Please Visit My New Blog!

Two days ago I mentioned that I might be moving my blog to Wordpress, because the formatting of Blogger is driving me crazy.  It seems to be inconsistent, and, being the obsessive-compulsive perfectionist that I am, everything must be perfect or it bothers me.  And, while I have, for the most part, figured out how to edit the HTML so it is more consistent, it takes too much work to look through the HTML, find the source of the problem, and change it whenever there is an issue (which is a lot).

I thought it would take me longer to make my decision (on whether or not to move to Wordpress permanently), but I love Wordpress so much that I have made my final decision to move already.  While I will miss my rattlesnake "favicon," that might be all I will miss.  So, from this point on, there will be no more new posts to this blog.  I will select some posts from this one to archive there, and this blog will still be up indefinitely (for the archives).

Please visit my new blog:

http://canadianrattlesnake.wordpress.com/

And thank you to the very few people who actually read my blog.

Lesbians' Hurt Feelings More Important Than People Dying

At the Tim Horton's in Blenheim, Ontario, a lesbian couple was asked to leave due to "acting in a way that was offensive to the families who were present."  According to this video (h/t Blazing Cat Fur), this "story" was reported at the top of Global News (the local Global station, I presume), ahead of unquestionably more important stories, such as the earthquake in Turkey.

Although I do not know any information about this incident that isn't in the video (and this article), I can almost say with certainty that whatever happened was not such a big deal that it should have been on the news at all, let alone the top story.  What may be a bigger story here is, if, in fact, the lesbians were behaving obscenely (and I would use the same adverb to describe a heterosexual couple "locking tongues and straddling each other with their hands down each other's pants), it is that the gay community apparently has a pass to act obscenely, and they can just scream "homophobia" whenever they are criticized in any way.  Tolerance of gay pride parades provides more evidence of this.  Whatever the case, it seems the vast majority of homosexuals are extremely sensitive, and any hint of any "anti-gay" attitude is cause for outrage in the gay community (or something).  I guess, then, that it is no surprise that gay conservatives would be called things like "self-loathing" or "Jewish Nazi" by the gay left.

There is more from the CBC article to which I previously linked:

Rev. Eric Revie of Glad Tidings Community Church says he thought they were a heterosexual couple inappropriately kissing outside the window of the Tim Hortons during the last week of September.

Switzerland Moves to the Centre

In yesterday's federal election in Switzerland, smaller, more moderate parties took votes from the larger, more polarizing parties.  However, that didn't prevent the conservative Swiss People's Party from winning the plurality.  Here are the results:

• Toni Brunner (Swiss People's Party - conservatism): 26.6% - 54 seats (down 2.4% and 8 seats from 2007)
• Christian Levrat (Social Democrats - social democracy): 18.7% - 46 seats (down 0.9% and up 3 seats from 2007)
• Fulvio Pelli (FDP. The Liberals - classical liberalism): 15.1% -  31 seats (down 2.5% and 5 seats from 2007)
• Christophe Darbellay (Christian Democrats - Christian democracy): 12.3% - 28 seats (down 2.2% and 3 seats from 2007)
• Ueli Leuenberger (Green Party - green politics and progressivism): 8.4% - 15 seats (down 1.2% and 5 seats from 2007)
• Martin Bäumle (Green Liberals - green politics and classical liberalism): 5.4% - 12 seats (up 4.0% and 9 seats from 2007)
• Hans Grunder (Conservative Democrats - conservatism and classical liberalism): 5.4% - 9 seats (did not exist in 2007)
• Heiner Studer (Evangelical People's Party - Christian democracy and social conservatism): 2.0% - 2 seats (down 0.4% and no change in seats from 2007)
• Giuliano Bignasca (Ticino League - right-wing populism and national conservatism): 0.8% - 2 seats (up 0.2% and 1 seat from 2007)

The re-election of the Swiss People's Party seems to indicate that immigration is still a major issue, and hopefully Switzerland can make some more progress in fighting the threat of the spread of Islam and Sharia law.  And, despite this ugly incident, Switzerland yet again demonstrates a level of sanity that is quite rare in Europe (Switzerland is not a member of European Union and it has relatively low taxes).  Furthermore, despite a drop in support for the Swiss People's Party, the leftist Social Democrats and Green Party both also received lowered support.  Most of the parties that gained support are centre to centre-right (particularly the Conservative Democrats).  Let's hope the common sense of the Swiss spreads to other European countries (which is unlikely).

CNN Shows Bias in Wake of Swiss Election

To anyone familiar with CNN, this should hardly be surprising.  As I was looking for an article about the federal election in Switzerland that occurred today, I found this one from CNN and I was a bit surprised at some of their word choices.  I expect CNN to be slightly biased, but not so blatantly (emphasis added):

Despite its xenophobic, anti-immigration campaign tactics, Switzerland's far-right Swiss People's Party, which took the largest share of votes four years ago in Swiss modern history, suffered losses in Sunday's parliamentary vote as voters chose more moderate parties over polarizing candidates. 

The Conservative Democrats and the Liberal Greens -- more moderate parties -- were the clear winners of Sunday's vote, signaling a change in the nation's heavily polarized political scene. 

According to Swissinfo.ch, the nations' public broadcaster and pollsters, near-final results showed the People's Party taking a considerable drop, but still ahead of the center-left Social Democrats. 

The two traditional center-right parties, the Radicals and the Christian Democrats are also down 3% and 1.5% respectively, Swissinfo.ch reported.
The far-right People's Party's loss came as a surprise to many who expected the far-right's scare campaign tactics to succeed once again.

Opposing immigration is not necessarily xenophobic.  And recognizing Islam as a threat and establishing measures that mean to limit its influence is the logical thing to do, as the facts suggest Islam is threatening to Western society (hopefully I will elaborate on that shortly).

Moving... Maybe

Blogger formatting is driving me crazy.  So, I'm trying out WordPress.  Here is my new address:

http://canadianrattlesnake.wordpress.com/

Since I do not like change, I may decide to stick with Blogger.  And I plan on posting all of my posts on both this blog and my new WordPress blog, at least until I decide whether or not to permanently move to WordPress.  Also, I literally just established my new blog a couple minutes ago, so it is not quite to my satisfaction yet.

Libya Nostalgic for the 7th Century

The 7th century was the century during which the religion of Islam was founded and subsequently spread across Western Asia and Northern Africa via the Muslim conquests.  Since then, Muslims societies have advanced (or liberalized) inconsistently, with some remaining relatively primitive and with others modernizing significantly (in various ways).

There exist about 46 sovereign nations with Muslim majority populations.  These countries are located in Northern Africa (examples: Mauritania, Tunisia and Morocco), Western Asia (examples: Azerbaijan, Yemen, and Iraq), Central Asia (examples: Afghanistan, Iran, and Uzbekistan), South Asia (examples: the Maldives, Pakistan, and Bangladesh), Southeast Asia (examples: Indonesia, Brunei, and Malaysia), Subsaharan Africa (examples: Somalia, Niger, and Djibouti), and even Europe (Albania and its sovereignty-lacking neighbor, Kosovo).  A full list of countries by Muslim population is available here.  Interestingly, one of the least Muslim countries in the world, Armenia, is located very close to the Middle East.  And something else I found interesting was another country with a very low Muslim population, Malta, is both located very close to Tunisia and has an official language, Maltese, that is derived from Arabic.  

Now, my nerdy inclinations and their requisite history and geography lessons aside, the newly liberated nation of Libya (or at least its de facto interim president) appears to be nostalgic for the aforementioned 7th century (h/t Instapundit):

Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council and de fact president, had already declared that Libyan laws in future would have Sharia, the Islamic code, as its "basic source". 

But that formulation can be interpreted in many ways - it was also the basis of Egypt's largely secular constitution under President Hosni Mubarak, and remains so after his fall. 

Mr Abdul-Jalil went further, specifically lifting immediately, by decree, one law from Col. Gaddafi's era that he said was in conflict with Sharia - that banning polygamy. 

In a blow to those who hoped to see Libya's economy integrate further into the western world, he announced that in future bank regulations would ban the charging of interest, in line with Sharia. "Interest creates disease and hatred among people," he said.  

...

Libya is already the most conservative state in north Africa, banning the sale of alcohol. Mr Abdul-Jalil's decision - made in advance of the introduction of any democratic process - will please the Islamists who have played a strong role in opposition to Col Gaddafi's rule and in the uprising but worry the many young liberal Libyans who, while usually observant Muslims, take their political cues from the West.

Given Obama's and the United States' role in the usurpation of Muammar Gaddafi's rule over Libya by the rebels, I believe he has the responsibility to ensure that the new Libyan government doesn't reduce the freedom that Libyans have.  It is irresponsible, and probably dangerous, to allow an Islamofascist to return Libya to its state of tyranny (not that that will necessarily happen, but it becomes more likely with the incorporation of Sharia law into Libyan law).  Furthermore, the West doesn't need more enemies, and Sharia law is already undermining Western values in Europe.  If Obama cares about Western, Judeo-Christain-based values (which is questionable), he should not sit idly by during Libya's transition.  

Harry Reid Loves Stealing

From Powerline (via Instapundit):

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday indicated congress needs to worry about government jobs more than private-sector jobs, and that this is why Senate Democrats are pushing a bill aimed at shoring up teachers and first-responders.

“It’s very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine; it’s the public-sector jobs where we’ve lost huge numbers, and that’s what this legislation is all about,” Reid said on the Senate floor.

Yes, the private sector is doing just great. That’s why unemployment is over 9%, with “real” unemployment more like 20%. And, as I noted on Monday, government spending has done nothing but increase at all levels, even as many companies are cutting back.

Reid reiterated his emphasis on creating government jobs by saying Democrats are looking to “put hundreds of thousands of people back to work teaching children, have more police patrolling our streets, firefighters fighting our fires, doing the rescue work that they do so well … that’s our priority.” He said Republicans are calling the bill a “failure” because they are “using a different benchmark for success than we are.”

And who is going to pay for all of those government jobs? The private sector, to liberals like Reid, is nothing but a fatted calf, or–to switch animals–a golden goose that will never stop laying eggs. They really believe that the people exist to serve the government, rather than the other way around.

I wonder if these government jobs include bureaucrats (i.e. government employees the populace is less likely to support than teachers and first responders).  So, Harry Reid wants to focus on public sector jobs?  The jobs with overinflated taxpayer-funded salaries and benefits, and the ones represented by powerful unions who constantly demand more?  Harry Reid evidently believes that the private sector is strong, the government should focus on strengthening the public sector.  But wouldn't that, in turn, indirectly weaken the private sector?  I'm willing to bet that that is exactly what Reid wants, given how the private sector is evil, or something.