Ramen!

Where the intentionally ridiculous wins a small battle exposing the mindless ridiculous -

An Austrian has won the right to be photographed wearing a pasta strainer for his driving licence on grounds of religious freedom.

"My headwear has now been recognised by the Republic of Austria."

The spaghetti church was founded in 2005 in opposition to pressure on the Kansas school board in the United States to teach the theory of intelligent design in biology class as an alternative to evolution, and since then it has engaged in a light-hearted campaign against religion.

Key to the beliefs of pastafarians is that the world was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but, owing to the monster being inebriated at the time of creation, it has a flawed design.   Pastafarians also believe heaven has a beer volcano and a factory producing strippers.

Niko Alm first applied for the licence three years ago after reading that headgear was allowed in official pictures only for confessional reasons. Mr Alm said the sieve was a requirement of his religion, pastafarianism.
Mr Alm's pastafarian-style application for a driving licence was a response to the Austrian recognition of confessional.

Niko has obviously been touched by His noodely appendage. Ramen!

harper's bleak plans for Canada

Stephen Harper shared his views on international affairs with Maclean’s magazine last week, and it wasn’t a pretty picture...he offered a Manichean vision of international relations as a struggle between good and bad, and of moral clarity as the greatest asset and most reliable guide to foreign policy.

War and conflict figure prominently in this story.

Kenneth Whyte, who conducted the interview, probed further: “You suggest that we are in one great conflict, or that we’re heading to one that we need to be prepared for.”

Harper responded: “I think we always are.”

Whether the majority of Canadians agree with harper’s simplistic views of black and white, good and evil, and that we (the good guys) are always threatened by great conflict (some vague evil), steve is shaping our country, our identity,  and our international relations.  He is trying to re-define Canada as a warrior country and trying to convince Canadians that someone, somewhere is always about to attack us in a very big way.

I’m not sure if he really believes this.  He seems to, but regardless, such fear mongering is often used by despots to control a population.  Keep them afraid of the shadowy other, pump vast amounts of money into the military, make the military into a near-sacred entity that is beyond criticism and must never be questioned, and have that military present at as many functions as possible to get the public to accept that while we are a warrior country, the military has something to say about our laws and legislation.  Because that vague enemy is within, as well.

That’s a very bleak picture of Canada harper is presenting.  Good and evil, good guys and bad guys, right or wrong, no subtleties, and absolutely no tolerance for whatever he decides (based on his narrow ideology and moral views) falls in the wrong camp.  It is a Canada which trust few, is always at war, and lives in fear.  It discourages discourse and diplomacy.

Massive arms build up, fewer and fewer social programs, a colourless, hate-filled, paranoid country perpetually in a very bad mood.

All bark, no bite Baird

"With our action today we're seeking to try and reform the group so that it can be more successful in following its main mandate," Baird said. "What I know won't work, what I know won't be good for this conference, is if countries like Canada re-main quiet and go along to get along."

Uh-huh.  Yeah.  With no other country in agreement with banning nasties from such conferences, the UN is going to tremble and change its mandate for Canada.  Not the old Canada that carried some weight, but the new harper Canada with its pretense at principled stances when its doing nothing more than engaging in domestic politics while on the international stage.

I suppose harper would have banned Russia from the cold war resolution talks.

You have to engage the nasties in talks, or international meetings banning them simply become exercises in planning the next war against them.  It implies that words are useless, reason and diplomacy go nowhere, and only relentless bombing and killing will get the nasties to be nice.

And will the nasties just sit in a corner wearing a dunce hat?  Not likely.

Other concerns among diplomats focus on the potential "precedent" the Canadian boycott sets. While the West considers North Korea to be run by a rogue regime, countries like Cuba and Venezuela - as constant critics of the United States and Western capitalism - may in turn start to boycott U.S. or other Western chairmanships, some at the UN suggest.

harper's  divisive politics:  now international.

Shame

Really?...

Really?...


When we carry sacred items, we carry them with the recognition that everything in Creation has spirit, including the animals and plants, the rocks, the water, moonand the stars. Even one feather of a bird has spirit. When we carry a feather in our bundle and use it for our personal prayers and in ceremony, we are calling on the spirit of that bird for help and guidance...The eagle is one of the ones who are closest to the Creator because he can fly so high and he spoke for the people...You earn an eagle feather and you have to live by it. 

This is wrong.  Very, very wrong.  Worse than giving Conrad Black the Order of Canada.  It makes a mockery of a great honour.

This guy recognizes the value of all of nature?  This guy speaks for the people?

Brothers and sisters, wake up.