Magic Statistics

The folks at FileMaker have developed personal database software called Bento, but if they want to sell the product in Canada, they need to brush up on their geography.

This graphic is posted at the “How To Buy Bento” page.

The USA has pushed Canada right out of North America.

h/t: Tom Gilson

At the urging of Islamic scholars, Yemen is about to set up a public morality police force that sounds very much like Saudi Arabia’s infamous Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, or muttawa in Arabic.

It seems the scholars object to men and women shooting the breeze at coffee shops and otherwise enjoying themselves.

However, this Western-like environment is deemed by some religious scholars in Yemen as a center of immorality. They believe that “international Zionism” and “materialism” of the owners will damage the morality of the Muslim nation.
 
These scholars can’t tolerate seeing a man chatting with a woman freely in a coffee shop or a restaurant: it is considered a sin and their role is to defend “morality.” These places – as well as hotels, parks and resorts – are targets for these “defenders of morality,” who are working tirelessly to establish a novel entity that fights “immorality” in society.
 
Last month it was announced that a new body, to be called the “Morality Authority,” would be established to defend against immorality.

Already, some Yemeni youth have taken it upon themselves to harass boys and girls walking together in public, attack houses “where they expect to see men and women together”, and report naughty people to the police.  Their vigilantism has resulted in dozens of arrests.

h/t: International Christian Concern

Previous related posts:

• Saudi Arabia’s muttaweenies strike again
• Saudi women report serious discrimination, abuse

My retirement will begin on Friday, 8 August (assuming I don’t take any sick time before then).

My next monthly report will probably look like one of Wally’s:

Well, maybe not.

Previous related post: Not my office

Novelist Martin Amis (at right) risks getting into hot water again as he repeated Edward Luttwak’s suggestion, printed in the New York Times, that Islamists could see Barack Obama as an apostate Muslim.

Martin Amis has issued an ominous warning to Barack Obama, saying that if he secures the Democratic nomination and goes on to become President of America he will, having been born a Muslim, "deserve" to have a fatwa pronounced upon him. Amis made his remarks at the Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival, where he had gone to plug his book The Second Plane. He said: "His father was a Muslim, that means he is a Muslim. It doesn't matter that his mother is a Christian. He was born a Muslim and has converted to Christianity so he is in the same position as Salman Rushdie and deserves the death penalty."
. . .
Amis . . . sees this apostasy as presenting difficulties when dealing in Middle Eastern politics. He added: "He will have problems when he goes to Saudi Arabia if he becomes president."

Mr Amis has recently spoken out forcefully and, in the view of some, intemperately, against radical Islam, calling it a "poisonous death cult" and "a murderous ideology", prompting critics to brand him a racist.

An award-winning fellow British author has now come out in support of Amis—using equally blunt language.

The novelist Ian McEwan has launched an astonishingly strong attack on Islamism, saying that he "despises" it and accusing it of "wanting to create a society that I detest". His words, in an interview with an Italian newspaper, could, in today's febrile legalistic climate, lay him open to being investigated for a "hate crime".

Expressing one’s opinion about a public issue risks a hate crime investigation.  Such attacks on the right to free speech have, unfortunately, become common in Europe and Canada because we mustn’t risk offending Muslims.  Yet, no one seems to notice that Muslim-dominated societies are notorious for suppressing freedoms of press, speech, and religion.

Previous related post: Press freedom lacking in many Muslim countries

The borough council of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, has instructed employees to avoid referring to "brainstorming" for fear that the word "might offend mentally ill people and those with epilepsy".  Based on news reports, no actual persons report being so offended, but that doesn’t stop government from avoiding productive work leading the vanguard of political correctness.

The new, putatively inoffensive jargon for a meeting to generate new ideas is "thought showers".

A British charity representing epileptics has evidence that "brainstorming" is not offensive.

[The National Society for Epilepsy] surveyed members three years ago to ask whether they found the phrase offensive.

Spokesman Amanda Cleaver said: 'The answer was a resounding No. It certainly wasn't deemed offensive at all. People thought it was a great word to describe the coming together and discussion of ideas.'

The charity uses the term in its working environment.

The idea arose during an “equality and diversity training session”. Why am I not surprised?

h/t: Overlawyered

This morning's processional hymn at Christ Church Cathedral, Whitehorse. (Hymn #556 in the Anglican Church of Canada's hymn book, Common Praise.)

O for a closer walk with God,
a calm and heavenly frame,
a light to shine upon the road
that leads me to the Lamb!

Where is the blessedness I knew
when first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
of Jesus and his word?

Return, O holy Dove, return,
sweet messenger of rest;
I hate the sins that made thee mourn,
and drove thee from my breast.

The dearest idol I have known,
whate'er that idol be,
help me to tear it from thy throne,
and worship only thee.

So shall my walk be close with God,
calm and serene my frame;
so purer light shall mark the road
that leads me to the Lamb.

Words: William Cowper, 1772.
Music: Caithness, Scottish Psalter, 1635.

More about hymn-writer William Cowper here.

The collect for today, the 5th Sunday after Trinity, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

Grant, O Lord, we beseech thee, that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered by thy governance, that thy Church may joyfully serve thee in all godly quietness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St Peter 3:8-15a
The Gospel: St Luke 5:1-11

Artwork: Marco Basaiti, Call of the Sons of Zebedee, 1510. Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice.