The case, which had previously gone unreported, involved an engineer in his 30s, named as Mr X, who married Ms Y, a student nurse in her 20s, in 2006. The wedding night party was still under way at the family’s home in Roubaix when the groom came down from the bedroom complaining that his bride was not a virgin. He could not display the blood-stained sheet that is traditionally exhibited as proof of the bride’s “purity”.

Mr X went to court the following morning and was granted a annulment on the grounds that his bride had deceived him on “one of the essential elements” of the marriage. In disgrace with both families, she acknowledged that she had led her groom to believe that she was a virgin when she had already had sexual intercourse. She did not oppose the annulment.

Many people across France and the world, including the ruling party of President Sarkozy, have condemned this judgment as a way to use the law to invade women’s privacy and discriminate in religious contexts:

Critics ran out of superlatives to condemn what they depicted as a dangerous aberration. Valérie Létard, Minister for Women’s Rights, said that she was “shocked to see that today in France the civil law can be used to diminish the status of women”.

I guess the take-home lesson from these events is that if a woman lies about her history of sexual activity, her marriage never happened as far as the French courts are concerned. What a shocking and sad violation of human rights.

Also, Don’s tribute to the Vancouver Canucks’ Luc Bourdon, who died on Thursday in a motorcycle crash, was very classy, for a change: Don just shut up and played the video. I’ll post it too when I get a chance.

But today’s may be the best one yet. According to Lazer, not only do Jews believe in reincarnation, but dogs are the reincarnated spirits of slanderers:

Jews firmly believe in reincarnation. Reincarnation is designed to attain a correction of the soul and mend sins of former lives. For example, those who slander others and who speak idle gossip are usually reincarnated as dogs. We should try our best to fulfill G-d’s commandments and to avoid the need for further reincarnations at all costs.

There’s so much going on here I hardly know where to begin. Perhaps I’ll start with the “content” of this blog post. Yes, many Jews have historically believed in reincarnation. The Talmud speaks of gilgul neshamot, or “transmigrations of the soul”, and it is posited that souls migrate to new bodies after death to atone for sins committed in their former lives. Kabbalistic tradition makes much of this, especially in the Zohar, the writings of the Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria), and Hasidic folk stories and traditions. Some people even believe it today, as we can see in the crazy ravings of a certain Internet nutjob who believes that trees contain souls in need of “correction”. Even an otherwise reasonable rabbi I know in California believes in reincarnation.

Apparently, Jews also believe that the souls of those who speak lashon ha-ra—gossip and slander—are reincarnated in canine form. Who knew?

Jewish belief in reincarnation (inasmuch as it can be called “Jewish”) has its traditional, pre-rabbinic origins in the nebulous concept of tehiyat ha-meitim, the resurrection of the dead that will be one of the defining features of the Messianic Age. But Jewish notions of post-death reward and punishment have always been very poorly defined: “heaven” and “hell” are not native Jewish concepts and do not translate very well into Jewish eschatology. This is why the traditional answer to the questions “What age will I be when I’m resurrected in the Messianic Age?” and “If I were to die by having my head chopped off, would I be resurrected without a head?” is “Don’t ask stupid questions.”

Judaism is focussed on this world and what we do with our lives in it. In the age-old “works versus faith” debate, Judaism falls squarely on the side of works. A human being who does good deeds and does not believe in God is worth many times more than one who pays lip service to God and does not try to live up to his or her God’s ideas about human honour and dignity. God demands that we give charity to the poor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, strive to rid the world of anguish and strife. A Jew who does not do these things is not practicing Judaism.

If you speak slander or gossip—and who hasn’t?—the penalty is not reincarnation into another form (how you’re supposed to perform penance as a dog is beyond me, anyway). If you sin, you won’t be punished with eternal hellfire or damnation or anything like that. The penalty for those who create a worse world with their wrongdoing is to live in a worse world.

They eat people! For the love of Pete, they’re big, angry bears. They eat people. Not that I say we go out and kill all of them, but I mean, it doesn’t seem to be a problem here. Senator, I can’t take the—I can’t take the lies anymore.

So, let’s recap: Polar bears (a) are not endangered, (b) are “big” and “angry”, and (c) “eat people”.

For the love of Pete, whose idea was it to give this nutjob a television show?

(Video and a complete transcript can be found on AlterNet.)

• A dispute over a parking space between a security guard and a private citizen in Colorado leads to a Taser duel.
  

  “(The guard) pointed a stun gun at my mother’s face and I immediately responded with my personal Taser,” Epstein said Sunday evening, within an hour of being released from Boulder County Jail. “And we shot each other at the same moment.”

• But it’s not all bleak news: the RCMP says it would be “willing to change its Taser policy”, partially in response to the Robert Dziekański Taser incident at Vancouver Airport a while back.

The old policy, adopted a year ago, caused a public outcry after it was learned through a Freedom of Information request that transit police had deployed a Taser on non-violent passengers, including a person who had not paid his fare and tried to run away from an officer.

The old policy stated: “A Taser may be deployed…to gain physical control of a non-compliant, suicidal or potentially violent subject.”

But it’s not at all certain just how much real change this alteration of terminology is really going to bring about:

Inquiry counsel Art Vertlieb asked [deputy transit police chief Ken] Allen if the new policy would allow a Taser to be deployed on a person fleeing police during a “fare blitz”—a check to see if passengers had paid fares.

“It would depend on the extenuating circumstances surrounding why the individual was fleeing,” the deputy chief replied.

In other words, Canada’s only armed transit police force not only gets to keep its Tasers, they get to keep using these potentially deadly weapons on “actively resistant” human beings who make the bad judgment not to pay their transit fare and the misfortune to get caught. If TransLink is so concerned about revenue loss from non-compliant individuals, they should install some fucking turnstiles on the SkyTrain instead of Tasering their riders.

Barring outfit changes, no more Don Cherry posts today. Back to regular blogging soon.

So. When will Bush and McCain denounce Israel, just like Bush denounced Barack Obama—on the floor of the Knesset, no less—as an “appeaser” for declaring his intention to talk to America’s enemies? Israel is actually doing it. Where’s the condemnation?

Oh, right. Talking to and “appeasing” terrorists is okay when the American government or its allies does it, but when their political opponents even suggest it, they’re morally equivalent to Hitler.

That these outrageous comments and beliefs are still confined to a small corner of the online world and haven’t been getting the kind of press that Barack Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright has been enjoying, I can only attribute to (a) the so-called liberal media’s ongoing love affair with McCain and (b) the incredible wealth and power of Hagee’s ministry and media empire.

Money quote: “How did [the Holocaust] happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said, ‘My top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel.’ Today Israel is back in the land … They are physically alive but they’re not spiritually alive.”

Full transcript and video (YouTube video of audio recording of sermon) after the jump.

Again he said unto me, “Prophesy unto these bones, and say unto them: O you dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!” And he spoke to them and they stood and they became an exceeding great army—meaning they physically came to life.

Now how is God going to bring them back to the land? The answer is fishers and hunters.

The answer is given in Jeremiah 16, verse 15 and following. God says in Jeremiah 16: “Behold I will bring them (the Jewish people) again unto their land that I gave unto their fathers”—that would be Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—”Behold I will send for many fishers and after will I send for many hunters. And they the hunters shall hunt them”—that will be the Jews—”from every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks.”

If that doesn’t describe what Hitler did in the Holocaust… you can’t see that.

So think about this—I will send fishers and I will send hunters. A fisher is someone who entices you with a bait. How many of you know who Theodore Herzl was? How many of you don’t have a clue who he was? Woo! Sweet God!

Theodore Herzl is the father of Zionism. He was a Jew that at the turn of the 19th century said, “This land is our land, God wants us to live there.” So he went to the Jews of Europe and said, “I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel.” So few went, Herzl went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the Holocaust.

Then God sent a hunter. A hunter is someone who comes with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter.

And the Bible says—Jeremiah righty?—”They shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and out of the holes of the rocks.” Meaning: there’s no place to hide.

And that will be offensive to some people. Well, dear heart, be offended: I didn’t write it. Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said, “My top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel.”

Today Israel is back in the land and they are at Ezekiel 37 and 8. They are physically alive but they’re not spiritually alive.

Now how is God going to cause the Jewish people to come spiritually alive and say, “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He is God”?

Via Bruce Wilson at The Revealer

Via TPM/Veracifier and Think Progress.

David Froomkin’s special column in the Washington Post is a must-read, full of excellent invective, highlighting the hypocrisy of this generous and selfless act on the part of a president who still bikes, works out, goes on vacation more than any president in history, and has no trouble sleeping nights. And also, Keith Olbermann’s latest Special Comment is absolutely right on the mark. His analysis is thoughtful, provocative, and a must-watch. He doens’t even stoop to the low level—as well he could have done—of playing that idiotic clip of Bush saying “I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive.”

Mr. Bush, I hate to break it to you, six-and-a-half years after you yoked this nation and your place in history to the wrong war, in the wrong place, against the wrong people but the war in Iraq is Not. About. You.

Crooks and Liars has a full transcript plus downloadable video, or just watch the YouTube version:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Link to download the QuickTime .mov of the amusing incident is here (3 MB).

Lazer Brody, our friendly neighbourhood chassidic nut, informs us—complete with video—about an intriguing custom that is apparently Jewish: saying blessings over fruit trees that are blossoming in the springtime. According to Rabbi Lazer, this is a great mitzvah because

According to Kabbala, this blessing is deeply significant, and helps correct the soul that is reincarnated within the tree. That soul is forever beholding [sic] to the person that makes the blessing, for he or she has done a great favor in helping that soul attain its tikkun, or correction.

You can’t make this shit up. (Actually, I guess you can.) I am stunned. Souls being reincarnated in trees?! This is the kind of thing the Kabbalah Center would come up with, and then sell twigs to unsuspecting celebrities and Angelenos for $150 a pop.

If this were not a Jewish ritual, and a Jewish (sort of) spiritual justification, Jews like Rabbi Lazer would instantly associate it with barbaric and misguided animism or spirit-worship or idolatry, just like the Bible condemns cultic worship involving the asherah. But since this one is sui generis Jewish, or something, it’s totally kosher and Kabbalistic and a beautiful and important mitzvah and a great way to “correct” reincarnated tree-souls.

If my spirit ever has to get reincarnated into a tree, I hope it’s one of those awesome bristlecone pines that live forever and are basically indestructible. Actually, what with the pine beetle going around these days, maybe not…

Among the particulars of this audit that I find so amusing: employees made their own contracts with the phone companies, resulting in a patchwork of over 1500 individual contracts, 20% of all the devices were owned by people who had no reason for owning one in their job, and the department in question had no procedures to recover the cost when an employee used a government-provided mobile device for personal matters.

This is a perfect example of what happens when laws and government policies are too slow to catch up to actual practice. It’s a shame that an audit—probably costing the taxpayers the equivalent of a year of wireless services for Natural Resources Canada—had to be conducted as the first step on the road (hopefully) to eliminating some of this waste. No surprises here, and I bet that nobody’s going to raise the issue in today’s Question Period because they’ll be too busy benefitting from government waste elsewhere.