Defence Minister Rob Nicholson Disavows Fatima

NOTE: Before the article, we would ask the woman who provided us the story about WEB members if she could email us. You will find our email address on the left side of the website.

We posted a few stories (here and here) about the Fatima Centre a little while back and their planned conference later this month. There has been another update:

Defence minister rebuffs 'anti-Semitic conference'

Also, neo-fascist Roberto Fiore (who has ties to terrorism in the same way that the Pope is slightly Catholic) seems to be off the speaking list as well now.

Really people. Google is pretty easy to figure out.

Roméo Dallaire Not Speaking At Fatima Center Conference

BCL reported yesterday and it has been confirmed today that Roméo Dallaire will not be speaking at the Fatima Center in September. Apparently General Dallaire had no idea what kind of organization the Fatima Center was and when it was made clear that the organization was one of the largest antisemitic groups in North America he wanted no part of it.

Hey, even good people make mistakes.

But now, given his invitation to speak, we have to wonder if Roberto Fiore who has been convicted of offenses linked to terrorism will be allowed to enter Canada?

Ron Paul, a Neo-Fascist, and The Birchers Are Coming to Canada

A while back we began wondering where Andrew Benson ended up.

Our readers remember who Andrew Benson is, right?

Whenever one of the folks we've paid attention to in the past falls off our radar, we become a little curious to see where they've ended up. Sometimes they are in prison. Other times they've rejected racism and have tried to make themselves useful human beings. And in the case of Andrew Benson, a man who before he identified with racist boneheads had tried to ingratiate himself to radical Marxists, he tries to reinvent himself again.

So the one time communist, then fascist, is now a libertarian:

REAL Women of Canada Support Russian and Ugandan Anti-Homosexual Laws

Imagine if you will ladies and gentlemen a country where a law was recently passed making it illegal for Christians to proselytize. More than that, the law made it illegal for Christians to speak favourably about their views. Any outward expression of their religious views, such as wearing a crucifix, was also illegal and subject to heavy fines and a prison sentence if convicted (and be sure there would be a conviction). Hell, you could be arrested and upon conviction be sentenced to years in prison even if you were not a Christian simply for voicing your support for the right of Christians to practice their faith.

Such places, such as Saudi Arabia, do exist. These countries are rightly condemned by human rights organizations for the gross and systematic violations of human rights (not just of Christians, by the way, but other religions as well as the Shia branch of Islam if we're going to continue to use Saudi Arabia as an example). Conservative evangelicals, people we here rarely agree with on this blog, also rightfully condemn the treatment of Christian minorities in these countries. So you could imagine our shock and surprise when REAL Women of Canada, a Christian evangelical and anti-feminist group, chastised the Canadian government for taking a stand supporting human rights and basic human decency:

"According to the culture and the religion of, you know, Uganda it's not a human rights issue. You can't imply that every country has to take our human rights issues and plunk it down in another country. And particularly when you're spending all that taxpayers' money to implement a standard which is not that of that country," [Gwendolyn Landolt] said.

What surprises us most is the moral relativism of the above statement, a philosophical point-of-view anathema to conservative Christians. That she would leave Christians in Uganda twisting in the....

Wait. Uganda?

Uhm, perhaps we should read the next paragraph?

When asked about reports that Uganda has considered the death penalty as punishment for having homosexual relations, Landolt said, "It may be unwise by Western standards, but who are we to interfere in a sovereign country?"

Ah.

So the story isn't about the persecution of Christians in the Arab world, something that Ms. Landolt and REAL Women would undoubtedly be concerned about. It's about the persecution of homosexuals in Russia and Uganda by by Christians (Orthodox in Russia and primarily evangelical in Uganda) for which REAL Women are A-OK with.

Paulie Quite Inadvertently Stumbles Upon the Truth

Well it's that time of year when Doug Christie hosts yet another misnamed George Orwell Free Speech Award Dinner (misnamed not in the sense that Orwell opposed freedom of speech, but in that as a committed socialist opposed to totalitarianism in all it's forms, he would likely be disgusted that his name was being used to honour people who share the same ideology he risked his life opposing during the Spanish Civil War). Past, ehem... winners of this, uhm.... prestigious award include Marc Lemire, Ernst Zundel, Paul Fromm, Doug Collins, James Keegstra, Malcolm Ross and, our good friends and faithful readers, the Fourniers, among others.

Because misery loves company, Collins and co. awarded the prize to another worthy recipeient:

And this year`s winner is.............

Why One Should NOT Take Unscientific Polls Seriously

In a recent poll in what we'll term charitably as a socially conservative online "news" site, it appeared that Canadians overwhelmingly supported the return of capital punishment. In another similar Internet based publication, the poll numbers supported ending immigration to Canada from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. These unscientific polls were posted in light of the horrific tragedy in Manitoba when Vince Weiguang Li murdered Tim McLean.

Given the readership of these particular sites, it's no wonder that the numbers supported the very positions that the online publication supported. Imagine a poll on Free Dominion asking which of the major political parties should win the next Federal election. If the Liberals or NDP receive so much as 1% of the vote we'd be surprised.

This push polling isn't consigned to the fringe right or left. Have you ever looked at a poll on "The Globe and Mail" and become mystified by how Canadians voted in the unscientific poll, as it was counterintuitive to everything we know about the social conscious of the country? Well, we can thank, in part, the Internet for that as well.

For a number of years, one of our members has been on the mailing list of a hard right evangelical who is pretty friendly and on a first name bases with the bigwigs of Canada's Christian right. Now, our member did not even seek out membership in this mailing list, but he decided to stick with it as it did, and does, provide an interesting look at the mindset of right wing Christians. in their effort to shape public debate.

One of the things the person who created the mailing list does is to send out links to online polls in an effort to swing the vote in their favour. Here are two such efforts: