Here’s your Canadian Atheist Weekly Update for to .
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Snerk 😏. The Beaverton strikes again in this amusing piece that skewers both religious silliness and xenophobia in the same headline. It even manages to sneak in a swipe at tribalism in the closing paragraph, too.
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I totally missed this story! I was so bummed about the terrible Court of Appeal of Saskatchewan decision in the Theodore case, this one slipped right by me. Which sucks, because it’s a really cool decision that would have helped lift me out of my funk. The decision isn’t on CanLII yet, but it’s available on the BC Human Rights Tribunal website. The background is simple: Langley, BC, decided to fly the rainbow flag for a week during the 2018 Pride week. Cool. In response, local bigot Kari Simpson (oh yes, we’ve written about her before), first complained that the city was basically literally murdering her and all other Christians by flying the flag – you know, I wrote that as a joke, but I’m actually not sure she didn’t make that claim. Certainly, the things she did write were crazy as fuck. The city, of course, completely ignored the kook and flew the flag as planned. So Simpson tried a different tactic: she tried to get the city to fly the “Canadian Christian flag” for the days between the “National Day of Blessings” and Thanksgiving. What’s that, you say? You didn’t know there was a “Canadian Christian flag”, and you’ve never heard of this “National Day of Blessings”? You’re not alone. Turns out nobody else had ever heard of those things either. In fact, in the ruling, the author implies that Simpson probably invented both of those things out of thin air specifically for the purpose of her campaign; there seems to be no evidence of them existing before this dispute. Simpson doesn’t even dispute that. Anyway, the city wasn’t about to deal with that nutter, so they declined to fly her flag, in accordance with their secularism policy – they won’t fly any religious flags. Not to be deterred, Simpson went to City Hall with her flag anyway, and waved it around for a few hours right underneath the flagpole, and of course nobody raised a finger to stop her, because this is a free country. But that didn’t satisfy Simpson, so she filed a discrimination suit. I haven’t seen her actual filing, but from the decision, it must have been a hoot. Apparently she claimed the city not only threatened her life by flying the rainbow flag, she also compared it to the Nazi flag, and created an atmosphere of hostility to Christians. Singh – the Tribunal member writing the decision – points out that not only does she provide zero evidence for any of her claims, but there doesn’t even seem to be any way that she could even have a reasonable chance of getting a decision in her favour. He basically says: “Look, this person is full of shit, and a hearing isn’t likely to show her to be any less full of shit.” Yup. I kinda think he’s right.
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[] Far-Right Conspiracy Theories Rampant During Pandemic
Ugh, these fuckers just make everything more miserable. I really wish we could ignore their bullshit… but as this article (which I gather isn’t actually by Anti-Racist Canada, but rather comes from Yellow Vests Canada Exposed) reveals… there are actually real-world consequences now. And it’s probably going to get worse. It’s not just the usual suspects doing the usual shit, like anti-vaxxer loons holding public rallies in the middle of a fucking pandemic. There are apparently also “truther” campaigns targeting Dr. Theresa Tam… cell towers being set afire because of wacky conspiracy theories about 5G causing COVID-19… nutty theories about how face masks are really about erasing “white identity”… and the completely expected paranoid fantasies about this all being about a Chinese invasion or a tactic to prevent Trump’s reelection. Hell, even David Icke shows up – yes, the “world leaders are secretly reptilian aliens” dude. But again, I have to stress that as weird and stupid as their claims are… people are acting on them. I don’t think anybody’s been hurt yet – well, other than that quite a few people have most likely been infected with COVID-19 as a result of these fuckers’ action – but there’s been property damage, and that’s usually the first warning sign. I think we need to start taking these people seriously – obviously not as in we need to take their loony ideas seriously, but rather, we need to start recognizing that, loony though they may be, they may also be very, very dangerous.
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[] Autistic advocates say ‘it’s a start’ after Canada takes action on naturopath’s fecal transplant biz
These kinds of stories really lift my spirits. Sometimes the flood of pseudoscientific bullshit out there can be overwhelming, and the general disinterest of our health officials show when it comes to doing anything proactive to fight it is depressing. But it turns out that if we really take a stand, things do happen. The CBC (okay, really just Bethany Lindsay) has been on Klop’s case for some time now. He’d already stopped claiming to be a doctor (a ND) in connection with his crap business (what is it with me and terrible puns this week?). Now he’s stopped taking Canadian kids to Mexico for his crap treatments. But he’s technically still in business, and while Canadian kids are (mostly) safe now, he’s still “treating” victims in Mexico.
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[] Pope Scotch Comment (Stupidly) Stricken From History
This is one of those stories that, when I first heard it, I wavered on whether to include it in the Update. After all, it’s just the Pope making a silly joke, and who the fuck really cares about what he has to say anyway (or rather nobody should care, but, yanno). And it’s not like there’s really any rules in Catholicism against liking the booze… or making jokes. But then the durned Catholics went and dun made complete asses of themselves by lacking a sense of humour and taking their own shit too seriously. Honestly, if they hadn’t censored the Pope’s joke, I doubt anyone would be talking about it.
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All those emails you get from your wacked out,far right,xtian dominionist relatives banging away on theirs PCs so infested with malware and trojans from visiting lunatic conspiracy theory sites that it’s a wonder they even boot anymore.
There is a real cost to their irresponsible behaviour, and this is it.
Fer christs sake, nutjobs harassing technicians trying to keep our data communications systems running, how fucking criminal is that ?
As far as I’m concerned, if you forward, post, tweet, excrete one of these conspiracy turds you are indulging in stochastic terrorism and the full weight of the law should fall on you.