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John Tory woos PC delegates, nixes faith-based schools funding
Conservatives would be giving the Liberals a huge gift if they vote in favour of a leadership race, embattled leader John Tory said Saturday in a last-minute pitch to 1,200 delegates as they prepare to determine his fate. In his speech to delegates at the party's annual meeting, Tory took responsibility for the disastrous results of the October election which returned the Liberals to power and left Tory without a seat in the legislature. . . . The issue of funding religious schools - a proposal that dragged the party down and dominated the fall election - is closed and will remain so while he's leader, Tory said.
Canadian Press, February 23
Science v. wisdom
I have discovered what was once obvious to almost everyone, is no longer obvious, to people indoctrinated through our schools and media in the religion of "scientism" -- to people saturated in the view that "science and science alone" (note the singular) explains everything that can or should be known. That is to say, the worldview in which "science" is openly substituted for religion, and the sciences (plural) are thereby opened to corruption, to regulation and censorship, to serving the agendas of various smelly little orthodoxies. And I get my evidence in email every day, from correspondents both Left and Right in politics and cranial disposition, on subjects ranging from evolution to world climate: drooling subservience to anyone who has donned the priestly mantle of "science."
David Warren, Ottawa Citizen, February 24
Sarkozy's communion with God
President's repeated references to faith shock the French who say he should be the guardian of a secular state
Globe and Mail, February 25
Canadian views on same-sex marriage face U.S. challenge
Fight for marriage equality has sharply divided Republicans and Democrats in New York
CanWest News Service, February 25
Also: National Post
The Siege of Sderot
Here in the rolling farmland of central Israel, with the shimmering Mediterranean just a few miles to the west, the sun is shining brightly, the sky is clear and the breeze is refreshing. A pleasant enough day for a drive, a stroll through town and a casual lunch where the shwarma are three times the size but only one-and-a-half times the price in Jerusalem. All of which makes one grateful for the absence of incoming rockets. Sderot, a city of some 20,000 less than a mile from the Gaza Strip, is wholly unremarkable. Yet it is now a major issue in Israeli political life, and also abroad; this evening at the Sheraton Centre in Toronto there will be a major rally in solidarity with the people of Sderot.
Father Raymond J. De Souza, National Post, February 25
Free speech, hate, and the Jews
It speaks volumes about America's constitutional tradition that a man such as Near would be un-muzzled by the first Jew who ever sat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Here in Canada, things have followed a different route. Crucially, the most important hate-speech precedents in this country arose after the Holocaust, at a time when suppressing hatred was taken to be a more important goal than protecting freedom.
Jonathan Kay, National Post, February 26
Don't bring back the Court Challenges Program
This week, the Commissioner of Official Languages is arguing in a Federal Court case that the federal government should not have ended its funding for the Court Challenges Program (CCP). For taxpayers, this means the following: Their money is paying for a government entity to argue that the federal government should be required to give even more tax dollars to special interest groups so that those groups can advocate for yet more money to be spent on creating big government entitlement programs.
John Carpay and Christopher Schafer, National Post, February 26
Earlier: Christian advocacy groups welcome budget cuts
Odds stacked against women trying to recover
By her second week at the Salvation Army's Harbour Light detox centre, Darlene Rowley had enough strength to keep her eyelids open, walk without shuffling and speak without straining for each word. It was a vast improvement over her first week in the Downtown Eastside detox facility, when every movement seemed a struggle for the engaging woman.
Vancouver Sun, February 27
Let us rejoice and eat fish
For Catholics, Lent is the annual 40-day period of prayer, almsgiving and fasting that leads to Easter. And for fast food chains, Lent is the time of year that the dowdiest and least popular item on the menu board -- the fish sandwich -- gets time in the spotlight.
National Post, February 27
Cross References
You're looking at the Bible, as analyzed and visualized by Chris Harrison. The data-mining artist admits he's not really sure what the 1,000 lines of code mean, but the interest his project is generating suggests he's on to something
National Post, February 27
Dark ages
One of the persistent themes of these columns, especially over the last couple of years, might be abbreviated to, "Scientism versus Christianity." It is a way of looking at the postmodern revolution that has swept through all Western societies in the last few decades. I say "postmodernism" because it is the fulfilment of a much older "modernist" project, going back centuries: to replace the authority of the Christian religion with some "enlightened" human authority.
David Warren, Ottawa Citizen, February 27
Panhandler apologizes for robbing 79-year-old
The panhandler who violently mugged an elderly parishioner on the steps of a Vancouver cathedral last summer said he is sorry and has had "a few tears finding God," CTV News reported last night.
Globe and Mail, February 28
February 28/2008
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