World Fails to End in June; Bloggers Hardest Hit

A while back, I noted an awesomely silly end-of-the-world prediction and promised a gleeful follow-up at the end of the month. Since I haven’t posted anything on ChicagoBoyz in a while, I figured that was as good an excuse as any to put the follow-up here instead of on Arcturus.
The original piece was posted due to the anonymous “Bush Country Staff”‘s belief that “[t]he coincidences are incredible” — so after assuring readers that “unless the entire world is introduced to the Anti-Christ in June, we have to believe these events will not be taking place,” they ran it anyway, all 2,900 words and ten screens of it, apparently on the theory that one apocalyptic scenario’s just as good as another. Latitudinarianism in action?
Don’t worry; I’m not going to fisk the whole thing. Let’s cut to the chase, namely the list of falsifiable predictions:

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Grotesque distortions

David Kaspar links to an op-ed by prominent feminist Alice Schwarzer and
claims that she compares Abu Ghraib to Auschwitz
:

“(…) Das erste (Foto) zeigt ein Opfer auf einem Podest mit einer Kapuze über dem Kopf, das mit seinen abgewinkelten Armen wie der gekreuzigte Christus das Leid dieser Welt symbolisiert (…). Das zweite Foto zeigt einen nackten Menschenhaufen, der uns an KZ-Bilder erinnert…”

Translation:

“(…) The first (photo) shows a hooded victim on a pedestal who, with his arms outstretched like the crucified Christ, symbolizes the world’s sufferings. … The second photo shows a pile of naked men that reminds us of pictures from the concentration camps. …”

The comparison of this picture from Abu Ghraib with those of concentration camps is very stupid, but she isn’t comparing Abu Ghraib to Auschwitz. Here’s an altavista translation

But look what David then comes up with:

“The issue here is nothing less than the revision of German history. Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Theresienstadt and Dachau are all in the same league with Abu Ghraib. (While under American control – the German media treated Abu Ghraib under Saddam’s rule as a non-event, as a sub-set of the category Arabian folklore.)

We get it! That’s the way it was in those Nazi concentration camps back then. A bunch of louts, those concentration camp guards – they didn’t always maintain discipline. There were times when the inmates were slapped in the face. And more – occasionally they had to stand on a box for hours. Once the prisoners even had to undress! And then get dressed again! Sure weren’t resorts, those concentration camps. If only the Führer had known!

So the pictures taken in German concentration camps remind us of American crimes in our day? Well, we don’t want to compare numbers. Every nation has a few bad boys who get carried away once in a while, doesn’t it?…”

He certainly got a lot of mileage out of this one sentence. Get it? A feminist who has no more influence in Germany than Susan Sontag has in America writes an op-ed that contains a stupid sentence, and all of a sudden it’s all of the German media and *Germans in general* who are comparing Abu Ghraib to Auschwitz in order to excuse the holocaust.

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Canadian Primer

In my previous post I commented on Canada’s election, which was held yesterday. A reader named TangoMan kindly posted a primer of Canadian politics. I thought it was important to post the entire comment here in case anyone would like a thoughtful and brief analysis of political forces in Canada.

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Abortion Costing Liberals Votes

Here’s an update to a comment I posted in Lex’s Gay Marriage post where I noted that Liberals don’t reproduce as much as Conservatives.

Drudge has a link to this article in the Wall Street Journal’s Opinionjournal that quantifies it to an extent:

“Abortion has caused missing Democrats–and missing liberals. For advocates so fundamentally committed to changing the face of conservative America, liberals have been remarkably blind to the fact that every day the abortions they advocate dramatically decrease their power to do so. Imagine the number of followers that their abortion policies eliminate who, over the next several decades, would have emerged as the new liberal thinkers, voters, adherents, fund-raisers and workers for their cause.”

This is Important Even if Most People Don’t Care

Tomorrow is the day when Canadians go to the polls. This is significant because it’s just possible that the Liberal Party, which has held sway over Canada for so long, might just lose it’s majority. In fact, that’s what Collin May over at Innocents Abroad is predicting.

So what may happen if the Conservative Party wins? To an American I doubt it will look like much will change. That won’t be the best of all possible outcomes but it’s better than if the Liberals get another chance at mucking things up.

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