Harper is not only increasing the number of prisoners in our already overcrowded prisons. He's closing down existiing ones before we have any njew one. Our prisons are, indeed, going to be hell. And they are going to increase the crime rate.

The US, with its massive prison system, is already using torture, cattle prods, etc. the resulting is a rising crime rate.

Is Syria sliding into a sectarian civil war?   The current estimate is that 3,500 people have been killed so far.   Syria has several religious groups: Sunni Muslims, Christians and Alawites (an offshoot of Shiite Islam regarded as heterodox) are the most common.  The government of Bashar Assad (inherited from his father) are Alawite.  The Alawites are coming under attack because of this.

Here is a story from The New York Times,

In a speech today, Mr. Romney, leading candidate for the Republican leadership announced that God wants the US to rule the world. He proposes to dramatically increase the "defence" budget, and cut social assistance.

Canada, as titular leader of the NATO bombing, has almost finished its work in Libya, almost certainly having killed tens of thousands of civilians. (You can't bomb cities without doing that.)

I don't know how to process the horrible events that transpired yesterday in Norway. What thoughts or actions does your theology call you into?

 I am still shocked by any type of killing.  I am particularly disturbed when large numbers of people participate in killing.  I understand that many people support killing in war, without knowing about the details or being directly involved.

But what about http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8347216.stm

Like most of us, I guess, I grew up in a world in which we can readily see evil, and identify pure evil as a cause of events.

Specifically, I grew up to see Hitler and Stalin and Mao as evil, and the terrible destruction of life that arose from them as something caused by their evil. I still think they're evil. But the second part of that sentence may be simplistic.

It may be that Hitler and Stalin and Mao were the norms for our new world - not exceptions, but terrible examples of a new normalcy.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and am looking for a few other ideas about this whole scenario.

The recent Kingston canal murders of four women of colour are still under investigation, but formal charges have been laid against the father, mother, and brother of three of the victims (with the fourth suspected of being a first wife of the father).

Apparently, we just missed Bring your Gun to Church day.

www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1906765,00.html

Some people have no concept of reality...