Magic Statistics

A few days ago, CBC’s Peter Mansbridge interviewed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.  The final two minutes have been immortalised in the above YouTube video clip.  Mr Mansbridge asks if "Canada has a role" in the quest for peace in the Middle East.  Mr Olmert begins with this:

First of all, I must say that I am very much impressed with the friendship and the courage which your leadership has manifested over the last few months.

"Over the last few months"?  You mean, he's not talking about the Liberals?

And he's just getting warmed up.

Mansbridge is speechless.  His body language indicates that he's none too happy at what he's hearing.  I'd bet he's saying to himself something like, "Why on earth did I ask that question?"

A foreign head of state praises Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay generously (even, dare I say it, “liberally”).  Possibly the last thing that Mansbridge and the CBC ever expected to hear.  Who'd-a thunk it?

h/t: Flaggman and small dead animals

Previous related posts:

• Hamas warns Canada: Don't be an enemy, or else
• Israel: The most important foreign policy issue of our time
• PM's pro-Israel stand will cost votes—or not

You won’t find this item in any fancy-schmancy iPod accessory catalogue: it’s a home-made job.  But it’s just the ticket for high-tech protestors.  The crew at Let Freedom Reign turned out in force to heckle taunt dis greet Al Gore in Calgary yesterday evening, and they were prepared!

I wanted to be able to share some of the song parodies that I’ve got on my i-pod because, as we all know, I’m a giver. And what better way of doing that than adding a speaker? I checked out the little i-pod accessories they offered-up in the stores and they all sucked. Nothing went near loud enough.

Enter a little ingenuity, a patch cord, a soldering iron and a megaphone.

Now the audio from my i-pod can be heard up to 2 blocks away. I’ll be testing it, with restraint, when we’re protesting Al Gore this evening. On the play list: “Stop Global Whining”, “Smokin’ SUV Fumes” and “Al Gore’s Travlin’ Global Warmin’ Show”.

I’ll bet that iPod sounds swell after being fed through a microphone.  Whatever, as long as the message gets across.

You can hear those kickin’ songs here (scroll down a bit).  They’re really good!

Here’s a report from the scene of the massive anti-Gore demo, complete with a photo of the desperadoes.  Keep up the good work, men.

h/t: Darcey at Dust My Broom

Previous related posts:

• "Forgive me, Al Gore, for I have sinned"
• Your carbon footprint can make you crazy
• Latest iPod accessory: iSuit
• Latest iPod accessory: iRobot

A new study has found that children raised by religious parents are more likely to exhibit good behaviour and social skills than are other children.

John Bartkowski, a Mississippi State University sociologist and his colleagues asked the parents and teachers of more than 16,000 kids, most of them first-graders, to rate how much self control they believed the kids had, how often they exhibited poor or unhappy behavior and how well they respected and worked with their peers.

The researchers compared these scores to how frequently the children’s parents said they attended worship services, talked about religion with their child and argued abut religion in the home.

The kids whose parents regularly attended religious services—especially when both parents did so frequently—and talked with their kids about religion were rated by both parents and teachers as having better self-control, social skills and approaches to learning than kids with non-religious parents.

The study also found that parental agreement is key: Children raised by parents who frequently argue over religion had about as many problems as children raised by non-religious parents.

This empirical study speaks directly against the view of atheist polemicist Richard Dawkins, who thinks that teaching religion to children is a form of child abuse.  It turns out that all children should experience such “abuse”.

Tom Gilson summarises other empirical evidence indicating that religious kids live healthier lives—socially, physically, and morally.

h/t: Family Scholars Blog and Thinking Christian

Previous related posts:

• Richard Dawkins, call your office
• Anglican theologian ridicules Dawkins’s claims
• Family instability correlated with poor behaviour in children
• Dogmatic secularism versus reality
• Atheism’s intellectual pretensions

The Rapides Parish Republican Women's Club has a blog. Here's a bit from their riotously funny post, "Ponderings on 'Earph' Day":

According to Sen. Hillary Clinton, if we elect her President, we will be able to control the climate. Cue The Twilight Zone theme. Some among us actually believe that and, as a result, will help her and other socialists of every stripe wreck the U.S. economy. Is Red China helping her get elected, too?

Again, according to the climate control diva, Sen. Clinton, should she be elected President her hubby, former President Slick, will become her "roaming ambassador." LOL! Has her speechwriter been fired yet?

As an aside, former President Slick has mused that he'd move from "roaming ambassador," to President Hill's appointed UN Ambassador, ultimately to the supposedly elected position of UN Secretary-General. President Clinton and Secretary-General Clinton. Now that's a *scary* thought.

Read the whole thing.

h/t: Brad Drell

Previous related posts:

• Get your sin offsets here
• "Forgive me, Al Gore, for I have sinned"
• Your carbon footprint can make you crazy
• Heed the Goracle

That didn’t really happen, but that’s what it looked like this morning at Michael Medved’s blog, hosted at Townhall.com.  Mr Medved posted an item about a recent survey of American doctors.  According to a published article, two-thirds had “very high” or “moderately high” religious faith, while 87% reported seeing “God” and/or “religion and spirituality” have a positive impact on patient outcomes.

The screen shot posted below was taken earlier today.  It's quite small, but you can click on the image for a full-size view.  The photo accompanying the announcement of Medved’s post is the third photo under the heading “Features”.  It was originally taken at Archbishop Rowan Williams’ press conference in Toronto last week, and shows the Archbishop of Canterbury and Canada’s primate, Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, sitting next to each other.  They were talking about Anglican affairs, not the study of physicians’ faith.

A close-up of the photo appears at the top of this post, unfortunately still too small to see the remarkable expression on Abp Hutchison’s face.  For the full effect, click over here where I posted the original photo.

(More items have since been added to Townhall’s blogs, so the photo has been pushed off the page.)

Previous related post: Blindingly obvious Anglican news of the day