Fitna

In the Netherlands, a politician named Geert Wilders produced a movie called "Fitna", which juxtaposes Muslim terror bombings with quotes from the Koran which advocate violence against unbelievers. Apparently this is an outrageous distortion of the truth, and Muslims worldwide are responding with threats, riots, and murder to show Mr Wilders the error of his ways. Geert Wilders, meanwhile, needs 24/7 police protection to prevent him being assassinated like Theo van Gogh, another Dutch movie maker who made a film the Muslims didn't like.

Click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCrCsTMokTU for "Fitna", an extremely mediocre film that you should watch only because the reaction to it is a gauge of Islamic insanity and of how we in the west are allowing ourselves to be intimidated. If a shitty little movie like this were made about the Catholic Church or Hinduism, nobody would even notice.

The reason the cartoon of Muhammad with a bomb in his turban pissed off the Islamic community so much is that it has a ring of truth, and the truth hurts.

Hippie Memories

In 1966 I was living in one of the Roman tombs carved out of the sandstone of this cliff in Matala, a Mediterranean fishing village on the south shore of Crete (part of Greece). I used to sleep in one of the crypts where a body had been buried almost 2,000 years ago; a bit spooky but I got used to it. Others had decorated the front of their tomb with the skull and bones of a skeleton they found. Besides us hippies in the tombs, there were a few fishermen and a bar/restaurant on the other side of the cove. No tourists.

This was a very romantic part of my life, so I felt a little tingle when I saw Matala featured in the Saturday Globe and Mail travel section. Someone wrote about having been there on a tour. Matala now has hotels and apartment buildings. As for the hippies who were driven out 35 years ago, they are mentioned as a quaint detail of the history of the place.

Tobacco Permits: an idea whose time has come

Great article on BBC last month:
"Smokers could be forced to pay £10 for a permit to buy tobacco if a government health advisory body gets its way."

This is the best idea to come out of government that I can remember. It also happens to be a scheme I have been thinking about for years. Here is how it should be done:

Everyone who wants a permit must specify how much tobacco he shall be permitted to buy - a carton of cigarettes a week, or whatever. Want to cut down? Reduce the quota on your permit. Cancel your permit if you want to quit.

All cigarettes or other tobacco products are marked with a bar code or similar tag and sold only in government stores. A national computer system keeps track of who buys what cigarettes, how many, when and where. It is the responsibility of the permit holder to see that his cigarettes do not end up in the hands of anyone else. With a few tweaks, the National Lottery computer system can be adapted to keep track of tobacco permits and sales - we HAVE this technical capability already up and running.

No exemptions for First Nations. Status Indians should be given a cash allowance in lieu of tax free tobacco. Current government policy promotes smuggling and other forms of criminality as well as encouraging Native people to damage their health.

Psst: Wanna see some rooster porn?

Police and the SPCA just busted a cockfighting ring in Surrey (a suburb of Vancouver), killed 1270 gamecocks and are contemplating charges against 38 people; the SPCA and all their self-righteous fellow travelers are strutting about with an aggressive arrogance normally displayed only by the birds they have so mercifully euthanized.

Cockfighting is an important part of the culture in many parts of the world and, when you think about it, not a bit more cruel than hunting and fishing. Canada is full of hypocritical people who eat Chicken McNuggets and eggs produced by battery hens, but have never had the moral courage to chop the head off a rooster. These phonies are imposing criminal sanctions on immigrants who are more closely in touch with the earth, and that is wrong.

Was it the moral thing to do, killing 1270 roosters? Did anyone ask the birds if they wanted to die? Were they evil? Couldn't someone adopt them? The RCMP and SPCA should concentrate on real crime and nuisance animals. I have found both agencies useless when dealing with barking and biting dogs, especially cases where owners allow their canines to run loose or bark all night.

These roosters spar while wearing leather balls on their legs to get used to the weight and feel of spurs. They are getting exercise and fight training much the same as boxers do. In the cockpit, they will wear razor sharp steel spurs and only one bird will survive. I know a man whose bird won 16 fights (obviously, no losses) , making him moderately wealthy and well respected in certain circles.

To guard against a handler putting poison on the spurs, each handler is often required to lick the spurs of his own bird before the fight. Sometimes the spurs are stuck into a lime for the same reason.