now going to say I'm closed-minded. I'm too skeptical. "Science doesn't know everything" or "Science use to think 'x', you know!" where 'x' is some old belief that has since been corrected. Of course science doesn't know everything, but it is the best technique we have for examining positive claims.

You claim that ghosts exist. You claim that they frequent certain places. So we examine those places for the signs you claim to see. And we find nothing.

Now realize you've been credulous and naive and find something better to do with your time.

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Got You Now, You Evil Lying Bastards

Got you good.

The only question is if the public will care.

Will we care about the fact that our government is made up of evil, lying, self-serving bastards who were a party to torture and crimes? Will we care as much about morals as we did about the petty dollars and cents involved in the sponsorship scandal?

I hope so.

Rick Hillier, when he was Chief of the Defence Staff, says he kept his political masters fully informed about the harsh conditions of detainees in Afghan prisons, even though Prime Minister Stephen Harper and cabinet ministers claim they were told nothing.

Evil. Lying. Bastards.

I mince no words. Not now. Not in this.

The "Harper government" told every enemy of Canada that it's okay to treat our soldiers as we treated our enemy's soldiers. That's what they're doing. They're taking away our moral high ground and endangering our soldiers. And they're responsible for torturing human beings.

"There are hundreds if not thousands of documents, reporters, memos, advice that come through all departments," Mr. MacKay told reporters outside the House of Commons.
"The fact that one report or a series of reports weren't read by a minister or a deputy minister shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone."

Condoleezza much, Peter? I know you hung around with her a bit, so this might seem nostalgic for you:

"I believe the memo was entitled 'Bin Laden determined to attack inside U.S.'."

Nothing to worry about there, obviously.

We're done with you people. We're done with your lying, your discrimination, your war-mongering, your America-envy, your lethal deregulation. We're done with you.

I only hope that my estimation of my fellow citizens' morals is accurate and they've seen enough to be done with you, too.

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Police Officers Are Perfect

In fact, they're inhuman machines of perfection who never, ever allow their emotions to prevent them from acting in the exactly perfect, moral, legal manner in which they've been trained.

Or so the spokesman for the Ontario Police College would have you believe:

A spokesman said officers are trained to handle arrests in a professional manner, regardless of circumstance.

"The presence or absence of cellphone recording or other recording equipment is not relevant," the spokesman said.

That's right. Unlike the rest of us human beings, police officers behave exactly the same way whether you're watching them or not. And they never, ever lie about it either.

Police officers are amazing.

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