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30 April, 2004

MUSLIM SPAIN WAS NOT TOLERANT

Dispelling the PC myth of "tolerant Moorish rule" in mediaeval Spain

"Al-Andalus represented the land of jihad par excellence. Every year, sometimes twice a year, raiding expeditions were sent to ravage the Christian Spanish kingdoms to the north, the Basque regions, or France and the Rhone valley, bringing back booty and slaves. Andalusian corsairs attacked and invaded along the Sicilian and Italian coasts, even as far as the Aegean Islands, looting and burning as they went. Thousands of people were deported to slavery in Andalusia, where the caliph kept a militia of tens of thousand of Christian slaves brought from all parts of Christian Europe (the Saqaliba), and a harem filled with captured Christian women. Society was sharply divided along ethnic and religious lines, with the Arab tribes at the top of the hierarchy, followed by the Berbers who were never recognized as equals, despite their Islamization; lower in the scale came the mullawadun converts and, at the very bottom, the dhimmi Christians and Jews.

The Andalusian Maliki jurist Ibn Abdun (d. 1134) offered these telling legal opinions regarding Jews and Christians in Seville around 1100 C.E.: "No.Jew or Christian may be allowed to wear the dress of an aristocrat, nor of a jurist, nor of a wealthy individual; on the contrary they must be detested and avoided. It is forbidden to [greet] them with the [expression], `Peace be upon you'. In effect, `Satan has gained possession of them, and caused them to forget God's warning. They are the confederates of Satan's party; Satan's confederates will surely be the losers!' (Qur'an 58:19 [modern Dawood translation]). A distinctive sign must be imposed upon them in order that they may be recognized and this will be for them a form of disgrace."...

In Granada, the Jewish viziers Samuel Ibn Naghrela and his son Joseph, who protected the Jewish community, were both assassinated between 1056 to 1066, followed by the annihilation of the Jewish population by the local Muslims. It is estimated that up to five thousand Jews perished in the pogrom by Muslims that accompanied the 1066 assassination. This figure equals or exceeds the number of Jews reportedly killed by the Crusaders during their pillage of the Rhineland, some thirty years later, at the outset of the First Crusade....

The Muslim Berber Almohads in Spain and North Africa (1130-1232) wreaked enormous destruction on both the Jewish and Christian populations. This devastation- massacre, captivity, and forced conversion- was described by the Jewish chronicler Abraham Ibn Daud, and the poet Abraham Ibn Ezra. Suspicious of the sincerity of the Jewish converts to Islam, Muslim "inquisitors" (i.e., antedating their Christian Spanish counterparts by three centuries) removed the children from such families, placing them in the care of Muslim educators. Maimonides, the renowned philosopher and physician, experienced the Almohad persecutions, and had to flee Cordoba with his entire family in 1148, temporarily residing in Fez - disguised as a Muslim - before finding asylum in Fatimid Egypt.

Indeed, although Maimonides is frequently referred to as a paragon of Jewish achievement facilitated by the enlightened rule of Andalusia, his own words debunk this utopian view of the Islamic treatment of Jews: "..the Arabs have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us...Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they.."

"The witness of those who lived through the horrors of the Berber conquest, of the Andalusian fitnah in the early eleventh century, of the Almoravid invasion- to mention only a few disruptive episodes- must give it [i.e., the roseate view of Muslim Spain] the lie. The simple and verifiable historical truth is that Moorish Spain was more often a land of turmoil than it was of tranquility...Tolerance? Ask the Jews of Granada who were massacred in 1066, or the Christians who were deported by the Almoravids to Morocco in 1126 (like the Moriscos five centuries later). Moorish Spain was not a tolerant and enlightened society even in its most cultivated epoch."



29 April, 2004

THE INCORRECTNESS OF SPANKING:

Is spanking child abuse? "If between 70 and 90% of all parents spank occasionally, it seems disingenuous to label it 'deviant' or 'dangerous' or 'abusive' behavior. Nevertheless, there are groups doing their best to force us to stop spanking altogether. They obviously do not trust parents to use their own good sense. Instead, they would eliminate all forms of physical discipline ... promoting a blanket rule against spanking of all kinds. They presume to comprehend all possible contexts and all possible children, and claim that spanking is never needed."

"When is a spanking more than a spanking? When does parental discipline cross the line from an occasional spank to keep an unruly child in order to a beating? The great parenting debate is now a great federal government debate here. As a new children's bill makes its way through Parliament, ministers and officials are debating whether all forms of corporal punishment -- even by parents -- should be banned. The government has taken state interference in personal behavior to a new level; it now seems to distrust parents so much that it thinks they can't distinguish between disciplining their kids and assaulting them."


THE CRUSADES WERE DEFENSIVE

It's politically correct these days to view the Crusades as the root cause of all Middle East tensions, and as a made-in-Europe crime. Osama bin Laden says so, so it must be right! Even to some otherwise fairly even-handed modern secular "liberals" this one-sided analysis has great appeal. The image of a reactionary Christian Church overwhelming a non-European people with brutal military imperialism puts all the bad eggs in one basket.

But as a historian of the period says here:

"The Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics. They are supposed to have been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general. A breed of proto-imperialists, the Crusaders introduced Western aggression to the peaceful Middle East and then deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving it in ruins....

So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression-an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.

Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity-and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion-has no abode. Christians and Jews can be tolerated within a Muslim state under Muslim rule. But, in traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered. When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years.

With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed's death. They were extremely successful. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt-once the most heavily Christian areas in the world-quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.

That is what gave birth to the Crusades"

28 April, 2004

FOOD CORRECTNESS

A small defeat for the food know-alls: "This is one funeral Canadians will be happy to attend. Yesterday the Toronto Star proclaimed Ontario's dreaded fat tax 'dead.' Tens of thousands of angry Ontario residents formed a groundswell of opposition to their government's proposed eight percent tax on all restaurant meals cheaper than four dollars. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty gave this misguided scheme a proper eulogy, putting the fat tax lie to rest: 'What I've decided is that instrument was crude and would not serve its intended purpose, which would be to encourage healthier eating habits.' Amen. Hallelujah. Pass the duty-free cheeseburgers."


THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT TRUTH ABOUT "TERRORISM"

From Israel National News

Unlike US President George Bush and his compatriots have stated, the enemy is not terror. Terror is merely a symptom of a fatal sickness; it is a warfare tactic employed by the adversary. Therefore, stopping the terror is not feasible unless the enemy, and thus the disease itself, is vanquished.

So who is this enemy that everyone refuses to identify? The enemy is radical Islam; what some call Islamism, Islamists, Islamo-fascists or Islamo-Nazis. And what is even worse, radical Islam is becoming the norm instead of the aberration. Politically incorrect as this may be, it is time for the truth to come out. Besides, the evidence is rampant, if only people have the fortitude to face it. As much as the purveyors of political correctness may delude themselves into thinking that everyone will behave nicely and everything will be equal and hunky-dory if only we speak in socio-religious-neutral tones, reality doesn't work that way.

One has only to examine acts of terrorism for the past three-and-a-half years to see that it is almost exclusively caused by Islamists. America, Bali, Madrid, Kashmir, the Philippines, Pakistan, India, Russia -- no place is safe from the cancer of Islamism. And their hideouts include England, France, Germany, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Canada, South America, the US.... Like cockroaches, they go wherever they can infiltrate a society.

If one looks at all the wars currently being waged on the planet, it is almost exclusively Islamists on one side of each conflict. In the Sudan, they enslave the Christians and Animists. In parts of Indonesia, they force conversion to Islam with the threat of having one's head chopped off. Then they sexually mutilate, without anesthesia, the newly converted men and women -- all in the name of Islam.

Last month, I had the honor of meeting Sheik Abdul Hadi Palazzi, secretary general of the Italian Muslim Association. In our all-too-brief conversation, he told me -- in direct contradiction to President Bush's exhortations that most Muslims in the US are peaceful -- Islam in America has become radicalized. And unlike Mr. Bush and his apparently inadequate advisors, this man is an expert on Islam and its adherents....

Until the civilized world gets the moral courage to tell Muslims that certain forms of Islam are unacceptable and merely a cover for a Nazi-like agenda, we will continue being victims, as will the truly peaceful, gentle Muslims who are hiding out of fear. Sheikh Palazzi has said this at risk to his life. It is time for our political leaders to stop being so cowardly and politically incorrect as to put their voting public at risk by refusing to acknowledge the real problem --Islamism -- and make a stand.



27 April, 2004

THE PC MYTH THAT WON'T LIE DOWN AND DIE

The "Diversity" advantage is bunk:: "Thomas Sowell tells of an all black high school that, from 1870 to 1955, repeatedly equaled or exceeded national norms on standardized tests. During the entire 85-year history of Washington's M Street/Dunbar High School, most of its 12,000 graduates went on to higher education, an unusual achievement for any school-white or black... Segregated schools also produced such notables as Mary McLeod Bethune, Thurgood Marshal, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The belief that racial diversity is a key to academic success has no empirical basis. If this myth were true, then it would be difficult to explain racial success in more mono-racial societies such as Japan, Germany, and the Netherlands. One study in San Diego found that Vietnamese and Asian immigrant children had a median grade point average 0.9 points higher than Mexican immigrants, and 0.8 points higher than students overall in San Diego. Membership in a racial minority does not cause sub-standard academic achievement....

We have forgotten that student achievement actually involves hard-working students and talented teachers. Students who work hard and are challenged have the best chance of success.... Hard work will cure a lot of the problems that are commonly attributed to a lack of funding or lack of diversity. Racial diversity, and the presence of white kids specifically, do not result in minority students achieving more- intense studying every day does...."


ONLY "POLITICALLY CORRECT" BILLS OF RIGHTS NEED APPLY

In Australia and Britain, the left is now campaigning for the introduction of a Bill of Rights, or (more likely) propose to bring one in via the back door via EU or UN treaties, thus shortcutting democratic and constitutional processes. Critics point out that a paper Bill of Rights is absolutely no roadblock to a dictator, and even democratic governments violate them in times of crisis (eg FDR's internment of Japanese Americans in WW2). The old Soviet Union had one of the best paper Bills of Rights, despite Stalin being the 20th Century's most bloodthirsty tyrant. Take for example in the 1936 "Stalin" Constitution:

"Article 125. In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to strengthen the socialist system, the citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed by law:
freedom of speech;
freedom of the press;
freedom of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings;
freedom of street processions and demonstrations."

1936 was also the year usually defined as the starting date for Stalin's "Great Purge". Any ordinary Russian who attempted to assert his 1936 rights would, if he weren't killed, no doubt be treated as a lunatic by his peers.

Many pro-Bill advocates accept "the 1936 Stalin Constitution" case as legitimate example of failure by government and political elites to abide by a written Bills of Rights, but essentially argue "that would never happen here". The trouble with that is that it has. Australia inherited from Britain the 1689 English Bill of Rights -- a document that is essentially ignored by governments in both countries, and spurned by the very civil libertarians who demand we support for their proposed new Bills. Any ordinary Australian today who attempted to assert his or her 1689 rights would no doubt also be treated as a nut.

Many of the same civil libertarians often acknowledge that the US Bill of Rights is the most successful and continuously observed Bill in the world, citing the US case as one for others to follow, but would frankly treat with contempt any suggestion that the US Bill merely be copied verbatim by Australia or the UK.

The reason for this Orwellian behaviour from so called civil libertarians is not hard to decipher once you know what to look for. They are not particularly interested in reinforcing the "negative rights", like those outlined in the 1680 Bill, i.e. traditional protections against arbitrary government. They propose to increase the power of government via subterfuge by adding "economic and social rights" to the constitution. Unlike the older "negative rights", these so called "positive rights", actually necessitate state coercion. As money does not grow on trees, enforced coercion is the only way they can guarantee Peter his "right" to "free" health care, i.e. by forcing Paul to pay for it ..or go to gaol. By establishing "positive rights" provisions in the constitution, these so-called civil libertarians hope to put the welfare state safely beyond the reach of the ballot box and any threat (however remote) from disgruntled taxpayers. The net result of all this is to increase, not decrease, the probability that citizens would be subject to arbitrary government action. Maybe Laocoon's advice "timeo Danaos et dona ferentes" (usually translated as "beware of Greeks bearing gifts") needs to be applied to "civil libertarians" bearing Bills of Rights.



26 April, 2004

TWO GOOD COMMENTS FROM BRITAIN:

Patrick West sums up "Affirmative Action":

"Two headlines in the Guardian this week: 'Met plan to fast track black recruits'; 'Gay police "need stronger backing"'. The first refers to plans by the Metropolitan Police to 'fast track' ethnic minority people into its training school, so as to help to achieve its goal of having 25 per cent of its officers from ethnic minorities by 2009. The second alludes to plans to achieve 'greater diversity' in the British police force by making it 'more gay'. The thinking here is that Britain's police must represent accurately the population it serves.

It is depressing that just as America is rescinding its affirmative action laws, we are taking them up. Cannot we learn why it has failed there rather than making the same mistakes all over again? Promoting people solely by the colour of their skin breeds resentment from those who are discriminated against. Those who are perceived to be appointed merely because of their race or sexuality are rarely respected. Ultimately, affirmative action 'sends out the message' that blacks and gays are mental infants who are incapable of making it on their own merit. This is nothing but old-fashioned racism and homophobia."


Patrick West on being "offended" at the truth:

"And then there were the remarks made by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey. Last month he merely reminded an audience that most Islamic countries were 'undemocratic and authoritarian' and that Islamic culture had achieved little since its golden age in the Middle Ages. There was predictable outrage from Muslim spokesmen, who said how 'saddened' they were by his remarks, accusing him of 'trampling on a sensitive area'....

Those who expressed disquiet at George Carey's comments failed to refute him, or even attempt a counter-argument. All we had was the predictable language of 'being offended'.

Carey ... is someone who has studied the Islamic and Arab world for decades. And what he said was sadly true. The problem is that sometimes the truth hurts."


FOR ST. GEORGE AND MERRY ENGLAND!

I am not sure I agree fully with this writer. I think St. George advocates are just using what they can to counter discrimination against the English and Englishness. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em:

"In recent years there have been rumblings about celebrating Englishness, and establishing St George's Day as a national holiday. This might seem strange at a time when multiculturalism dominates public life and national chauvinism is frowned on, but celebrating St George's Day is perfectly in keeping with the politics of diversity. In fact, the whole thing proceeds by analogy with every other tinpot national celebration, and reeks of oppression-envy.... All this might please those who want to reinvent Englishness as an expression of diversity and tolerance, but it's hard to see anyone getting excited about that. Far from cohering the country in national feeling, an official St George's Day holiday would merely confirm Englishness as just another (rather weak) cultural identity in the multicultural mix of modern Britain. A national holiday to celebrate English culture? It's political correctness gone mad."





25 April, 2004

REAL TOLERANCE FROM THE LEFT AT LAST

Encouraging to read this from Kristof in the "New York Times" but I fear that it is a voice crying in the wilderness

"I've argued often that gay marriage should be legal and that conservative Christians should show a tad more divine love for homosexuals. But there's a corollary. If liberals demand that the Christian right show more tolerance for gays and lesbians, then liberals need to be more respectful of conservative Christians.... It's encouraging that the right is less hostile to gays and lesbians than it used to be. President Bush argued in his 1994 run for governor that gay sex should be illegal, while now he feels comfortable hitting up gays for campaign contributions. On the other hand, the left seems more contemptuous than ever of evangelicals. Sensitive liberals who avoid expressions like "ghetto blaster," because that might be racially offensive, blithely dismiss conservative Christians as "Jesus freaks" or "fanatics." And in polite society, conservative Christians - especially Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses - are among the last groups it's still acceptable to mock.... It's always easy to point out the intolerance of others. What's harder is to practice inclusiveness oneself. And bigotry toward people based on their faith is just as repugnant as bigotry toward people based on their sexuality."


THE PC STRAITJACKET NOW CONTROLS MUSEUMS AND ART GALLERIES

And, in Britain, if the ethnics don't come to your museum or gallery, you have to display ANYTHING that will attract them. Excellence, rarity, genius and historical importance don't count any more. One comment (Excerpts):

"It seems the Brits under Prime Minister Tony Blair are exceeding even American liberals when it comes to insisting on policies that are politically correct. Writing in the new issue of City Journal, the quarterly of the conservative Manhattan Institute, Theodore Dalrymple says the British government announced in May that plans are in gear to monitor the nation's publicly subsidized museums to make sure that they're attracting sufficient quotas of appropriate visitors. If museum visitorship doesn't match what the government thinks it should among minority groups, then subsidies the institution may be getting from government would be ended, the government said"


A more extensive comment (excerpts):

"Cultural diversity policy is one of the few things that unites British cultural institutions today. Every museum and gallery, large and small, has made cultural diversity into a key part of its mission. Funding and policy bodies trumpet this new agenda. The Arts Council's Cultural Diversity Action Plan reads: 'There can no longer be any question that responding to cultural diversity is a mainstream and not a marginal issue.' ...

cultural diversity policy represents the end of cultural policy as we have understood it. The pursuit of aesthetic or historical understanding, of attempting to distinguish good paintings from bad or correct interpretations from false ones, is deemed impossible. Instead, all cultural institutions can do is to revel in 'diversity', by promoting different kinds of art and competing judgements.

There has been an elision - in policy terms, at least - of all the special qualities that had previously been associated with culture. The concepts of beauty, sensitivity and skill have all but vanished. Flick through a New Labour cultural policy document, and it becomes clear that you could substitute 'museums' and 'art' for 'shops' and 'stereos', and the words would make as much sense. New Labour took on the right's demand that culture should be 'useful'. The government demanded that cultural institutions should roll up their sleeves and get to grips with social problems - by giving visitors useful skills or helping people with mental illnesses - and it demanded that cultural institutions prove their usefulness in facts and figures.

Among the events in the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council's (formerly known as re:source) cultural diversity festival in 2003, for example, was the 'Multicultural plaque' project at a museum in Stoke on Trent, which involved working with the town's 'black minority ethnic groups' in an 'ongoing oral history and documentation project'. The end point of the project was for some of the participants to produce a public mural, which represented their experiences and perspectives. A project at Hereford Museum featured objects, images and oral testimony from the local Jewish and traveller communities. Meanwhile, Harlow Museum created a display about people who had moved to Harlow. Visitors were asked to bring photographs, tell about their home customs, and record their stories of moving to Harlow

Because this policy sees every object in terms of personal identity, it is blind to imaginative or well-crafted paintings, interesting or rare historical artefacts. It is indifferent to form, colour or pattern. Cultural diversity officers must barely glance at the paintings they are putting on their walls, or the Asian art they use in their discussions about identity.

Cultural diversity policy makes historical artefacts similarly dumb. Chinese paintings, Greek brooches, and Egyptian mummies provide a glimpse into another time and place. They can take us out of our own lives, and give us an insight into other societies' worldview and way of life. Fragments of pot can speak of a long-dead civilisation's myths, social structure, economy and diet. Study of these artefacts in turn helps us to put our own society in perspective: seeing it as the latest step in the march of human history, rather than as the only possible way of living. If historical artefacts are viewed in personal terms, they stop telling us anything. Instead of learning about human 'diversity', then, we end up stuck in our present-day lives.

This policy also has a low view of its visitors. The assumption is that visitors are uninterested in or unable to learn about the world. Each person is seen as trapped within his or her own private bubble, in constant need of affirmation and recognition. The idea seems to be that if people fail to see their reflection in exhibitions they will feel worthless and excluded.

This target approach is indifferent to the content of culture - and this applies for 'diverse' exhibitions just as much as it does for Western fine art. Islamic art is not valued for its intricate, proportioned design, or because it provides us with an insight into one of the great historic civilisations; it is valued because it gets the right kind of punters through the door. The artefacts of different cultures are judged in terms of the colour of the faces that they bring in. Meanwhile, some of humanity's greatest artistic achievements, in European art from the Renaissance onwards, are sidelined for attracting the wrong kinds of people - which is a loss for everyone, regardless of ethnic background.

Diversity targets view ethnic minorities as uniform members of a group, rather than as intelligent and curious individuals with a range of interests. They are often assumed to be only interested in art relating to 'their' particular culture, which is why cultural institutions try to attract the Chinese community with exhibitions about Chinese culture or the Afro-Caribbean community with exhibitions about slavery. The effect of this approach is to institutionalise cultural divisions. A 'black artist' is marked out as different from other artists, a 'minority-ethnic individual' as different to other museum workers, and a British-Chinese museum-goer different to other museum-goers. The possibility of an open and universal public culture, in which each person can develop their own capabilities and learn from others, is placed yet further away.

In fact, today's diversity officers are foisting their cultural assumptions upon the past. The past is judged by the limited horizons of the present, and the present gets to pat itself on the back."


And in the U.S., slavery museums are all the rage (though whether anybody goes there does not seem to matter). As it says here:

"In a recent LRC column, I made mention of the city of Charleston's proposed $35 million slavery museum that will be constructed on ten acres of waterfront property. This surprised some of my respondents, who wondered, not only about the size, but also whether the new museum was needed as the city already has at least three museums with extensive slavery exhibits.

The question: how many slavery museums does a city need? Or: how many slavery museums does the United States need? is currently a much-debated topic. Unfortunately, the debate was a little late getting started because slavery museums have become the latest trend sweeping the nation.

In May, 2002, Bill Gwaltney, a member of the National Park Service and President of the Association of African American Museums, said of slavery museums: "We counted 19 new projects just last year and we knew there were several more. Clearly, there are several dozen more that are anticipated in 2002. They are all over the country, too. They're in the Midwest, the West, the Northeast and the South. It represents a maturation of thought about the breadth and depth of American history."

The numbers cited by Gwaltney indicate that, in a two-year period, 50 or more new slavery museums were constructed throughout the nation. This phenomenal rate of growth greatly exceeds the spread of civil rights museums in prior years. If this rate of growth continues, we can anticipate that all major cities as well as most moderately sized cities will soon have both a civil rights museum and a slavery museum. Furthermore, the day may come when a family traveling across the nation will encounter, in every town it drives through, a McDonald's, a Burger King, a Wal-Mart, a Target, a Best Western and a slavery museum."


And only ONE holocaust is ever mentioned in museums etc. The terrible truth of course is that holocausts were pretty common in the 20th century. But how many holocausts have YOU heard of? As it says here:

"The second source of the double standard lies in the excessive memorialization of the Jewish Holocaust in American life, which has squeezed out the historical memory of the other holocausts. This memorialization has many positive aspects, as we are certainly a culture that needs more historical memory, not less, and has an underdeveloped sense of the tragic dimension of politics. But it is also historically imbalanced, because now everyone is more conscious of the fate of the 6 million Jews than of the other 150 million-plus victims in our century. Let us review these holocausts:

1. By Communist China: 65,701,000.
2. By the Soviet Union: 62,000,000.
3. By Nazi Germany: 30,000,000.
4. By Kuomintang (Nationalist) China: 10,075,000.
5. By Nazi Japan: 6,000,000.
7. By Turkey: 2,500,000 (mainly Armenians and Greeks.)
8. By Communist (Khmer Rouge) Cambodia: 2,035,000.
9. By Communist Korea: 2,000,000.
10. By Communist Vietnam: 1,700,000.
11. In Africa: 1,700,000 (various Communist and other regimes and rebels.)
12. By Communist Poland: 1,600,000 (mostly ethnic Germans post-1945.)
13. In Pakistan: 1,500,000 (mostly in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.)
14. By Communists in Afghanistan: 1,500,000.
15. In Mexico (mostly in revolutionary chaos to 1920): 1, 417,000.
16. In Communist Yugoslavia: 1,072,000.
17. In Czarist Russia: 1,066,000.
18. In Rwanda: 800,000."



24 April, 2004

THE PASSION FOR RACIAL PREFERENCES

"Seattle is building a new monorail, and "officials are aiming to hire minority and female workers for one-third of the Green Line's 600 construction jobs, undaunted by a state law that forbids racial and gender preferences in public hiring." Here's how they evade the law:

Diversity targets are a cornerstone of a new labor agreement with 19 union locals that was signed yesterday by the monorail agency and union leaders.

Companies that win $1.3 billion in monorail design and construction contracts must hire mainly through the union halls, which in turn are expected to recruit "people of color" for at least 21 percent of the on-site workers and women for 12 percent of the jobs.

Jan Keiser, the project's contracts manager, claims the "goals" are not quotas, "because the companies and unions will not be penalized if they fall short." But then there's this: "She added that companies will be judged partly on their diversity plans when two teams of builders bid for the $1.3 billion contract this summer." Perhaps this is all technically legal, but it certainly sounds as if the state is taking great pains to avoid acting in the spirit of the law. If the discrimination in question were against minorities, no one would dream of tolerating it."

From "Opinion Journal"


THEATRE PEOPLE STRUCK DUMB

"The English National Opera has banned its employees from addressing each other as "darling", ending a long-running tradition at the 100-year-old institution in the centre of London. The edict came in a re-education document enforcing government guidelines on sexual discrimination at work, The Times reported.

"The use of affectionate names such as 'darling' will also constitute sexual harassment," the document said. It bans "suggestive remarks or lewd conduct that denigrates or ridicules or is intimidatory or physically abusive of an employee because of their sex".

A spokesman told The Times the rule would apply primarily to new staff, but that "existing staff who call each other 'darling' can continue to do so".

The term is common among London's large thespian community and is used almost indiscriminately among men and women, although when used between men it often has a gay connotation."



23 April, 2004

"DIVERSITY" NOT WORKING

Intractible discipline problems with black students

Nearly a decade ago, the Kent School District was praised by parents, students and civil rights groups for its bold plan to stem racial discrimination and train staff. Today, the very same district faces possible lawsuits over claims by 12 black students who say they were manhandled and handcuffed by school security officers. The stark contrast is emblematic of how schools nationwide have struggled to implement diversity programs, experts say.....

Benjamin Baez, associate professor of educational policy studies at Georgia State University, said educators often are expected to improve test scores and "uneducate people about racism and make them better workers" while funds are cut for the very programs that would help achieve those goals.

"Now when we talk about diversity training we're talking as much about closing the achievement gap as we are about discipline procedures," Grohe said.

In claims filed last month by the NAACP, 12 black students, ranging in age from 11 to 17, say they were the victims of excessive force by school security officers. One student, 13-year-old Sierra Douglass-Swanson, says she was grabbed by the hair and thrown to the ground, a security officer's knees pressing into her back as her arms were wrenched behind her and handcuffs closed around her wrists. Douglass-Swanson acknowledges flailing her arms and kicking her legs in an attempt to get free from the guard. She was charged with assault, placed in juvenile detention overnight and expelled.....

Today, all employees must undergo diversity and cultural sensitivity training, district spokeswoman Becky Hanks said.

During the 1989-90 school year, minorities in the school district made up nearly 15 percent of the student population. Today they are about 35 percent. And while blacks account for more than 10 percent of the district's 26,400 students, they represent about 59 percent of students disciplined since September 2003, according to district security reports.

"The numbers show there is a disparity. It's really clear that it's based on race, and the race is black," said Joyce Harris, director of the Equity Center for Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory in Portland, Ore.

More here



22 April, 2004

'Sex Week' and Porn Thesis Get Top 'Politically Correct' Award

What college takes the top award for the most shocking example of political correctness in higher education? According to the Collegiate Network's 7th annual Campus Outrage Awards, also known as the "Polly Awards," two schools are tied for first place.

At Yale University, a student-sponsored "Sex Week at Yale" used school funds, facilities and the help of school faculty and administrators. The events were co-sponsored by an adult film company and even included a porn star as a keynote speaker.

At the University of California, Santa Barbara, a student received kudos from professors and administrators for his Chicano Studies thesis, "Gay Men of Color in Porn," a project that was presented as part of the UCSB Multicultural Center's tax-payer funded "Race Matters Series" in an effort to legitimize pornography as an academic pursuit.

Number two on the list goes to The University of California, Berkeley, where the Associated Students of the University of California and the Graduate Assembly illegally spent $31,000 of mandatory student fees on a campus campaign to defeat Proposition 54, a racial privacy initiative to ban the state from collecting race data on school admissions forms.

Although the Associated Students of the University of California violated its own spending rules forbidding use of student funds for off-campus political activities, the administration granted ASUC and the Graduate Assembly a "one-time exception."

Coming in third is Northwestern University where a student filed a false police report claiming racial slurs were written on his door and claiming he was later attacked at knifepoint by thugs who called him a "spic."

After the students organized a "Stop the Hate" rally on Xander Saide's behalf, Saide later confessed to police that it was all a hoax. The school has yet to take disciplinary action against him, despite the fact the police charged him with disorderly conduct for filing fake police reports

More here



21 April, 2004

ANOTHER FAILURE OF SPECIAL DEALS FOR MINORITIES

An Australian Leftist government set up the "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission" to administer big handouts to Australian native black communities. It was riddled with corruption from the beginning and John Howard's conservative Federal government is now trying to abolish it

Former Australian Leftist politician, Michael Duffy reflects views aired recently by Keith Windschuttle: "When Howard was elected in 1996, most of his supporters with any knowledge of Aboriginal affairs knew ATSIC was a disaster. Treating Aborigines differently to other Australians in this way was in conflict with liberal and conservative thinking. Even if you weren't interested in the theory, all you had to do was look at the facts. Aborigines who'd assimilated - about two-thirds of the total - were far better off than those who had not. This one-third lived in separate communities where there were huge problems of unemployment, sexual and substance abuse, and violence. Yet it was this way of life that ATSIC promoted. ...

The sad truth is that it was irresponsible to expect Aborigines to do so much for themselves. Just like it was irresponsible for Australia to walk out of New Guinea in the mid-1970s. The results have been remarkably similar: the remoter parts of Aboriginal Australia are now like a Third World country. This means the closure of ATSIC is a good thing because it gives us the chance to try a new approach. .. But there's a big problem with this. Many Aborigines live thousands of kilometres away from the mainstream world of jobs, good schools and hospitals. These facilities are never going to come to them. No matter how much we spend on Aboriginal affairs, we can't place teaching hospitals within an hour of every remote community. And very few good school teachers don't want to live in the outback. So unless they decide to move to population centres, these Aborigines are never going to be part of the mainstream. That's a sad fact that no government has the power to change. A lot of the problems we associate with Aborigines are actually the same problems whites would have living in the same places. I'm not suggesting we shouldn't do more for Aborigines in remote communities. We should, and the closure of ATSIC creates the chance for some fresh thinking. But it's unlikely their problems will ever go away...."


EVERYBODY MUST BE TREATED THE SAME -- EVEN IF THEY ARE DIFFERENT

"It was the perfect setting to start their new life as a married couple - a nice apartment, decent rent, just down the street from the mosque. About two weeks ago, Amina Rojas and Mohamed Abdel-Rahem filled out the rental application and even cut a security deposit check. They were all set to take the place in Richardson, a Dallas suburb. Then the leasing agent at the apartment complex pulled out another piece of paper.

Abdel-Rahem, a permanent resident of the United States who was born in Egypt, had indicated in the application that he wasn't a U.S. citizen. So he was asked to complete another form with detailed questions on his immigration status. The couple were shocked. The feeling quickly turned into anger. "It was discriminatory," said Rojas, executive director of the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "He wasn't treated like any other applicant."

Federal officials said the form doesn't violate fair housing laws, but immigrants still feel they're being unfairly targeted. Countless immigrants have been presented with the form, which was introduced by the Texas Apartment Association two months after the 9-11 attacks.....

Paul Parsons, an Austin lawyer and chairman of the Texas State Bar's immigration committee, wrote a letter a month ago asking the TAA to do away with the form, equating its use to biased housing practices..... In his letter he argued that "there is no congressional mandate or other law that requires the TAA to question potential tenants about their legal status. ... Our committee believes such questioning may lead to discrimination based on national origin"....

The TAA sees no reason to quit using the form, writing back to Parsons that no laws are being broken and that the organization has received no allegations of wrongdoing. But some immigrants have taken their grievances elsewhere. The Austin Tenants' Council, a housing rights group, is looking into several complaints it has fielded on the non-citizen form. The issue was first raised by Austin's immigrant affairs commission in 2002, said Mary Dulan, the council's fair housing director. After a commission meeting, immigrants began contacting the group's complaint hotline. Dulan declined to discuss details because she's checking out the claims, but she said if any prove to be valid, they will be filed with the Housing and Urban Development Department. If that happens, the governmental agency may change its current hands-off stance. So far, HUD has maintained that property managers haven't broken fair housing laws.....

The lack of government concern over the form proves that immigrant advocates are trying to make an issue out of nothing, property managers say. "If a landlord is going to discriminate, they don't need our form to do that," said Joe Sharp, vice president of the National Apartment Association, who lives in Georgetown and owns 13 properties in the Austin area. "The only noise we've heard about this comes not from renters, but from a special interest group and the State Bar," Sharp said".

More here



20 April, 2004

"UNDOCUMENTED" NONSENSE

"It's easy to dismiss someone when you use a disparaging term such as 'illegal immigrant' or 'illegal alien,' " surmised [Jerry] Gonzalez, who oversees the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, an Atlanta-based political action committee...

"I don't think so at all," said Victor Davis Hanson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of "Mexifornia: A State of Becoming." "It doesn't describe a person in a negative, pejorative way. It means they don't have U.S. citizenship and that they didn't come to the United States in a lawful manner."

" 'Illegal' means you came as an immigrant, and broke the law," said Hanson, who founded the classics studies department at Fresno State University "It's a precise term, and not just for Mexicans."

D.A. King, founder of the American Resistance Foundation, a Marietta-based group that seeks tougher enforcement of immigration laws, said the term "undocumented workers" is "a politically correct invention to soften the brutal fact that these people are breaking the law."...

More here


DEBUNKING SOME POLITICALLY CORRECT MYTHS ABOUT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION:

The FACTS are:

1. It is NOT racist to call these people "illegal aliens" In fact, "illegal aliens" is the only term used in federal laws and regulations to describe criminals (and they ARE criminals) who come into our country illegally. They are not illegal immigrants, not undocumented immigrants, not migrant workers, and not day laborers - they're ILLEGAL ALIENS.

2. Mexico is NOT a poor country. It has the fifth richest economy in the world, and by sending its teeming masses to our country, that status keeps on rising. Mexico has more resources per square mile than the U.S. and plenty of money to take care of its own people. Why should the taxpayers of this country subsidize Mexico's corruption?

3. Illegal aliens are NOT necessarily coming here to work. Lou Dobbs recently reported that 33 percent of our prison population is now comprised of non-citizens. Plus, 36 to 42 percent of illegal aliens are on welfare. So, for a good proportion of these people, the American dream is crime and welfare, not coming here to work.

4. Illegal aliens are NOT doing work Americans won't do. What jobs won't Americans do? In most states, Americans still clean their own houses, do their own landscaping, clean hotel rooms, work in restaurants and fast food places, paint houses, DO CONSTRUCTION WORK, work in airports, etc. - just like we have the past 200 years before "our" government allowed these people to invade our country. There are 18 million Americans who cannot find a job, so illegal aliens who are coming here to work do so at peril to American workers.

5. Illegal aliens absolutely do not contribute more than they cost. Certainly the millions in prison and on welfare aren't contributing a dime to our economy, and the ones who are working often are paid in cash with no deductions for taxes at all. The ones who use fraudulent social security numbers and qualify to pay taxes and social security have so many deductions for dependents that they pay little if any taxes. We have seen them pay less than $100 in taxes and get back $4,000 refunds (thanks to earned income tax credits and multiple dependents). The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the average Mexican illegal alien costs U.S. taxpayers a whopping $55,000 each. Some bargain, eh?

6. The economy does NOT depend on illegal aliens. Sure, greedy CEOs (making $50 to $150 MILLION a year) and business owners depend on illegal aliens, but due to #3, #4 and #5 above, the only thing illegal aliens are contributing to is the collapse of our economy and making the rich richer.

7. Without illegal aliens, the price of agricultural products and other goods and services will NOT soar. The definitive study on this subject is the University of Iowa's "How Much Is That Tomato?" The study concludes that 'since labor is such a small component of the end-price of agricultural products (which includes price to the growers, transportation costs, processing /storage costs, grocers' profit, etc.), using minimum wage workers instead of illegal aliens would increase prices of agricultural products by approximately 3 percent in the summer and 4 percent in the winter ... hardly the making of $10 heads of lettuce, $25 hamburgers, $1,000 per night Days Inn hotel rooms like the pro-illegal alien lobby claims."



19 April, 2004

AMERICA PC BUT SPINELESS

From Mike Adams

"This nation would be in serious trouble if we had to fight another war like World War II today. That brave generation of men who stormed the beaches of Normandy has been replaced by a generation of metrosexuals trying to get in touch with their feminine side...

I am reminded of the spinelessness of my generation almost every day. With every column that I write and every speech that I give, people react by telling me that I should be careful lest I lose my job or be labeled by vindictive liberals.

Every time I hear such admonitions, I think about my grandfather who spent his 19th birthday getting trench foot in a foxhole in France in World War I. When he was finally able to crawl out, he was hit with a piece of shrapnel from a German hand grenade, which became permanently lodged in his spine. I can still see him in his later years walking across the room in a walker as a result of that injury.


PC FOUNDED ON RACISM AND SEXISM

From Dennis Prager (excerpt):

"Many liberals and most Democratic leaders do not take blacks and women as seriously as they take whites and men. Blacks and women are regarded more as symbols -- of American and male oppression -- than as real people. Also, whereas a white liberal regards a white male as an individual, the white liberal is more likely to regard blacks and women as groups rather than as individuals. And, of course, they are seen as indispensable votes.

In their hearts, many Americans on the left do regard blacks as somewhat inferior, meaning, in other words, that they harbor racist views. That is the only explanation for the nearly universal leftist belief that all whites are racist, a libel that your child has probably been taught at college in some diversity or racial sensitivity seminar.

When a white liberal says or writes this, we presume he is including himself. Unless he is saying "all whites except me" are racist -- a claim so megalomaniacal that the claimant risks dismissal as a crackpot -- he obviously means that this includes himself. And in this he is right. One reason that so many liberals believe that all whites are racist is that they are projecting their racism onto all other whites.

It is probable that belief in black inferiority, or at least in black differentness, also helps to explain white liberal support for the lowering of standards for blacks, i.e., affirmative action and quotas. Conservatives believe that no changing of standards is necessary in order for blacks to succeed.

Likewise, one reason many liberal leaders support the feminist agenda and detect sexism wherever possible is that they know their own record and attitudes vis-a-vis women. As is often the case, two of the leading supporters of women's rights -- former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Ted Kennedy -- are known for their mistreatment of women"



18 April, 2004

ANOTHER SMALL VICTORY FOR FREE SPEECH

Campus "diversity" policy suffers another setback: "In far too many instances, what passes as college life and education today is no less than shameful. Under the name of diversity and political correctness, billions of taxpayer dollars and donor contributions are used to promote what might be charitably called enlightened racism, uniformity of thought and political proselytizing. The student code of Shippensburg Univ., in Pennsylvania, said that students had a 'right to express a personal belief system' but only if such expression did not 'demean,' 'annoy' or 'alarm' others. Thus, if a student expressed a distaste for race or sex preferences in admissions, he might be disciplined for a code violation. Fortunately, Shippensburg's code no longer exists due to a successful First Amendment lawsuit brought by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education."

The Collegiate Network tallies gross behavior at the nation's colleges. For the grossest behavior, it confers its "Polly Award." University of Mississippi won second place last year. Why? After finding racist graffiti at the university, a university police official threatened that the students responsible would be prosecuted for "criminal charges, possibly a felony, or it could be a federal offense." The punishment was reduced to community-service hours and therapeutic "reflection papers" when it was discovered that the culprits were not white students but three black freshman students.....

Cornell University's Gannett Health Center, "as a commitment to affirming women's sexuality," had decided to sell vibrators to students. The health center backed away, as is often the case, when their agenda started receiving negative publicity through Accuracy in Academia. They were sensitive to the impact it might have on parental decisions to send their children to Cornell, not to mention the impact it might have on donors.


BOOK REVIEW EXTRACT:

"While few would openly deny the importance of the First Amendment as a safeguard against government tyranny, it is often argued that its protections must be curtailed in order to achieve some "compelling" government interest. Recently, this claim has most often been made in defense of various anti-discrimination laws; it is held that eradicating discrimination is sufficiently important to warrant the erosion of the freedoms these laws entail. David Bernstein, a libertarian law professor at George Mason, argues that this way of thinking is dangerous and misguided. His book You Can't Say That! is a scholarly but accessible defense of civil liberties.

Bernstein has no shortage of examples to prove that anti-discrimination laws have unduly limited freedom of expression:

Religious schools barred from firing teachers who defied the dictates of the religion

Neighborhood activists who were prosecuted for discriminating against the mentally ill when they tried to organize opposition to a mental hospital being built in their neighborhood

Gyms forced to hire unfit instructors

In particularly Orwellian cases, even mere opposition to anti-discrimination laws is cited as evidence of discrimination......

Gay rights activists in Canada may have rejoiced when a man was punished for taking out a newspaper advertisement citing Biblical passages opposing homosexuality, but they surely aren't pleased with the police raids which target gay bookstores in their search for obscene materials. Similarly, the Australian journalist who was investigated for "racial vilification" after writing an anti-American column would at least have been allowed to express his thoughts in the U.S. The logic of anti-discrimination laws has no discernible limit; in New Zealand, a commission has concluded that refusing credit to an unemployed man is discrimination based on financial status.

More here.



17 April, 2004

Thank you for choosing United, Mr. bin Laden

From Ann Coulter

Last week, 9-11 commissioner John Lehman revealed that "it was the policy (before 9-11) and I believe remains the policy today to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning because that's discriminatory." Hmmm ... Is 19 more than two? Why, yes, I believe it is. So if two Jordanian cab drivers are searched before boarding a flight out of Newark, Osama bin Laden could then board that plane without being questioned. I'm no security expert, but I'm pretty sure this gives terrorists an opening for an attack.

In a sane world, Lehman's statement would have made headlines across the country the next day. But not one newspaper, magazine or TV show has mentioned that it is official government policy to prohibit searching more than two Arabs per flight.


PREVENTING PREVENTION

Mona Charen on the loopy accusations that GWB is to blame for the 9/11 attacks:

"While we're assigning blame, it would be nice to hear a bit more about the role of political correctness. In 1997, the FBI reportedly wanted to shut down the Holy Land Foundation, a Muslim "charity" that was funneling money to terrorists. (It was shut down in 2001.)The Clinton administration demurred, according to U.S. News and World Report, because "they didn't want to come off as Muslim bashers."

In 2002, the Bush Justice Department announced that some visitors to the United States would be fingerprinted and photographed upon entry. Those hailing from countries with ties to terrorists would be asked to comply. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois was quick off the mark: "It's going to reach a tipping point if we're not careful ... and end up sacrificing many of the values of our country." And James Zogby of the Arab American Institute declared, "The message it sends is that we're becoming like the Soviet Union ..."



16 April, 2004

RACE DOES NOT EXIST -- EXCEPT WHEN IT DOES

In his review of a recent scientific book on the genetics of race, Paul Gross (University Professor of Life Sciences, emeritus, at the University of Virginia) makes the amusing point that good Leftists everywhere deny the existence of race and then promptly set about using race to give preference to certain individuals ("affirmative action"). So Leftists base passionately held policies on something that does not exist! Sounds typical. A few excerpts from the review:

“Race” is a word used widely and traditionally in biology to identify subpopulations within a species, that is, varieties, extended families, fuzzy subsets of individuals of common descent, sets more or less differentiable one from the other by appearance and/or behavior. It is no surprise that races or recognizable varieties in other species turn out to be distinguishable—although not necessarily easily—at the level of genetics. To put this another way: obvious external differences among the races of a plant or animal species turn out to result from genetic differences, although those can sometimes be subtle. But of course this must be so! For a race or variety to persist in time, its obvious distinguishing traits must be to some significant extent heritable. And if heritable, the traits must reside ultimately in genes (or more likely) in combinations of genes. “Traits” are the products of gene sets —genomes—acting in particular environments over particular life histories.

The book’s title announces that Sarich and Miele recognize human group differences, and that however fuzzy these sets may be, they are still sufficiently stable as biological subpopulations, varieties, extended families, and “races” to be identified as such. Which word one uses doesn’t matter: the physical reality does. They argue that the recognition of group differences, of races, among humans is very ancient, a cognitive capability (i.e., not an invention of capitalism or colonialism, as is claimed by all politically correct commentators), of a piece with other category-making competences we share. The burden of the book’s central scientific sections is that those differences have a highly plausible evolutionary (and therefore genetic, biological) basis. Far from minimizing the significance of group differences, the relatively short history of our species implies that they must have been very strongly selected for in the several different environments in which our ancestors first flourished. None of which, as the authors insist (perhaps in vain) is any excuse for racism or racial discrimination.

It is an effort to define for the general reader, in broadest terms, those features of human genetics and anthropology testifying to a surprisingly recent origin of our lineage, but also to a long interval (before the present) of sufficient geographic separation of human subpopulations to have given rise to the currently recognizable races. The message is the opposite of typology: among the races of man, now that we can move freely over the planet and because we are a single species, able to interbreed, differences will become steadily less marked, the sets fuzzier. Eventually, in a distant future, they will disappear. Barring world-wide catastrophe, the prospects for re-segregation and new raciation are nil. But the differences acquired in our evolutionary history haven’t disappeared yet. I know of no other popular work that makes this scientific case so simply and places it so clearly in social context as Race.

The best summary of its conclusions is.. : Human subpopulations are “races”; they exist. They are familial subdivisions of the one species, Homo sapiens, to which we all belong.



15 April, 2004

FREE SPEECH DEAD IN CANADA

They are even making the Bible illegal

" Bill C-250, a repressive, anti-free-speech measure ... is on the brink of becoming law in Canada. It would add "sexual orientation" to the Canadian hate propaganda law, thus making public criticism of homosexuality a crime. It is sometimes called the "Bible as Hate Literature" bill, or simply "the chill bill." It could ban publicly expressed opposition to gay marriage or any other political goal of gay groups. The bill has a loophole for religious opposition to homosexuality, but few scholars think it will offer protection, given the strength of the gay lobby and the trend toward censorship in Canada. Law Prof. David Bernstein, in his new book "You Can't Say That!" wrote that "it has apparently become illegal in Canada to advocate traditional Christian opposition to homosexual sex." Or traditional Jewish or Muslim opposition, too.

Since Canada has no First Amendment, anti-bias laws generally trump free speech and freedom of religion. A recent flurry of cases has mostly gone against free expression. The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission ruled that a newspaper ad listing biblical passages that oppose homosexuality was a human-rights offense. The commission ordered the paper and Hugh Owens, the man who placed the ad, to pay $1,500 each to three gay men who objected to it. In another case, a British Columbia court upheld the one-month suspension, without pay, of a high school teacher who wrote letters to a local paper arguing that homosexuality is not a fixed orientation but a condition that can and should be treated. The teacher, Chris Kempling, was not accused of discrimination, merely of expressing thoughts that the state defines as improper.

That anti-free-speech principle, social conservatives argue, will become explicit national policy under C-250, with criminal penalties attached. Religious groups say it would become risky for them to teach certain biblical passages. If a student says something that irritates homosexuals in class, the student's parents might be held legally liable. Some Canadians worry that, for instance, discussions about gay men giving blood will be suppressed. Robert Spitzer of Columbia University, a longtime supporter of gay rights and an important figure in the American Psychiatric Association, published a study finding that many gays can become heterosexual. Would that study be banned under C-250 as hate speech? And since C-250 does not mention homosexuality but focuses broadly on "sexual orientation," Canada's freewheeling judiciary may explicitly extend protection to many "sexual minorities." Pedophilia and sadism are among the conditions listed by the American Psychiatric Association under "sexual orientation.""

Church foes? The churches seem to be the key target of C-250. One of Canada's gay senators denounced "ecclesiastical dictators" and wrote to a critic, "You people are sick. God should strike you dead."

More here



14 April, 2004

COLOUR TRUMPS ALL AMONG LEFTISTS

And they call it ANTI-racism!!

Multiculturalists are the real racists. "In not being given any sense of the continuity of England's experience and traditions in their lives, English children are being carefully and deliberately denied their own nationality and taught simply to categorise themselves by colour, thus making colour, not culture, the measure of all things. If this is not racism, I do not know what is."


LYING TEXTBOOKS

Suzanne Fields summarizes a few of the deceptions in America's current school textbooks:

"Politically correct simplicity describes "Native Americans" as living in harmony with both nature and human nature, with no recognition that Indians, like the rest of us, are subject to human frailty and prejudice. Francis Parkman, the historian who describes the pleasure Iroquois took in torturing the Hurons, is anathema, and gone with the Mohicans.

The lens for understanding the unique American vision focuses on the African-American freedom struggles that "helped open the door for all minorities and women." In one text on the Enlightenment, Mary Wollstonecraft, an 18th century feminist, is featured more prominently than Voltaire, a dominating figure for the ages.

Textbook publishers plead that they are at the mercy of state and local adoption procedures, but this is a dodge. They rely on "standards committees" and focus groups to package their ideas. These groups, made up of men and women raised in an image-centered culture, dismiss "content-heavy, information-loaded, and fact-based" materials as too difficult for the kids to absorb. Instead they cater to short attention spans and purvey visuals that turn history into "edutainment."

In varying degrees, world history texts make it impossible for students to discriminate between the brutality of antidemocratic countries like China and Cuba and the democracies, or to understand the conflicts faced by nations determined to preserve freedom.

"World peace" has become a chimera and there is little recognition of the contempt in which the truly democratic nations are held by the educated elites, so called. By failing to understand what's worth defending, we can't understand the peril around us. Woe is we."



13 April, 2004

YOU MUST NOT DEFEND YOURSELF

Only the State can do that -- but they don't!

"Parents expect their kids to be safe when they're in school. But one mother says that wasn't the case at Savannah High School. A few weeks ago, her son was in the cafeteria when kids came onto school grounds and attacked him. And her son was suspended for defending himself.

We spoke with Brenda Johnson, the teen's mother, as well as people at the Board of Education. School officials say it's all part of the zero tolerance policy which means no weapons, drugs or any kind of violence on campus. But Johnson says school policy not only violates her son's civil liberties, but he is an innocent victim

Her son, senior Alejandro Johnson, says he is a victim of the zero tolerance policy. "I was attacked," he said. "I was in the right, 100 percent. I was where I was supposed to be doing what I was supposed to be doing."

Alejandro says he was eating lunch inside the school cafeteria when kids came off the street and into the cafeteria and started beating him up. He says he had no choice but to stand up for himself. "I was defending myself and I feel like I was backed into a corner," he said.

That day, everyone involved was arrested, and on top of that Alejandro was suspended for ten days."

More here



12 April, 2004

DOES POLITICAL CORRECTNESS PROTECT PEDOPHILES?

It's common and 100% correct to blast the Catholic Church hierarchy for protecting or covering up for pedophiles in the clergy. Unfortunately political correctness in the Leftist media and the desire not to appear "anti-gay" help disguise what may be a larger problem. The influence of and protection of homosexual pedophiles. The recent arrest of an Australian pedophile, a former diplomat, shows high this protection can go. Members of the diplomatic corps of most countries are usually very thoroughly scrutinised and checked. Those jobs are not just advertised in the Saturday newspapers. In all likelihood p.c.attitudes prevented sufficiently detailed scrutiny in this case.


BORING PC HISTORY

"For "A Consumer's Guide to High School History Textbooks," the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (www.edexcellence.net) commissioned assorted historians and teachers to review six popular texts in American history and an equal number in world history. As its title suggests, "World History Textbooks: A Review" (www.historytextbooks.org)--undertaken by the American Textbook Council (ATC)--is also a review of several texts, although it is narrower in scope and more unified in its editorial voice.

Whatever their differences, the two studies reach the same conclusion: Bad history makes for tedious textbooks.

Take Prentice Hall's "World History: Connections to Today." Though one of the most popular high-school texts in America, this book received low marks from both studies. One Fordham reviewer criticized the book for its attempts to "redress prior imbalances in civilizational coverage by at times inflating or elevating one culture or civilization's achievements at the expense of European or Western accomplishments." For example, Columbus's voyage to the New World is attributed not to European advances but to contributions from "Muslim astronomers and navigators."

The problem is not just incipient political correctness and questions of balance. As the ATC review notes, these texts also elevate lush photos and handsome graphics over a coherent story line. And the "exercises" that students are asked to do can be more deadening than the words they are asked to read. Is any 10th-grader really equipped to answer the larger questions--whether war is ever justified, whether diversity strengthens or weakens a society, what limits there should be on freedom of speech--based on the barest exposure to the past?

"Such instructional exercises," the ATC asserts, "do not--as they claim to do--promote genuine critical thinking. They discourage deep reading on the subject and invite facile discussion. They promote classroom sloganeering. They favor the glib student and the showboat teacher.""

More here



11 April, 2004

SOME RELIGIONS ARE MORE CORRECT THAN OTHERS

"It turns out that liberals are right. For years now, the American government has established state religion. No, it's not evangelical Christianity. It's Scientology. Because of a 1993 secret deal with the Internal Revenue Service, members of L. Ron Hubbard's Church of Scientology are allowed to write off costly Scientologist "auditing" and "training" services as charitable gift deductions. Anyone who sends their child to religious school, however, is banned from writing off tuition." (Link via Dick McDonald)




A WHOLE MONTH OF "GAY PRIDE" CELEBRATIONS

Harvard celebrates the month of "Gaypril" -- and that homphobic institution... gender segregated public toilets.. is now in the gun-sights of the PC army


A SMALL VICTORY FOR SANITY

"A Sydney hotel and its former licensee today won an appeal against a ruling in which a drunken intruder was awarded nearly $50,000 over injuries suffered during a break-in. Joshua Fox climbed onto the roof and entered an upstairs residence of the Peakhurst Inn, in south west Sydney, when he was denied entry to a nightclub below on April 23, 1999. Hotel licensee, Honeheke Gerald Newton, whose family lived above the pub, found the teenager - then 16 - hiding in his laundry and allegedly struck him with a baton-like object.

The NSW District Court awarded Mr Fox, who suffered face and head injuries requiring surgery, $49,049 in damages. His mother also received damages of $18,578 after suing for nervous shock from seeing her son's injuries. The NSW Court of Appeal today set aside the payouts and ordered a new trial, ruling Mr Newton was denied procedural fairness." More here



10 April, 2004

THE INCORRECTNESS OF CHRISTIANITY

A good point from a reader in NYC: "I find it disturbing that Christianity is taught by the American left as being the seed of racism in Western culture, when Christianity is in fact the most multi-racial, multi-cultural religion in history, containing churches and adherents within every country and ethnic group. I've also been lectured endlessly my entire life about the Spanish Inquisition and the inherent evil of the Christian Church both in every grade of public school and every social setting. Wrong as the Inquisition was, 30,000 killed over the course of 350 years doesn't even hold a candle to Islam, Communism, African civil wars, or even Saddam Hussein alone. There is an extreme, hateful bigotry in the very narrow selection of history that American leftists are willing to discuss and emphasize. I've noticed these same leftists who are supposedly so vehement against racism certainly have no trouble slandering Jews and "Zionists conspirators" as an insidious menace that supposedly controls our country and pushes it to tyranny."


BRITAIN HAS DECIDED TO BRING BACK BRITISHNESS BUT HAS FORGOTTEN WHAT IT IS

The obvious failure of multiculturalism (seen in race riots etc) in Britain has made even the Left realize that uniculturalism is needed, now that they have done their best to destroy it:

"The government has been busy developing policies to enhance citizenship and nurture 'Britishness'. Distinguished academic Bernard Crick chaired an advisory group to produce a set of recommendations for citizenship curricula in all schools, initiating ceremonies for new citizens, and citizenship tests, through which potential Britons are tested on their proficiency in the English language, and knowledge of British history and culture.

Commentators have welcomed this new 'tough' approach to immigrants, arguing that they should make more of an effort to adopt a British identity, learn English, and abandon cultural customs which are unacceptable to the mainstream, in particular religious practices such as female circumcision. The ultimate question of 'whose side are you on' came last week with the Muslim Council of Britain's call to British mosques to report terrorist groups working in their midst. British Muslims are seen to be particularly reluctant to adopt Western identities and fall prey to the appeal of Islamic fundamentalism.....

If you want to find the inspiration for the exclusion of young British Muslims, forget searching in the Koran, and look at the government's citizenship curriculum. In there you will find all the confusion, ambiguity and emptiness of what modern society offers to young people. There is no positive assertion of values, even less a celebration of the Enlightenment ideals of liberty, secularism and knowledge. There is instead a 'key stage assessment' that students can 'demonstrate personal and group responsibility in their attitudes to themselves and others when participating' and, 'accept the value of others'. This is a polite way of saying 'your ideas are your own, so do not dare tell anyone else who disagrees that they are wrong'.

The attempt to cohere society will fail time and time again due to one factor - nobody knows, or wants to assert, what society should be about today. In devising a citizenship test, you need to have a sense of what being a citizen means. Many have pointed out the absurdity of asking new citizens to swear an oath to the Queen, when a large number of citizens born here would probably refuse to do the same. Likewise, a test on British culture and history would likely be failed by a significant section of the population already here. The citizenship test may have begun a lively debate in the media in the mode of 'I Love Britain', but no conclusions have been reached. The only thing that politicians seem confident in asserting about our society is its tolerance. But tolerance does not build a society. Tolerance is indifference by another name"

More here



9 April, 2004

EASTER EGGS INCORRECT

A Maryland reader writes: "Just when you thought things couldn't get more stupid, here's one for you: On my drive in to work this a.m. I was listening to the radio. The guest, who was on doing his usual stock market update happened to mention that his daughter's day- care center was going to have an "Oval Hunt". I guess they couldn't expose those little minds to an Easter Egg hunt. If you ever needed a reason to avoid sending your kid to day care at all costs, this is it."


THE INCORRECTNESS OF "DISCOMFORT"

From the incomparable Mike Adams

Well, I suppose it had to happen. After eleven years of teaching at a public university, I finally got a call from one of my superiors informing me that I had made one of my co-workers feel "uncomfortable" in the workplace. For those who may not know, the right to feel "comfortable" at all times trumps the First Amendment at most public universities. Naturally, when I found out that I made a co-worker feel "uncomfortable," I wanted to know what I had said or done to produce such an unthinkable result. That was when I learned that the "discomfort" occurred because I had been discussing some of my weekly columns here in the workplace (i.e., at the public university). The penalty for that transgression was simple: a ban on discussing my columns in the office in front of those who might be offended by my opinions.

After I thought about it for a while, my anger turned to elation. Surely, the power to trump the First Amendment rights of others in response to "discomfort" is available to all employees, not just a select few. Since that must be the case (because our public university is committed to equality), I decided to make a list of every situation I had encountered at UNC-Wilmington where I felt "uncomfortable."

*My first year at UNCW, a faculty member in our department objected to a job candidate because he was "a little too white male." Such comments make me feel really uncomfortable, being a white guy and all that.

*My second year at UNCW we removed a white woman from our interview pool in order to make room for a black woman. When the university forced me to discriminate on the basis of race, I felt really uncomfortable.

*My third year at UNCW someone suggested that we should reject a job candidate because he was "too religious." It sure makes me feel uncomfortable when people say things like that.

*My fourth year at UNCW someone objected to a job candidate because she felt that the husband played too dominant a role in the candidate's marriage. It also makes me feel uncomfortable when people say things like that.

*Then there was the time that a gay activist in our department suggested that I switch to bi-sexuality in order to double my chances of finding a suitable "partner." That made me feel uncomfortable and she knew it. After I started to blush, she asked, "What's the matter, are you a little homophobic?" So what if I don't think you can change your sexual orientation as easily as your underwear? Is that so wrong? Do I really have a phobia?

*And how about the time that a faculty member called another faculty member a "mother f***er" in one of our meetings? That was before he said that he should have climbed over the desk and "slapped the s*** out of him." These sociologists need to start getting along with one another if they plan to build a Utopian society. Plus, it makes me feel really uncomfortable to hear about these threats of violence in the workplace.

*Then there's the professor in our department who thinks that I am trying to poison her with tear gas. A few years ago the police questioned me about breaking into her office and spraying chemicals. That was a pretty uncomfortable situation. I think it even qualifies as a Maalox moment. By the way, how long do I have to work with this woman? She makes me feel very uncomfortable.

*A member of the UNCW Board of Trustees has been heard calling people "white trash" and making other racist statements in public. She has to vote on my next promotion as well as the promotion of every other professor at the university. That makes me feel a little uncomfortable, still being a white guy and all that. Maybe my race makes her feel uncomfortable, but some of us can't afford to change the color of our skin. We can't all be like Michael Jackson. I know that makes a lot of parents feel comfortable.

I'll be back in the morning. In the meantime, the university needs to start rounding up all of the people who are interfering with my life, liberty, and pursuit of absolute comfort. I hope that no one will feel uncomfortable when they are reprimanded for making me feel uncomfortable. I know that if everyone follows my lead, free speech will die here at our local university. But at least everyone will feel comfortable at all times. I guess that's all that really matters.



8 April, 2004

LEFTIST HATE-SPEECH MUST NOT BE CRITICIZED

From a review of Welcome to the Ivory Tower of Babel by Mike Adams: "This section details Adams's experiences after a student wrote an email in very strong language criticizing America in response to the tragedy of September 11, 2001. Adams took some very good advice and meticulously recorded the events that ensued, as university administration, law enforcement, students, faculty, staff, and even Fox News's Hannity & Colmes eventually became involved.

The daughter of a UNC-Wilmington faculty member sent the email in question after the events of 9/11, and following her "diatribe" (Adams's description) criticizing everything from the U.S. policy towards Israel to the "war-mongering U.S. media" to the "reactionary majority of the U.S. Supreme Court," the student asked recipients to forward her message to others. Adams was happy to oblige, but he included his own response to the student's email when he forwarded the message. Adams was then accused of "verbally abusing" the student by forwarding the message with a response of his own.

The tale that Adams then unravels epitomizes what happens when you disagree with someone who is in favor of free speech as long as you agree with her


IS THIS THE ULTIMATE IN POLITICALLY CORRECT LOONINESS?

"Junior football teams in Scotland are to be banned from playing in league and cup competitions in order to protect them from the pain of losing. In future, the losing side (henceforth to be known as "the runners-up") will be allowed to field two extra players. If one team is more than five goals ahead at half-time, the score will revert to nil-nil...

The rewriting of the Scottish rulebook follows a row last week over a match in the Sheffield and District Junior Sunday League. Chesterfield's Brampton Rovers under-nine team beat Waltheof, the Sheffield junior team, 29 -0, a score reported in the Derbyshire Times. League officials have told players that no scores above 14-0 can be made public and have asked the newspaper to refrain from publishing them. The fear is that playing for teams which suffer such heavy defeats humiliates children....

Edinburgh City Council's officials may believe that by eliminating the competitive element of football, they are concentrating on teaching skills and social interaction, but they are sending out a much more sinister message. Children will learn that the rules can be rewritten to suit yourself, that performance does not matter, that you need never push yourself to your absolute limit and that losing must be avoided at all costs. In short, they will learn that mediocrity is not merely acceptable, it is desirable.

Most children are intensely competitive. They can turn anything into a contest: getting dressed, eating breakfast, breaking wind, behaving badly. You name it; it is much better fun if you pit yourself against a deadly rival, particularly if they happen to be a sibling. Attempting to eradicate competition from a child's life is as pointless and cruel as trying to stifle their sense of humour.

Sport teaches children to work together in teams to achieve a common goal. It allows them to compete emotionally and physically in a controlled environment. It provides an acceptable outlet for feelings of aggression and it teaches them how to harness negative emotions and turn them into something positive.

Children have an incredibly strong sense of natural justice. Their understanding of fair play is highly developed at a very young age. We tamper with that at our peril. If it is acceptable to "cheat" in sport, is it admissible to "cheat" in exams? When filling in a job application form? When doing our tax return? ...

Without the competitive element, sport becomes boring and pointless.... Any parent who has comforted a weeping child after a sporting disaster will sympathise with what Edinburgh City Council's officials are trying to achieve. But they will also know that disappointment cannot be postponed indefinitely in life and that it is easier to bear the more often it happens."



7 April, 2004

NO INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY IN NEW YORK

What goes through the heads of these morons? They can't all be lawyers. It must just be a hatred of all businesses

The trial lawyers are close to completing an impressive achievement here in New York state; destroying yet another industry in their pursuit of easy money. Supported by stalwart figures like Sheldon Silver, Speaker of the NYS Assembly and himself a partner in a firm of trial lawyers, the plaintiff's bar has been successful in keeping NYS' "vicarious liability" law on the books. This law makes leasing companies and car rental firms 100% liable for damages or injuries caused by the vehicles they own. As a result of this law (among others), there are only 50 independent car rental firms left in NYS, down from an estimated 400 two years ago. In addition, it is now nearly impossible to lease a car in this state, because most of the major auto leasing companies have pulled out of the state.

Via Spartacus


HOMOGENEITY TRUMPS DIVERSITY

Diversity BAD for education "Using data from Tennessee's Project Star, a very important experiment in which K-3 students were randomly assigned to small and regular sized classes, Dee finds that black students improve when they have black teachers. So far so good. Dee also finds, however, that white students improve when they have white teachers. Uh, oh. There goes the diversity is good for everyone story."



6 April, 2004

TUFTS: UNIVERSITY OR BRAINWASHING FACILITY?

No critical thinking allowed

You don't have to be at Tufts for too long before you notice one thing: there is not a whole lot of diversity here. Diversity of thought, that is. Sure, Tufts can boast of an ethnically diverse faculty and student body. If you look more than skin-deep, however, you'll notice that this place resembles more closely a political party or an exclusive social club than a hotbed of free and independent inquiry and thought.... if we look at the faculty, only two are registered Republicans, or less than 2 percent of those surveyed in the spring 2002, and only one faculty member gave to a Republican campaign between 1998 and 2001 out of over one hundred contributions. Now, one may say that Massachusetts is naturally heavily Democratic, that the faculty may be non-partisan, and that in any case the university hires the best people possible without any partisan or ideological discrimination. Massachusetts voted 32.5 percent for Bush in 2000 vs. 47.87 percent nationally. That's hardly 2 percent.

If you are ever in doubt, however, about the ideological inclinations of the faculty and the non-partisan atmosphere at Tufts, just take a look at the professors' doors in East Hall, the home of the English and History departments. There are signs, cartoons, and decals for every liberal cause imaginable, sending a clear message to both students and potential faculty applicants about who is "in" and who isn't. Try to find something similar on the conservative side.

Even when the political process is not mentioned directly, the discussions reflect the concerns of the well-heeled, liberal Northeastern intellectual elites: environment, racial, gender, and sexual orientation "justice," animal rights, secularism, Third World humanitarianism, multilateralism, multiculturalism, anti-militarism, and an opposition to guns, smoking, and business. Until recently the Tufts Chaplaincy used to feature a disclaimer on its website associating itself with "liberal religion." The disclaimer is no longer there, but the attitude persists.

Yet, learning from only one perspective in an environment where challenging the underlying assumptions to any extent makes you an outcast in class and hurts your grades is not learning but indoctrination. The result is herd mentality where ideas go largely unchallenged and one comes out with the same cookie cutter mentality as everyone else.

More here


KANGAROO COURTS UNDER CHALLENGE

Good to see the kangaroo courts run by universities come under proper judicial scrutiny. See here. I know nothing of the rights and wrongs of the particular cases but they seem likely to make at least Australian universities less arrogant, less prone to coverups and more open and scrupulous in the way they treat students -- long overdue. They have been a law unto themselves for too long. Note that in the first case mentioned the accusations of injustice have been upheld in the lower courts but instead of pulling their horns in, the university is going to the highest court in the land to try to escape the consequences of its conduct -- disgraceful. No student should have to go through that. And what a waste of taxpayer's money!

I have no idea whether there was any political element in the cases mentioned but there have been so many instances given on this blog of universities abusing their power over students that any moves towards holding universities accountable for what they do must be welcomed.

And here's another story of a university ignoring judicial findings.



5 April, 2004

ACADEMIC DOGMATISM AND INTOLERANCE

Excerpts from a talk by John Kekes

I now ask you to consider the stifling of opinions on our campuses. When did you last hear of anyone defending fundamentalist Christianity or the superiority of Western civilization? Who has been allowed to express the opinion on our campuses that homosexuality is a perversion, that there exist racial differences in intelligence, that women's place is in the home, that the Holocaust is a fiction, or that America is a force for the good in a corrupt world?

This coercive stifling of opinion permeates daily life, not just our campuses. It is very hard to think of an area of life that is free of the exhortation of intrusive moralizing. We are told what food is right or wrong to eat; how we should treat our pets; what clothing to wear; how we should spend our after-tax income; how precisely we should phrase invitations for sex; what kind of bags we should carry our groceries in; when and where we are permitted to pray or smoke; what jokes we are allowed to tell; who should pick the fruit we buy at the supermarket; how we should invest our money; what chemicals we should use in our gardens; by what method of transportation we should go to work; how we should sort our garbage; what we ought to think about cross dressing, sex change operations, teenage sex, and pot smoking; we are forbidden to inquire after the age, marital status, drug use, or alcoholism of job applicants; we are liable to be accused of sexual abuse if we spank our children or hug our neighbor's; our 19 and 20-year olds are permitted to fight our wars, but they are not permitted to buy a beer; we are not supposed to say that people are crippled, stupid, mentally defective, fat, or ignorant; and we must not use words like "mankind," "statesman," or "He" when referring to God.

What makes this coercive moralizing even worse is the hypocritical double-talk by which it is presented. For the stifling of opinions is said to be required by toleration. Its defenders advocate toleration of discrimination in favor of minorities and women (but not against them); of obscenity that offends religious believers and patriots (but not African-Americans and Jews); of unions' spending large sums in support of political causes (but not corporations' doing the same); of pot smoking (but not cigarette smoking); of abortion (but not capital punishment); of the public lies of Clinton (but not of Nixon); of hate speech against fundamentalists (but not homosexuals); of sex education in elementary schools (but not prayer); of jobs open only to union members (but not private clubs open only to males); of lies about American imperialism (but not the Holocaust); of sacrilegious of language (but not of language that uses "he" to refer to all human beings); of scientific research into just about anything (except racial differences in intelligence); and so on and on. We are awash in this ocean of hypocrisy, lies, and falsifications.


SCOUTS TOTALLY INCORRECT

And "we're gonna getcha" for it

Scoutophobia: "In a number of communities where intolerant "progressives" hold sway, the Scouts are under siege because they won't drop their commitment to God, country and traditional morality... There's a larger context to the San Diego dustup. It is a flashpoint in a broad-front war being waged by cultural imperialists of the Left to make the Scouts pay a price for their principles. After the Dale decision, which said government can't order the Scouts to exchange their convictions on sexual morality for a set of state-scripted beliefs, anti-Scout activists and bureaucrats shifted strategy: The aim now is to arm-twist the Scouts into submission by penalizing them (with loss of park leases, for instance) if they don't fall in line."



4 April, 2004

PROTECTING RACISM CORRECT IN EU

How the EU protects politically correct racism: "A study released by the EU's racism and xenophobia monitoring centre astounded experts by concluding that the wave of anti-Jewish persecution over the last two years stemmed from neo-Nazi or other racist groups. "The largest group of the perpetrators of anti-Semitic activities appears to be young, disaffected white Europeans," said a summary released to the European Parliament... The headline findings contradict the body of the report. This says most of the 193 violent attacks on synagogues, Jewish schools, kosher shops, cemeteries and rabbis in France in 2002 - up from 32 in 2001 - were "ascribed to youth from neighbourhoods sensitive to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, principally of North African descent. "The percentage attributable to the extreme Right was only nine per cent in 2002," it said. The report on Belgium said most of the fire-bomb and machine-gun attacks on Jewish targets were the result of a spillover from the Palestinian intifada. The European Jewish Congress accused the EU watchdog of twisting data from the 15 member states to suit its own ideological bias, describing the report as a catalogue of "enormous contradictions, errors and omissions...

The EU suppressed a report last year by German academics concluding that Arab gangs were largely responsible for a sudden surge in anti-Jewish violence, allegedly because the findings were politically unpalatable. Victor Weitzel, who wrote a large section of yesterday's far more detailed study, told The Telegraph that the latest findings had been consistently massaged by the EU watchdog to play down the role of North African youth. "The European Union seems incapable of facing up to the truth on this," he said. "Everything is being tilted to ensure nice soft conclusions." With leadership like this more Madrids are frankly inevitable until Europeans wake up to themselves.


ISLAM ALWAYS CORRECT

The ongoing court case in the Australian State of Victoria against two Christian pastors for allegedly vilifying Islam (all they did was quote the inconvenient bits from the Koran) has considerable irony to it. One of the defendants, a former Pakistani Muslim convert to Christianity was prosecuted for blasphemy in his home country. It seems that nobody anywhere can criticize Islam.



3 April, 2004

UNIVERSITY FASCISTS CANNOT STAND THE LIGHT OF DAY

Excerpts from an article by Ben Shapiro

It's not often that we hear inspirational news coming from America's college campuses. But this week at my home school, Republicans struck a blow for free speech. By coordinating talk radio, college activists and the conservative audience, California's College Republicans were able to overcome liberal obstructionism at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Until March 19, the California College Republican Convention planned for April 2-4 was ready to move ahead as scheduled. About 400 students from around the state would converge at UCLA to coordinate their yearly campaign. The rooms were booked five months in advance. Provisions for payment had been made.

Then, the UCLA administration stepped in. Two weeks before the scheduled convention date, the UCLA administration told the College Republicans to open their wallets. UCLA now wanted $4,900 for the rooms, instead of the original $900 fee, and $17,000 for security. Some of the rooms had been given away, so even if the Republicans ponied up, they would have to scale down their activities....

So, Norman and the other Convention Team members called up Al Rantel, 790-KABC Los Angeles' evening talk-show host... Rantel had planned to broadcast live from the College Republican Convention. When Norman told him that the convention was in danger, Rantel went into action. "It's up to the conservative alumni to tell that administration they don't have a right to stop these kids," Rantel told his audience. Within the hour, the UCLA administration began receiving angry phone calls from Rantel's listeners.

When Norman's Convention Team met with the UCLA administration the next day, the administrators told Norman that they had to do something to stop the stream of angry phone calls. "It was a huge motivating factor for them to come to the table and work with us," Norman explains. During the meeting, the administration knocked down the security costs from $17,000 to $325. The rooms that had been "given away" suddenly reappeared and were allotted for the convention.


A VICTORY FOR FREE SPEECH

Even if it's stupid

A teenage girl who wore a T-shirt that said Barbie was a lesbian has won a lawsuit against New York City and the right for public school students to wear clothes with political slogans. The city will also pay $US30,000 ($39,208) to Natalie Young, 15, a lesbian who was sent to the principal's office for wearing the shirt. She refused to change, was suspended and threatened with further suspension if she wore it again. Her mother sued the city over her right to express her views. Pupils can "wear political or other types of buttons, badges or armbands, except where such material is libellous, obscene". They can wear a shirt that says the Iraq war is wrong but schools can ban shirts praising Osama Bin Laden. (Source)



2 April, 2004

FOOD INCORRECTNESS

It's a war!

Lawyers LOVE fat: "Cornell law professor Douglas Kysar is still in tantrum mode two weeks after the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed Rep. Ric Keller's (R-FL) 'Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act.' Keller's bill would protect food providers from frivolous obesity lawsuits. In yesterday's Orlando Sentinel, Kysar made light of the role that personal responsibility plays in the dietary choices of Americans and claimed Keller's bill was unnecessary and a waste of time. In today's Sentinel, Keller sets Kysar straight -- and offers him a bit of choice dietary advice: 'Professor Kysar should eat his words, and the rest of us can eat our cheeseburgers.'"

Politics before science: "In the United Kingdom, Sir John Krebs, Chairman of the Food Standards Agency (FSA), has just announced that the agency will take steps to combat the growing menace of advertising promoting unhealthy diets to children. The trouble is that the FSA itself has admitted there is no evidence of a problem. It seems that in the UK, politics drives science."

"Obesity warriors" have wafer thin arguments. Some totally absurd "research"

"The Lone Star State may soon find its school lunch lines getting a lot lonelier. That's because the food police will be coming to a local school cafeteria near you if Texans do not take a stand against the nutrition guidelines recently announced by the Texas Department of Agriculture."

The hidden dangers in breakfast: "The breakfast cereal giants Kellogg's and Nestl‚ were yesterday accused by the Consumers' Association of targeting children with products containing excessive levels of sugar, salt and fat. Servings of popular brands such as All Bran, Oat Krunchies and Golden Grahams contained four times as much salt as a 25g bag of roasted peanuts, the association said, as it fired the first salvo in a battle to speed up the 'excruciatingly slow' progress being made to improve children's diets by industry and the government. It threatened a consumer boycott if ministers and companies failed to respond to pressure."



1 April, 2004

PIGS ARE VERY INCORRECT

From England's Sword

Thoughtful leftie Norm Geras asks that we bring back John Stuart Mill as he reports on the following story:

FOR more than 100 years it stood proudly as the centrepiece of England's oldest public park before being decapitated during a Second World War air raid. Now a row has broken out after plans to replace Derby's historic Florentine Boar statue were abandoned for fear of offending Muslims, whose religion considers pigs to be 'unclean'.

In one sense, this is just another classic case of political correctness in action; pathetic and nasty in equal measure, but ultimately a small thing. 'Same old, same old' is a reasonable enough response.

But the thought also occurs that in the blink of an eye we may have established a precedent that will outlive our great-grandchildren, that all of a sudden we have reduced to almost nothing the chance of any work of art involving something as harmless as a pig ever again being displayed in a public place in this country. From Christmas lights which dare highlight the significance of the moment to hot cross buns in school canteens, innocent and creative symbols of our culture and nation are disappearing while landmarks and ceremonies with history and meaning are being torn down and wound up.


SELF-DEFENCE INCORRECT

Dominique Reed, a sixth-grader with trouble hearing, is suffering abuse at the hands of her fellow students at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley, Calif., the Berkeley Daily Planet reports:

In her special education classes, bigger and older students quietly taunt her, in the hallways they push her and punch her, in the playground they steal her hearing aid and throw it as far as they can. After months of daily abuse, school officials finally took action: They confined Reed to a classroom during recess for her own safety. . . . Three times Reed tried to show her tormentors just how tough she was. Acting against the advice of the school, she fought back. Each time she was suspended along with the attacker. "There's nothing I can do," she said. "If I tell, nothing happens, and every time I defend myself I get suspended."

From "Opinion Journal".