Alice has moved to WordPress

And she's talking about porn over at the new place.

If you would be so kind as to click through and redirect your bookmarks to:

http://alicethecamel.wordpress.com

I'd enjoy to have you with me.

[PS Jan 18: Blog rollees please know I don't have my sidebar links set up yet and a few other things like that. But by the end of the week I hope to have everything business as usual. - AC ]

How will history treat George Bush?

Bush gave his farewell tonight and typing fingers replace the flapping lips of yore.

The media searches for prophets who will tell them, "How will history treat George Bush?!?!?!?"

Well let me answer that question with a question. Did you know it was the 200th anniversary of Felix Mendelssohn this year? After 200 years, you are history...how are you treating him?

What is it about Felix Mendelssohn that so habitually slips the mind? For most of the 19th century, Mendelssohn was considered the equal of Beethoven and Bach. For much of the 20th, his music was known to at least as many listeners as the Beatles – if not the Anglican hymn O for the Wings of a Dove, then the obligatory Wedding March. His violin concerto is the saccharine test for every virtuoso and his Scottish Symphony is that country’s best-known musical evocation. (#)

I didn't know either so don't think Alice is calling you a rube for not knowing your Romantic era music trivia.

The point is, history will treat George Bush however it treats him and really it doesn't change what is...history is just society a bit later. And in a couple of hundred years society will judge George Bush based on the current ideological fashions that happen to be flying around on whatever has replaced the internet by then.

Judgment from the court of human opinion is more often than not a reflection of the ignorant mass than it is any kind of valid assessment of the one in the dock.

Isn't it?

Lutheran Antisemitism: Luther

So what about Luther and this book "The Jews and Their Lies," referred to so often- and apologized for by America’s Lutherans? What about the other anti-Semitic statements attributed to Luther?

Misapplied Lament 101

Toronto Star heading: "We're the only one of 47 nations on UN rights panel to refuse to condemn military offensive in Gaza"

Pop quiz: What is the actual tragedy in that statement?

Bueller? Bueller?

__________

Scott Gilbreath links to the UN report.

Tribute to a Border Runner

In Canada, we throw you in jail for donating a bag of wheat to a 4H club.

Seriously.

h/t SDA

Feminists encourage children to use guns

Forget sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. Today's biggest threat to society? Pink:

My daughter deals with the pink pressure in a very interesting way. When you ask her what her favorite color is, she replies, "I like every color but I say pink because that's what people want." It's depressing that she's so aware of this but encouraging that she sticks to her "every color of the rainbow" guns.

From Feministing. A site which is exactly as you may imagine it.

My name is Alice the Camel and I don't care what you say I am a feminist blogger.

Via: Brutally Honest

Google Raping the Earth

If so, what then are we to make of Facebook?

P.S. Now I see why journalists are dissing Google.

Canada vs US

There's a tight race for Best Conservative Blog going on at the Weblog Awards. Canadian blog Small Dead Animals is chasing down the win on this typically all-American contest category. Vote here every 24 hours. The page is slow to load, but worth it for King and country.

(P.S. The Best Canadian Blog category has some great blogs too. Vote and visit.)

Dear George Bush

Ahem

It is not enough for the United States to urge “Israel to avoid civilian targets,” particularly in light of Israel’s stated intention to continue, expand, and intensify its current offensive.

Sincerely yours,

Churches for Middle East Peace

Lutheran Antisemitism (updated)

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is going to Palestine:

In early January, 66 Bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America plan to go to Palestine and Israel to study Jewish “oppression” against Palestinians. This after Palestinian Hamas has cancelled a cease fire and began bombing Israel again at Christmas time, stridently provoking the present war. No doubt each Bishop will come back with stories of this highly orchestrated trip, perhaps too naïve to realize that they will only see what Hamas sympathizers and Christian Dhimmis like the Lutheran Bishop of the Holy Land, Munib Younan, want them to see. They will be fed the one-sided anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian narrative that their Presiding Bishop and President of the Lutheran World Federation, Mark Hanson, has become notorious for. (CJ Connor)

CJ Connor is a conservative Lutheran pastor in Minnesota and pulls no punches when speaking out against the rampant antisemitism found in the liberal Lutheran churches. His blog post is full of informative online references to some pretty ugly stuff.

Before you chalk this up to an American thing, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, who is in full communion with the Anglican Church of Canada, is partnering in the delegation:

The call for solidarity comes as bishops of the ELCIC and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) prepare to visit religious, government and community leaders, congregations and schools in Jordan, Israel and the West Bank. The visit was scheduled months ago as part of an annual bishops' academy, a time of theological reflection and study.

The National Bishop, four Synod Bishops, and at least 39 bishops of the ELCA, including Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson, plus many spouses and 14 ELCA churchwide staff are expected to make the January 6-13 visit. A smaller delegation will visit Jordan beginning January 3. The visit is intended to show support for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL), led by its bishop, the Rev. Munib A. Younan, and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). The bishops also want to learn more about the complexities in the region, and promote just and peaceful solutions to the conflict.

"This is a tragic yet opportune time for North American Lutherans to visit their partners in Palestine," said Bishop Younan, also an LWF vice president, in a news release. "They will have a unique opportunity to witness the challenges of living in this disputed land."

[...]

Members of the ELCA and ELCIC are encouraged to pray for the bishops as they prepare and embark on the trip. (ELCIC)

174,555 baptized members in the ELCIC.

Watch this video of a Sderot mother afraid for her baby:

In 2005, Israel fully withdrew from the Gaza Strip, in the hope of peace. In return, Palestinians chose the Hamas who, since that time, launched 4,637 rockets targeting innocent civilians, like me and my family. This is the root cause of the problem we are discussing today.

While I'm not a member of the ELCIC, I pray in Jesus name that the bishops get a true picture of what it is like to live as an Israeli.

UPDATE via Brutally Honest: "Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East"

And Ezra Levant: "The Christians are Going to Save the Jews"

Alice blogs Anglicans

Nova Scotia Scott, in a very informative post, checks out Colby Cosh's deep seeded confusion about Christians and abortion.

UPDATE with more of Jay Currie: "The way that Colby wants to frame the debate assumes that there is only the single stakeholder – Mum. But, rather obviously, there is a second party to the transaction, in utero Colby. (And a third in Mr. Cosh, and at the margin, a fourth being all of the rest of us for whom, with the exception of this harebrained article, Colby’s existence on the planet has been something of a gift.)"

David Warren has nominated a woman for man of the year. Is David Warren Anglican? If not, he is today.

Joe Walker took his family out for a bib-free supper.

Speaking of smokers, have I mentioned Edward Michael George smokes???

Jay Currie is assembling a market news site called Cash-Stocks.com.

And last but not least, Tim Chesterton has been busy. Check out his music.

New governor of Kandahar: Afghan Canadian, Tooryalai Wesa

I missed this before Christmas:

KANDAHAR CITY, Afghanistan -- Tribal leaders from across Kandahar province welcomed their new governor -- Afghan-Canadian scholar Tooryalai Wesa -- with turbans and garlands of flowers Saturday, and urged him to take quick action to restore peace and prosperity to a region devastated by decades of violence and hardship.

But Mr. Wesa, 58, said he's not a miracle worker, and reminded the roomful of men gathered at the Governor's Palace to witness his assumption to power that he needed their continued support and co-operation if Kandahar is to move forward. "Alone, I can do nothing," he said, according to a Pashtu translator. "I need your help."

Mr. Wesa arrived in Kandahar Friday night, just two days after agreeing to take on the difficult task of governing Afghanistan's most dangerous and volatile region.

The decision came following a whirlwind meeting in Kabul on Wednesday with Mr. Wesa's childhood friend and current Afghanistan president, Hamid Karzai.

Mr. Wesa said Mr. Karzai had telephoned him two weeks earlier at his home in Coquitlam, B.C. to offer him a job. (NP)

Our day of joy is here again...

...with love and peace and song.

Iraq has declared Christmas a national holiday. Something along the lines of "this year we will be able to go to church on Christmas eve without fear". (ht) And so low and behold in the land of the Tigris they are buying Christmas trees in the town square.

BroKen is talking Christmas trees at Brutally Honest, "There are no Christmas trees in the Bible. But in the beginning there is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden and also the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life re-appears at the end of the Bible in John’s Revelation. But in the middle of Scripture there is another tree, a man-made tree."

Meanwhile, here's a Christmas comparison I hadn't made on my own:

The Santa way says,

You better watch out,
You better not cry,
You better not pout,
I'm telling you why,
Santa Claus is coming to town.

The Jesus way says,

"I lay down my life for the sheep" (John 10:15).
"Whoever comes to me I will never cast out" (John 6:37).

Humans seem to get those two guys mixed up.

At any rate, it's classified as the most wonderful time of the year, but when you think of the job the Christ child was coming to do, the filthy surroundings he was born into and the limitations of the human body he had wedged his God-sized self into...that whole "most wonderful time" stuff is debatable.

I like Christmas, so without wanting to sound like the Grinch, I think we do ourselves and everyone else a real disservice by romanticizing it into some fantasmagorical extravaganza.

Did your Christmas suck this year? Ask God how his was back then.

The Christ child brought hope...but what is inside us to need that hope in the first place? Not pretty.

[Leslie here: Ignore Alice. I hope you had a Merry Christmas! Even though I guess the clock has already switched us over to Boxing Day. If Alice wasn't so hell bent on naming this blog after herself I'd've called it "A Day Late And A Dollar Short".]

These jobs of mine

Ever Darcey and the veritable Edward Michael George have tagged me in the newest circulating meme. I've been a slacker on this here blog of late so...remember me? I'm the camel that used to type here.

To jog your memory, here is a quick list of all the jobs I've had since the ol' grad theme song played. In order. Kind of.

- grocery clerk/postal worker
- nanny
- data entry for library automation project
- blacksmith shop museum tour guide
- tutor (teaching teenagers to read)
- recreational therapist assistant in nursing home
- summer home worker for children with developmental delays and autism
- teacher assistant
- itinerant farm hand/heavy equipment operator (unpaid)
- certified and certifiable substitute teacher (K-12; including band)(current)
- summer library reading program coordinator
- bookkeeper (restaurant and individual contracts)(current)
- billing department of an oilfield telecommunication business (current)
- piano teacher (currently 20 students)

And then everything changed when I became a camel.

With that, I'll wish these good people a blessed Merry Christmas and a meme-ing new year: Captain Capitalism, Fausta, Sig, Neo and Nova Scotia Scott.

As it happens, Hershblogger is telling tales of his days working on a GM assembly line...the "mark of excellence".

Rick Astley for governor!

Facebook's answer to the Blagojevich problem.

Alice for Senate: Twilight Zone

No word of a lie, this morning I sat in a wallapaloosa of a meeting and considered the possibilities of being endowed with a camel-sized supply of camel hork to greet people with, as camels are wont to do sometimes. However, I'm only a camel when the moon is full and this afternoon I wasn't properly manifested yet and after a breakfast of ibuprofen my mouth was dry.

Still, I returned to find myself nominated for Stephen Harper's senate election with a cited qualification that really resonated with the day's earlier thoughts. Perhaps it is me who is Waking Up on Planet X:

Alice the Camel - forget gender diversity, just imagine some particularly long-winded Liberal Senator getting camel spit in the eye.

I need to read Candace more. She understands me. Thank you Candace.

All that and she's got a list of good Canadian bloggers up too. Worth checking them out.

Bartender turns tax collector

"Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this"