Magic Statistics

The BC Winter Olympics won’t start for over three years, but already the province’s Auditor-General is hoisting a red flag.

In a long-awaited report, British Columbia Auditor-General Arn van Iersel says he is concerned about the rising financial risks of staging the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler.

Citing a number of worrisome areas, Mr. van Iersel called on the province to strengthen its own oversight of the Games and conduct "a thorough due diligence" into financial information provided by the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC).
. . .
The report raises concern that the province's $76-million contingency fund is not enough to meet potential cost overruns, that the projected $175-million earmarked for security will also be insufficient by 2010, and that VANOC is already falling behind schedule on designs for several key venues.

In an especially embarrassing revelation, Mr van Iersel reported an elementary error in financial planning—failing to hedge against changes in foreign exchange rates—that could cost $150 million.

The government has said that the Winter Olympics will cost the province $600 million, but Mr van Iersel estimates the total cost at $1.5 billion.

In a rare government disavowal of an auditor-general's finding, however, the province's Olympics minister, Colin Hansen, took strong issue with Mr. van Iersel's conclusion.

Mr. Hansen insisted that the government's projected $600-million cost of the Games to the province — limited to venue construction and some operating costs — is correct. The items added by the Auditor-General should not be part of the budget since they are not directly related to the cost of staging the Olympics, he said.

Just a little disingenuous, since those “added” items are all necessitated by the Olympics.  Chief among them is the grandiose upgrade of the highway between Vancouver and Whistler, which alone is expected to cost $775 million.

When his city was awarded the 1976 Summer Olympics, Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau notoriously said, "The Olympic Games can no more lose money than a man can have a baby."  Someone should check whether Mr Hansen is pregnant.

Previous related post: Drapeau’s folly almost paid for

Swedish voters have done what was once believed unthinkable: They have tossed out the Social Democrat party that has governed the country, either alone or in coalitions, for all but 10 of the past 89 years.  In its place, they have given a very narrow win to a coalition of four centre-right parties led by the Moderates.

Moderate party leader Fredrik Reinfeldt declared victory as near-complete results gave him a 1% lead.

Minutes later, Prime Minister Goran Persson conceded victory and said he and the government would resign, ending 12 years of Social Democrat rule.

Why would they vote to replace a government that has made Sweden the envy of "progressives" all across the Western world?  Apparently, because of the very policies that make foreign leftists envious.

Fredrik Reinfeldt has led the conservative Moderate Party to a narrow victory on a promise to reform Sweden's costly welfare system.

A pre-election analysis in the Times of London spoke of the disgust Swedes feel about their high tax rates.  Distrust of the government is so widespread that even official unemployment statistics are not believed.

[Swedes] are suspicious of government claims that Sweden has one of Europe's lowest unemployment rates, at about 4.5 per cent.
. . .
Some analysts put unemploymen [sic] at between 15 per cent and 20 per cent, if all those on sick leave and other schemes are counted.

Eurostat, the EU agency, puts youth unemployment at more than 25 per cent.

Immgration concerns have also turned the voters away from the old social welfare model.

[I]mmigration is straining the unspoken contract under which Swedes were happy to pay the Government for what they were confident they would later receive.
. . .
A generation ago Sweden was an astonishingly homogeneous country, at least to a visitor's eyes, although regional loyalties ran deep. But the sense of being part of a shared social project appeared to come easily.

Now a tenth of Sweden's nine million people were born abroad. It is finding it no easier than other European countries to integrate its Muslim immigrants. They are finding it particularly hard to get jobs.

Mr Reinfeldt's centre-right coalition intends to relax overly rigid labour laws, reform the expensive social welfare system, cut business taxes and unemployment benefits, and reduce the proportion of workers employed in the public sector, currently about 30%.

Previous related post: Swedish welfare state is rotting

Messages of support can be sent to Pope Benedict XVI at: benedictxvi-at-vatican.va

Binky has rolled out the first in what looks to be another long-running series of CaNN Special Reports: Hate That Pope 1.0.  Check it out!

Banner from Time Immortal via Relapsed Catholic.

Exactly what did Pope Benedict XVI say to provoke such widespread violent reactions from Muslims?  He gave an esoteric, philosophical/theological speech to an academic audience about the relationship between faith and reason. The Pope focused on the contribution Greek philosophy has made to theology and touched on important historical developments in understandings of the relationship between Greek and Christian thought.

In short, the speech was a discussion of a fundamental issue in Christian theology.  It was not a speech about Islam.  That much would be obvious to anyone who's read it (e.g., here), which you can bet few, if any, of the pontiff’s Islamic critics have troubled themselves to do.

Early in his speech, Pope Benedict cites a conversation between the 14th-century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Palaelogus, and an unnamed educated Persian.  The two men held a long series of conversations on a wide range of theological issues, according to Manuel II who wrote them up a few years later. It is important to note that, at the time the emperor committed them to writing, the armies of Islam were besieging his capital Constantinople.

The Pope refers to the seventh conversation in which the emperor raises holy war and the relationship between violence and faith.  Here is the allegedly offensive passage in its full context:

[Manuel II] turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…".

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practise idolatry.

The Muslim understanding of God directly opposes the Christian view that rationality is part of God’s nature and that, therefore, it is contrary to the divine nature not to act in accordance with reason.  The Pope immediately provides a succinct statement of the dilemma.

As far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we find ourselves faced with a dilemma which nowadays challenges us directly. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God’s nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true?

Influenced as it has been by Greek philosophy, Christianity believes that human reason reflects God’s rational nature.  Islam does not share this influence; therefore, its view of God is quite different, and this is exemplified by its doctrine of violent jihad.

Given that God’s final revelation is the Logos Jesus Christ, from the perspective of the Christian Church, anything that Mohammed says that is “new”, i.e., contrary to Christ, is misguided.  Conversion by violence is so contrary to reason that the Greek-educated, Christian emperor calls it “evil and inhuman”.  Islam, on the other hand, regards forced conversion as God’s will.

In context, the Pope cited this conversation to illustrate the argument of his speech.  Faith and reason, today as in the past, are often claimed to be incompatible.  Is rationality part of God’s being?  Does human reason reflect, however imperfectly, that aspect of God’s nature?  How can those Christian beliefs about God and man be defended among non-Christians?  Can they be defended before Islam?

Based on the violently irrational reactions, the answer to the latter would appear to be no.

If it were not so tragic, it would be comical.  The Pope quotes a 14th-century Byzantine emperor saying that Islam promotes a violent teaching that is contrary to reason and therefore contrary to God’s nature.  Muslims say the pope is lying about our beliefs causing us deep hurt and profound offense.  Then they proceed to go on malacious and destructive rampages against Christian churches and clerics.

This is potentially worse than the Cartoon Jihad.  That conflict turned on liberal freedoms of speech and press.  The confict this time centres on rationality itself.  In both cases, Muslims are agin’ ‘em.

h/t for photo: Relapsed Catholic

Previous related post: Have a blessed Sabbath 

Joee Blogs, a Catholic Londoner, has posted a series of chilling photos taken outside Westminster Cathedral, mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster, shortly after this morning’s Mass.

Holy Mass on a Sunday is the very source and summit of the Catholic week, so my family decided this Sunday to make the trip to Westminster Cathedral together. As we came out about 100 Islamists were chanting slogans such as "Pope Benedict go to Hell" "Pope Benedict you will pay, the Muja Hadeen are coming your way" "Pope Benedict watch your back" and other hateful things.

Here’s one particularly absurd shot.  Notice the placard on the right.

So much for the claim that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.

h/t: little green footballs

The collect for today, the 14th Sunday after Trinity, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

Almighty and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Galatians 5:16-24
The Gospel: St Luke 17:11-19