The iCloud hack

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From here:

Apple has admitted its iCloud service was to blame for the theft of hundreds of celebrity pictures.

The firm said it was ‘outraged’ by the attacks, and said they were the result of ‘a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions’.

Various actresses have had au naturel photographs they recklessly posted to iCloud distributed all over the place. The actresses are, understandably, complaining bitterly: after all, they make a living out of being filmed taking their clothes off for the ogling pleasure of millions of paying customers. They didn’t make a penny out of the hacked iCloud photos; it’s heart-breaking.

ISIS murders another US journalist: Steven Sotloff

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From here:

The terrorist group ISIS released video that purportedly shows the execution of American journalist Steven Sotloff, according to the SITE Intel Group.

The two-and-half minute video shows what appears to be Sotloff, 31, in orange prisoner garb with a black-cloaked man next to him holding a knife in a desert landscape. Sotloff recites a statement in a strong, dispassionate voice towards U.S. President Barack Obama. Sotloff says he is personally “paying the price” for the United States’ foreign policy and intervention in Iraq.

An ISIS terrorist speaks near the end of the video, his voice apparently garbled by a voice shifter but with a slight British accent apparent.

“I’m back, Obama, and I’m back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State … despite our serious warnings,” the terrorist says.

The terrorist drives his knife into the neck of the prisoner before the camera cuts to black. The video then pans to a shot of the decapitated prisoner’s head on his body.

The video ends with the terrorist holding what they claim is another hostage, Briton David Cawthorne Haines, and warned governments to “back off” against ISIS. It was not immediately clear who Haines was.

ISIS released the video, called “A Second Message to America,” on Tuesday.

I’m not posting the video for the obvious reason that ISIS would like it to have as wide a distribution as possible.

As for the “Second Message to America”, from a Christian perspective, one of the major functions of government it to protect its citizens from harm and evil. In this situation, I think the best way to do that would be for the US to send its own clear message: punish ISIS by killing as many of their members as possible. Any Westerners who have joined ISIS should, if caught, have their citizenship revoked and be tried as traitors.

Since the mainline churches are so keen on justice, perhaps we can look forward to their support for strong government action; perhaps not. And I am waiting with bated breath for the throngs of Canadian Muslims clogging downtown Toronto to protest what is being done in the name of their religion.

As individual Christians, let us pray for the victims of ISIS, for Christians in the Middle East and for the work of Canon Andrew White – who is speaking at an ANiC church in Burlington next Sunday. Update: Canon White has just been diagnosed with acute hepatitis, so the visit has been postponed.

Toronto Jesus parade back on

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We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Some of us, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford for example, are conspicuous, noisy, brash, drug-addicted, drunken sinners. I’ve always thought that type of sinner more endearing than miscreants with a veneer of  respectability who harbour the carefully concealed sin of elitist sanctimony favoured by liberals. Just as Jesus is a friend of sinners – more a friend of the former category, I suspect – so this sinner is a friend of Jesus: Rob Ford has reinstated the Jesus parade.

From here:

Enter Mayor Rob Ford, who told the Toronto Sun her wanted the parade back on and called a meeting of all involved.

Before noon Thursday, that solution was worked out.
“He was animated” and vocal, McVety said of the mayor. “He made it clear to city staff he wanted to find a solution.”

More Anglican paedophile priests

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From here:

A FORMER Newcastle Anglican church employee said he repeatedly warned the diocese, from as early as 1984, that a ‘‘network’’ of paedophile priests preyed on children, but the diocese failed to act on the warnings.

‘‘I told them in 1984 that ‘You’ve got a network of these bastards preying on altar boys’, and I named names,’’ the former church employee said.

In the past four years the diocese has defrocked three priests and sanctioned others, and confirmed a number of clergy and church workers were child sex offenders.

A FORMER Newcastle Anglican church employee said he repeatedly warned the diocese, from as early as 1984, that a ‘‘network’’ of paedophile priests preyed on children, but the diocese failed to act on the warnings.

‘‘I told them in 1984 that ‘You’ve got a network of these bastards preying on altar boys’, and I named names,’’ the former church employee said.

In the past four years the diocese has defrocked three priests and sanctioned others, and confirmed a number of clergy and church workers were child sex offenders.

What seems so extraordinary about this kind of all too frequent report is not just that Christians, professional Christians at that, indulge in one of the more grossly repugnant sexual sins, nor that there has been a cover-up. The extraordinary thing is that even though the majority of such priests are gay, the Western Anglican church is strenuously recruiting more gay men into its ranks, men among whom are those who clearly find altar boys an irresistible delicacy.

To forestall the inevitable protest: I am not claiming that the majority of gays are paedophiles. It does appear to be the case that the majority of paedophile priests are gay, though.

City of Toronto refuses permit for Jesus Parade

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From here:

Jesus paradeIt seems, thanks to work around Queen’s Park, the permit for the 15th annual Jesus in the City Parade Sept. 6 has been yanked by the city.

“In view of the circumstances, the Street Events section of Transportation Services cannot approve your request to assemble the parade floats and have parade participants form up along Queen’s Park,” Transportation Services’ Rita Hoy wrote on Friday. “Shawn Dartsch from our traffic section indicates that he cannot approve this request as everything hinges on the construction.”

[…..]

“We were really upset by this,” said Dr. Charles McVety, of Canada Christian College. “We have been planning for the whole year and just weeks before the event, notice comes to cancel it. It’s shocking.”

To add insult to injury, McVety and Jesus in the City organizer Ayanna Solomon question why the city hasn’t helped with an alternative route.

“It is a sad day in this city when a parade for peace and love, Jesus in the City, is cancelled by city officials,” said McVety. “They would never do this to (the Caribbean Carnival) or the Pride Parade.”

[…..]

Director of Transportation Services Jacqueline White said, “Unfortunately it was not possible, logistically, to accommodate the sheer number of people that were expected to participate, on the date requested, on Queen’s Park Crescent,” which is being “resurfaced, and there would be ongoing lane closures and construction equipment present.

“The weekend requested also conflicts with orientation activities at the University of Toronto and it is the opening weekend of the Toronto Film Festival, which often has activities on Bloor St.”

I am quite certain that there is no construction known to man that would have prevented the City of Toronto issuing the necessary permits for the Pride Parade a few months back.

No doubt the Anglican Church of Canada will sternly denounce this decision by the city; now I come to think of it, the ACoC, ever mindful of its priorities, only participates in the Pride Parade, not the Jesus Parade. How could I have forgotten that?

Richard Dawkins thinks it is immoral to allow Down’s syndrome babies to be born

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From here:

Richard Dawkins, the atheist writer, has claimed it is “immoral” to allow unborn babies with Down’s syndrome to live.

Having finally noticed about himself what others have known for years, he went on to say:

“Apparently I’m a horrid monster for recommending what actually happens to the great majority of Down Syndrome foetuses. They are aborted.”

Few atheists, including Richard Dawkins since he regularly tells anyone who will listen what he thinks is moral, are willing to live with the consequences of their beliefs. Without God, there can be no objective morality; without God there is no human essence, no common human nature; without God, we choose what we become, our essence is defined by that choice and the choice is arbitrary, as is the morality which results from the choice.

Richard Dawkins has chosen human feelings as the measure of whether a person is really a person; a foetus does not feel – supposedly – so, as a non-person, it is disposable. From a Christian perspective, a person is made in God’s image at the time of conception; that perspective makes Dawkins’ view – horrid and monstrous.

One consolation is that the Dawkins horrid monster atheistic persona is but a tepid copy of that enjoyed by murderous 20th century practitioners from Stalin to Pol Pot: they systematised atheism, imposed it on everyone they could and drove it to its inevitable, foul conclusion.

Desmond Tutu wants a global boycott of Israel

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Read it all here.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, in an exclusive article for Haaretz, calls for a global boycott of Israel and urges Israelis and Palestinians to look beyond their leaders for a sustainable solution to the crisis in the Holy Land.

The past weeks have witnessed unprecedented action by members of civil society across the world against the injustice of Israel’s disproportionately brutal response to the firing of missiles from Palestine.

[…]

I asked the crowd to chant with me: “We are opposed to the injustice of the illegal occupation of Palestine. We are opposed to the indiscriminate killing in Gaza. We are opposed to the indignity meted out to Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks. We are opposed to violence perpetrated by all parties. But we are not opposed to Jews.”

Earlier in the week, I called for the suspension of Israel from the International Union of Architects, which was meeting in South Africa.

The extraordinarily blinkered conclusion Tutu reaches is:

The pursuit of freedom for the people of Palestine from humiliation and persecution by the policies of Israel is a righteous cause. It is a cause that the people of Israel should support.

There is no mention of Hamas repeated violating ceasefires, using Gazans as human shields, having the destruction of Israel in its charter, the fact that, for propaganda, Hamas wants its citizens to die or the indoctrination of children to hate Jews. The article is reproduced on the Anglican Communion News Service; since it is sitting there without editorial comment, we must assume that the ACNS is untroubled by Tutu’s viewpoint.

Here is a different view from someone who has not succumbed to the miasma of leftist pollution that is afflicting Tutu’s neocortex: