Is there anything the Swedes won't burn?
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Originally Posted by BBC
Arsonists who enjoy burning down a festive Swedish straw goat may have met their match this year.
 This year's goat...
In the 40 years since the tradition started, the giant goat of Gavle has often gone up in flames within days.
But this year the 13-metre (43ft) high goat has a coat of flame-resistant chemicals, and the authorities are determined it will see in the New Year.
"No-one is going to get our goat this year," says a local spokeswoman with confidence.
Those who remain concerned can reassure themselves of the goat's wellbeing by watching on the "goatcam".
Just 10 of the goats, which are built in the town's central square, have survived beyond Christmas since 1966.
 ...last year's goat
Some have been burnt down within hours of being erected during the first week of December.
The culprits are seldom caught. However, a 51-year-old American tourist spent 18 days in jail after being convicted of setting it alight in December 2001.
It is not the first time authorities have put their faith in a flame-proof coating - a substance tried before washed off in the rain.
This one is waterproof, says Gavle spokeswoman Anna Oestman, and while its hooves could still be singed, a full scale torching would now be "impossible". Goats have a special place in Swedish tradition, and it was a goat which in earlier centuries delivered festive gifts before Santa Claus took over that role.
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This is what Socialism does to a country: the heathen Scandiwegians have run out of Churches to burn, so they've had to start on their own Satanic idols instead. And I dread to think what the "special place" goats play in Swedish tradition is. Oh well, the Swedish savages may or may not be able to stop each other burning down their devilgoat idol, but they certainly won't be able to stop the Horned One from burning the lot of them for eternity!
O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it--for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
God being truth, justice, goodness, beauty, power, and life, man is falsehood, iniquity, evil, ugliness, impotence, and death. God being master, man is the slave. Incapable of finding justice, truth, and eternal life by his own effort, he can attain them only through a divine revelation... he who desires to worship God must harbor no childish illusions about the matter, but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity.