Weekly Update: to

by | April 8, 2017

Here’s your Canadian Atheist Weekly Update for to .

[A wordcloud, showing the most used words by Canadians talking online about Trump.]

If you look closely, you can see even more gems, like fou, erratic, clown, orange, and hands.

  • [] Scheer lunacy: Five questions about Andrew Scheer’s gas flagging video

    Is there any candidate for the Conservative leadership that won’t stoop to race-baiting and stoking islamophobia? The latest case is Andrew Scheer… former House Speaker and now supposedly the Conservatives’ number one establishment choice for leadership. Scheer released a campaign video where he proposed putting flags on gas pumps so that Canadians can see where their gas is coming from… presumably so then they could evaluate whether they really wanted to be supporting those countries. Seems legit, right? Well, the flags Scheer illustrated, from left-to-right were: Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, and the US. The problem? The actual five largest suppliers of gas to us are (in order from largest): the US (by a landslide), Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Norway. Azerbaijan is #6, and Angola isn’t even in the top 25. So why pick them? Ah, yes, of course… their flags have Islamic symbols, weapons, and/or hints of communist iconography on them.

  • [] Schools must accommodate religious needs, Ontario Human Rights Commission says

    The PDSB has been saying it, we’ve been saying it here, and now even the Ontario Human Rights Commission has stepped in to say it, but it just doesn’t seem to be getting through some people’s thick skulls. Religious accommodation is the law. I’m loving this quote from PDSB spokesperson Brian Woodward: And for others to say they don’t believe in religious accommodation – religious accommodation is not like unicorns that you do or do not believe in. The same laws that protect atheists from being forced to pray protect religious people from being forced not to pray. One law for all; we cannot pick and choose who gets Charter rights. We’ve fought for years to make atheists no longer second-class citizens; how hypocritical would be it of us to now turn around and try to make religious people second-class citizens.

    h/t Derek Gray

  • [] The Difference Between Transgender, Transsexual And Gender Identity

    A handy primer for those who aren’t hip with the terms.

  • [] The rise of INC Christianity

    Those who have studied religion know that it’s a chameleon, constantly evolving and adapting to changes in society. This is a new form, one that does not target people directly, but rather exploits media and targets political institutions to enforce its social preferences.

  • [] Jarvis: Catholic school board goes to China for students

    Ontario’s English and French Catholic schools boards are spending tens of thousands of dollars on trips to China and South and Central America, seeking international students that pay huge tuition fees to boost their flagging enrolment.

    h/t Derek Gray

  • [] RCMP arrest Toronto man for allegedly leaving Canada to join ISIS

    This is the first time anyone has ever been charged for terrorism after returning to Canada (rather than being charged while attempting to leave).

    h/t Derek Gray

  • [] Peel school board steps up security at meetings to rid them of ‘racist outbursts’

    I hate to see this kind of thing happening, where the formerly open doors of power become blocked in the name of security. And this is all because of the racist assholes who have chosen the PDSB as the battlefield for their crusade against Islam.

    h/t Derek Gray

  • [] Why is it so hard to close the gender wage gap?

    That the gender wage gap exists is beyond all reasonable doubt at this point – even when controlling for years of service, concrete job performance metrics, position in the organization… everything… the gap still exists. And it persists despite decades of it being pointed out and, ostensibly, fought against. Kate McInturff argues that what’s keeping it around is simply entitlement.

  • [] Why Doesn’t Our Health-Care System Cover Dental?

    A fair question, but it also raises the question of why not cover mental health, or vision care?

  • [] It’s Now Illegal For B.C. Employers To Require Women To Wear Heels

    One of the arguments used by islamophobes trying to justify veil bans is that they are feminists trying to protect women from being forced to wear things they don’t want, and that the veils they’re purportedly being forced to wear cause health problems (like vitamin D deficiency). My go-to response for that is to point out that if they really cared about this issue, then they should be more concerned with crusading against high heels – which many women in Canada are sometimes forced to wear, and which can do considerable damage to the women’s feet – rather than against hijabs, which there is no evidence of any noteworthy numbers of women being forced to wear in Canada. I’ve never received a satisfactory answer, because – as is pretty obvious – their faux feminism is really just a smokescreen to cover their antagonism against Islam. Well, I’m happy to see that in BC at least, this real problem is actually being addressed.

  • [] Anti-Islam Graffiti On Calgary Family’s SUV Part Of A Growing Trend: Police

    I have to assume this is just rational criticism of Islam, because they keep telling me islamophobia doesn’t exist.

  • [] Progress in the age of Trump

    A survey conducted by the Broadbent Institute shows that Canadians are far more progressive that usually assumed these days… except on the issue of immigration. Highlights include: clear irritation with how the Libs handled electoral reform; Canadians think Trump is a sexist, narcissistic, arrogant, racist, and a perpetual liar; health care is a clear priority but concern about income inequality is very high; and David Suzuki for PM.

Canadian Atheist’s Weekly Update depends on the submissions of readers like you. If you see anything on the Internet that you think might be of interest to CA readers, please take a minute to make a submission.

9 thoughts on “Weekly Update: to

  1. Randy

    Your Islamophilia is far more disturbing than knowing where the gas is coming from. We label our clothes. We label our food. Why WOULDN’T we label our gas?

    Reply
  2. Randy

    “even the Ontario Human Rights Commission has stepped in to say it”

    This is an example of why I, after decades of voting Liberal and NDP and Green will be casting my first Conservative vote in the next provincial and federal elections.

    It’s time for the nonsense to end.

    Reply
  3. Randy

    “how hypocritical would be it of us to now turn around and try to make religious people second-class citizens”

    That’s a self-serving way to describe it. What real atheists have been fighting for is for all claims to be treated fairly. If you claim to hear voices commanding you do to something, then you need to prove it, or we DON’T ACCOMMODATE YOUR PSYCHOSIS.

    This really is not that hard, Indi. At least the thick-skulled have a brain in there. For a small fee, I’m sure your local medical imaging group might be helpful in obtaining a diagnosis.

    Reply
  4. Randy

    “A handy primer” is unlikely to come from the Huffington Post, who was recently trolled by a fake author and not only published his fake (and racist) article, but DEFENDED it.

    Wikipedia suits this purpose reasonably well, although the fact remains that we simply don’t know much about this topic, as with all topics around sex, because there is strong opposition from both sides to studying the underlying biology.

    Reply
  5. Randy

    “That the gender wage gap exists is beyond all reasonable doubt at this point”

    A good trick, for a claim that has been repeatedly and soundly debunked. Mot even many feminists really believe it any more.

    Reply
  6. Randy

    “high heels … rather than against hijabs”

    We can do both. It’s called “being consistent”. Try it. You might like it.

    Even one woman being forced to hide her head because all men are rapists and all bare-headed women are sluts, is one too many. And it doesn’t stop there. We can fight against all funny hats and other things people are “required” to wear, in violation of the otherwise generally-applicable laws.

    Reply
  7. Randy

    “because they keep telling me islamophobia doesn’t exist.”

    Well, no, Islamophobia (like the well-documented anti-Semitism embedded in Islam) does manifest in property damage and violence.

    However, most of the “Islamophobia” you tend to bring up are simply normal standards of behaviour in a free, equal, democratic country. Then, to pretend to justify your claims, you show us this, and the mosque attack, which is NOT what you have been talking about for most of the time. It’s dishonest.

    Reply

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