Patriotic dress banned from British TV



We read:

"She's not a celebrity usually known for her sense of style. And today Daybreak presenter Kate Garraway made something of a fashion blunder as she decided to show her support for the Royal Wedding by stepping out in a plunging Union Jack maxi dress.

The 43-year-old presenter looked delighted with her patriotic outfit as she arrived at the ITV studios this morning.

However, Daybreak's Entertainment Editor Garraway later tweeted that ITV bosses had ruled the dress was 'too much' for her to wear on air.

Source

Pets should be renamed 'companions', claim animal rights academics (and rats are just 'free living')

We read:

"Animals should not be described as 'vermin', 'pests' or even 'pets', animal ethicists have decided. Academics say that traditional words used to characterise animals like 'beasts' and 'critters' are derogatory and should be replaced.

They say words like 'pests' and 'vermin' should be dropped altogether, and 'pets' replaced by 'companion animals'. 'Wild animals' should be termed 'free living or free ranging animals' they argue, because 'wildness' is too close to 'uncivilised'.

The call for a new 'animal language' has been made by the editors of a new academic journal, the Journal of Animal Ethics, published this month for the first time by the University of Illinois Press.

They said: 'Despite its prevalence, "pets" is surely a derogatory term both of the animals concerned and their human carers. 'Again the word "owners", whilst technically correct in law, harks back to a previous age when animals were regarded as just that: property, machines or things to use without moral constraint.'

But their semantic zeal does not end with man's best friends. They also argue for a new understanding of animals in their natural habitat. 'In addition, we invite authors to use the words "free-living", "free-ranging" or "free-roaming" rather than "wild animals",' they said.

'For most, "wildness" is synonymous with uncivilised, unrestrained, barbarous existence. There is an obvious prejudgment here that should be avoided.'

Source

Horror! British Prime Minister calls woman "Dear"



Above is the lesbian person whom he called "Dear". I think he deserves a medal for politeness beyond the call of duty.

David Cameron was last night facing accusations of sexism and calls to apologise after he told a shadow minister to ‘calm down, dear’ during Prime Minister’s Questions.

Senior Labour politicians reacted furiously to the throwaway remark – mimicking a car insurance advert starring Michael Winner – which came in response to noisy heckles from frontbencher Angela Eagle.

The party’s deputy leader Harriet Harman accused Mr Cameron of an ‘outdated and sexist attitude to women’ and a senior Labour source said: ‘He should certainly apologise.’

The row blew up after Miss Eagle, Parliament’s most prominent lesbian MP, interjected as the Prime Minister defended the Coalition’s plans to reform the NHS, arguing they were backed even by former Labour MP Howard Stoate, a practising GP.

The Wallasey MP shouted that Dr Stoate stood down at last year’s election, rather than being defeated as the PM claimed.

In response, the Prime Minister told Miss Eagle: ‘Calm down, dear, calm down. Calm down and listen to the doctor.’

Source

Pro-Life Memorial Vandalized

Hate-filled Leftists can't stand having any viewpoint but their own publicized

The Cemetery of the Innocents at Clarion University in Clarion, PA is supposed to commemorate the millions of babies lost to abortion. But last week, the quaint memorial with 350 wooden crosses resembled a satanic ritual scene after it was vandalized during the campus’s Life Week, which also happened to be Holy Week.

Students for Life of America (SLA) explains the vandalism:

In a breathtaking public display of anti-Christian and anti-Life motivations, 350 crosses were pulled up and re-inserted in inverted fashion, a well-known anti-Christian symbol. Additionally, red paint was splattered on crosses and signs. Even eerier was the mock bloody footprints of an infant painted in front of the display.

Source

British bar-room singer arrested for racism after Chinese passers-by hear him singing Kung Fu song

Batty Britain again:

"A pub singer has been arrested on suspicion of racism for singing the classic chart hit Kung Fu Fighting. The song, performed by Simon Ledger, 34, is said to have offended two Chinese people as they walked past the pub where he was singing.

The entertainer regularly performs the 1974 number one, originally by disco star Carl Douglas, at the Driftwood Beach Bar in Sandown, Isle of Wight. But after one of the passers-by reported his routine on Sunday afternoon, Mr Ledger was arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated harassment.

Source

Not so gay in France



The illustration above is the cover of a kid's book in the Occitan language. It is a minority language in France -- rather like Gaelic in Scotland.

But the French police don't speak Occitan so didn't understand what was on the cover. Even though it was obviously a kid's book, they were very suspicious of the word "papagai" (meaning parrot; cf. "papagayo" in Spanish).

What they didn't like is the "gai" on the end of the word. "Gai" means "gay" in French but mainly in the sense of "jolly". But English usages are often adopted in France so the cops apparently suspected that something bad was being said about homosexuals.

We read:

"Nonetheless, solely because of the cover of that book, Michel Grosclaude was investigated and questioned by the French police, suspected of sexual discrimination and perhaps even darker offenses".

So you even have to watch your word-endings in France.

MI: Quran-burning pastor jailed

We read:

"A constitutional law professor says a trial and the brief jailing of two Florida pastors who wanted to demonstrate outside a Michigan mosque is "bizarre."

Florida pastors Terry Jones and Wayne Sapp were briefly jailed Friday in Dearborn after refusing to pay a $1 peace bond following a trial that found they would breach the peace if allowed to hold a rally outside the Islamic Center of America, the Detroit Free Press reported Saturday.

"The judge should have thrown out the case," said Robert Sedler, constitutional law professor at Wayne State University.

Sedler said the entire process was "bizarre" and that "the whole thing is unconstitutional." He cited U.S. Supreme Court cases backing up Jones' right to protest. The Michigan ACLU also criticized the case.

"This is a complete abuse of the court process, and all those involved should be ashamed," said Rana Elmir of the ACLU Michigan office. "The prosecutor's office and the Dearborn court turned the First Amendment on its head.

Source

The pastor now says he might sue the city. He will almost certainly win if he does.

Australian Christian Lobby chief's rejection of homosexual marriage sparks outrage in some quarters

I have known quite a few "old diggers" (elderly Australian Army veterans) in my day and I am pretty sure what most of them would say if asked whether they fought so that homosexuality would be promoted as normal. The reply would be cutting, very cutting. (Anzac day is when Australia remembers its troops fallen in war).

"The head of the Australian Christian Lobby says outrage over a claim that Australian soldiers didn't fight for gay marriage is down to "misinterpretation".

Earlier today ACL managing director Jim Wallace said on Twitter: "Just hope that as we remember Servicemen and women today we remember the Australia they fought for — wasn't gay marriage and Islamic!" The comment sparked widespread condemnation from other Twitter users, who said Mr Wallace should be "ashamed".

This afternoon Mr Wallace apologised "unreservedly" for having made the comment on Anzac Day and said the comment had been misinterpreted. "There is no way I was trying to infer that our veterans didn't fight for all Australians. Of course they did," Mr Wallace told news.com.au. "I spent 32 years in the army myself, I'm imbued with that. "I'm the last person to (want to) demean Anzac Day or our veterans."

However Mr Wallace stood by his belief that the "nature" of the country that veterans had fought for was changing. "I was simply there with my father, a 96-year-old veteran of Tobruk and Milne Bay," Mr Wallace said. "And he was lamenting, as he had in the past, that he found it difficult to identify the Australia that he fought for. "I think that the nature of our society that our soldiers fought for was based on Judeo-Christian heritage."

SOURCE

Australia has civil unions for homosexuals but both major parties oppose homosexual marriage so no Australian State has it. So Mr Wallace was probably more defensive than he needed to be. He is in fact mainstream in Australia. The homosexual-supporters are just more shrill.

Georgia County Votes to Keep Confederate Battle Flag Flying

A rare victory for Southerners who wish to honor the brave men among their forebears

"A Georgia county’s board of commissioners has voted to keep the Confederate flag flying at the local courthouse, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

While the Dixie battle cross was removed from the state flag in 2003, it has continued to fly at the Dodge County courthouse in Eastman, Ga., as part of a memorial to Confederate war dead.

The NAACP chapter in Eastman, which is 50 miles southeast of Macon, says the flag was to fly only once a year, but it has stayed at the courthouse despite the civil rights group’s complaints.

On Monday, the board met in a closed session and decided, in a vote taken at their public meeting afterward, to keep the flag up 365 days a year.

According to the paper, Howell cited a state law that he said prohibits the commissioners from removing appropriate items from publicly owned memorials.

Source

British businessman criticized for making realistic comments about women

We read:

"Glencore’s new chairman has been widely condemned for making “unacceptable” and “deplorable” sexist remarks, raising further corporate governance concerns ahead of the commodity trader’s planned $60bn (£37bn) stock market debut.

Business Secretary Vince Cable, Lord Davies and Centrica chairman Sir Roger Carr described Simon Murray’s comments as “ill-judged” and “highly disappointing” – putting pressure on the 71-year-old former banker to step down from the role just 10 days after his appointment.

The furore follows Mr Murray’s comments, made to The Sunday Telegraph, suggesting women's capacity in the workplace was limited because “pregnant ladies have nine months off”, women “have a tendency not to be so involved quite often” and are not “so ambitious in business”.

Source

Defending traditional marriage is "hate speech"?

To some Stanford students it is. A conservative group organized a talk at Stanford on the subject. Leftist students hated it:

"It’s upsetting that they were given SAL [Student Activities and Leadership] status,” said Dan Thompson’13.

“Optimally, everybody should be allowed to be a student group, but SAL curates and since they do, it’s very upsetting that a homophobic, anti-women, misogynistic group is given status when others are not,” he said.

Thompson also worried that the group’s polarization of the dialogue will detract from other issues. “These guys are going to be labeled the anti-gay marriage group when, in reality, they’re an extremist group and it’s going to distract from real homophobia on campus,” he said.

Nathaniel Williams ’13 characterized the event as a “hate fest.”
“I’m virtually speechless,” Williams said. “Never have I seen or participated in or heard of hosting an academic speaker who came across as so broadly ignorant, offensive.”

“The preview in the Stanford Review sort of posed it as a discussion about same sex marriage, but in actually it turned out to be more of a anti-abortion, anti-same sex adoption, anti-women, anti-good government, hate fest,” he said.

Source

There is no way that the talk concerned was hate speech but there was plenty of hate speech about it from the Left

Two arrested in raids over sectarian 'hate comments'

There are two football teams in Glasgow, Scotland, that are traditional rivals. One ("Celtic") is basically Catholic. The other ("Rangers") is Protestant. Together they are referred to as "The Old Firm" and Glasgow divides on religious lines over which team you support.

And Protestant/Catholic hatred of one another in Glasgow is very similar to attitudes in Northern Ireland. In both cases the animosity goes back hundreds of years into history. So religious rivalry is added to sporting rivalry.

The hatred seems to have given a focus recently by the fact that one of the players for Rangers is black and that the manager of Celtic is from Northern Ireland.

One result is that the manager of Celtic and a couple of other supporters were recently sent parcel bombs, apparently by a male/female couple. The bombs did not explode but they have been used as an excuse to ban expressions of animosity towards the opposing team. That traditional animosity went on for years without any harm coming to the teams concerned seems to have been overlooked. Just one act has been used to criminalize the speech of everybody else.

"Two men have been arrested in raids targeting "sectarian and hate-filled" web comments about Celtic manager Neil Lennon and Rangers striker El Hadji-Diouf.

A 23-year-old and a 27-year-old are in police custody after the raids in the early hours of the morning.

The arrests were made in Paisley and Dalmarnock in the east end of Glasgow. Both men have been charged with sectarian breach of the peace.

Lennon has endured sectarian threats against him throughout his career as a player and manager at Celtic and was the target of a parcel bomb campaign, which also saw devices sent to QC Paul McBride and MSP Trish Godman.

A number of youth players for various Scottish clubs have also been disciplined for comments they made online.

Source

Blocking Federal funding for NPR is censorship?

So the fluff-head below implies ("silence any voices"). Since when was there an obligation for the taxpayer to pay for Leftist propaganda? Refusing to pay for something is a lot different from stopping broadcasts that someone HAS paid for.

"Dumb and dumber: that’s not only what all too many of our current politicians and right-wing pundits are, it’s how they want the American public to be.

The right wing in this country is on a concerted campaign to silence any voices that question its goals, tactics and assault on dialogue and civility.

Hence, as part of the House of Representatives’ attack on everything, we have H.R. 1076, the bill to bar all federal funding to National Public Radio (NPR)."

Source

NPR is 95% privately funded anyway. They have had a lot of rich Leftist donors. And I am sure that Mr Obama's Wall St. friends would soon cough up any shortfall in funding.

Huckabee criticizes Beck for 'progressive' claim

Nice to see that "progressive" has now got the same bad odor as "liberal". Beck knows his history so knows how Fascistic the "progressives" of the early 20th century were. So it is even more of a put-down than it first appears

"Mike Huckabee is criticizing fellow Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck for calling the former Arkansas governor and potential presidential candidate a "progressive."

Huckabee released a statement Thursday criticizing Beck for calling him a "progressive" on his radio show earlier this week. Beck on Tuesday described Huckabee as someone who doesn't want to "disrupt giant government" and noted Huckabee's defense of first lady Michelle Obama's anti-obesity efforts.

Huckabee defended the anti-obesity efforts. He said Beck "seems to fancy himself a prophet of sorts."

Source

Huck never impressed me much during the battle for the 2008 GOP Presidential nomination. The man I had hopes for was Fred Thompson

"Westboro Baptist" Fred Phelps is a Democrat

We read:

"Fred Phelps ran for major office in Kansas as a Democrat no less than four times. He ran for governor on the Democrat ballot in 1990, 1994 and 1998 and for senator in 1992. Phelps received 11,000 votes, or seven percent, in 1990, he received 5,000 votes, or three percent, in 1994 and he picked up 15,000 votes, or 15 percent, in 1998. And in the senatorial contest in 1992 he garnered 49,000 votes, or 30 percent. Phelps furthermore ran as a Democrat candidate for mayor of Topeka in 1993 and 1997.

Phelps also has been closely associated with Al Gore on several occasions throughout Gore’s career – Phelps’ son Fred, Jr. was a Gore delegate at the 1988 Democrat convention and the Phelpses hosted a Gore fundraiser in Topeka that year. Phelps claims that Westboro members “ran” Gore’s 1988 campaign in Kansas.

Source

So his is just another version of the false patriotism of the Left.

Sick art again



We read:

"A Lowell [MI] man is calling on Christians to boycott Midwest retailer Meijer to pressure Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park to remove a decapitated bronze statue of Jesus Christ in a Jim Dine sculpture.

In addition to asking Christians to boycott Meijer's nearly 200 stores across five states, Wohlschied is also calling on Christians who volunteer at Meijer Gardens to stop donating their time to the non-profit organization until “profane art piece” is removed.

“If Meijer Gardens is going to continue with blasphemous sculptures, I recommend they exhibit a headless Mohammad sculpture. I am willing to say they wouldn't dare to do it,” Wohlschied said.

Source

They're entitled to put up any art they like -- and other people are entitled to boycott them over it. It's a strange mindset that would want to alienate many of their customers, though.

It's amazing what you can get away with when you are one of the Leftist elite

We read:

"Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's outgoing communications chief is known for his combative style. But in a confrontation that was undisclosed until now, he once threatened to "f---ing decapitate" the staff at the immigration office press shop.

The email outburst from Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Sean Smith so startled one of the employees on the receiving end that she made an internal complaint against him. She described the threat as "serious misconduct" and requested a "full investigation" from the Office of Inspector General.

Emails obtained by FoxNews.com depict the exchange, which started when Smith criticized the immigration press team in response to a suspected leak. As Smith prepares to leave the department this month, Kelly Nantel, the employee who filed the complaint in late 2009, expressed concern that it was never fully addressed.

Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said the complaint was passed on from the inspector general to the Office of the General Counsel, which conducted an inquiry and apparently did not consider the email a bona fide threat.

Smith, after moving on to the Obama campaign, eventually secured the high-ranking position within the Obama administration. Nantel, by contrast, is a career employee originally hired during the prior administration.

Source

They were probably right in saying that the threat was not seriously meant but if a conservative had said it .....

The Left-wing librarian who won't let my children read Tintin



A window on the past that must be closed

"I noticed they had dozens of Asterix books but only a handful of elderly, dog-eared Tintins. “Got any more Tintin books?” I asked the nice librarian. “Well,” she replied in a conspiratorial whisper. “I did try ordering some, but was told by my superior that I wasn’t allowed to.”

“Why not?” I queried. “Because they weren’t politically correct,” she replied. Just to be sure, I said to her: “So they actually used those words, ‘not politically correct’, did they?” “As far as I can remember, yes,” she said. Her hushed tone indicated that she was terrified of a colleague over-hearing and no doubt reporting her to the relevant authorities and getting her dismissed.

So I went home and looked out a collectors’ edition of the 1946 full-colour album version of Tintin in the Congo which I bought when it was published in English a few years ago but had never opened.

Now I’ve read the book and there’s no doubt the stereotyping is appalling to modern eyes. The crudely exaggerated physiognomy of the Africans in the illustrations, and the characterisation of natives of Congo as unintelligent and lazy – no author would get away with this kind of thing today, or would want to.

Tintin in the Congo all looks extremely old-fashioned. It could almost be depicting events on another planet. I suppose some of it made me feel a bit uncomfortable. But on the other hand what would be the point in banning it? It should be read with the proviso that it reflects old attitudes that have since changed. It’s of its time, a period piece. Many writers had a different notion of racial difference back then.

Part of the charm is the colourful illustration of exotic peoples and parts of the world which most of us are unlikely to have visited. They’re not to be taken as documentaries. They are, after all, only cartoons. And it’s miserable to ban them.

Source

The past gives you perspective and shows you that present arrangements and ideas are not the only ones possible. But Leftists can't afford for people to know too much about history. What if people realized that Hitler was a socialist, for instance?

OK: State passes law to restrict Westboro Baptist protests

We read:

"Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed a bill into law Monday that restricts members of the Westboro Baptist Church from protesting at military funerals.

The new law, introduced by Republican State Senator Josh Brecheen, prohibits protests two hours before or after a funeral. It also restricts protesters from being within 1,000 feet of a funeral, up from 500 feet under a previous law."

Source

One understands the feelings behind this but such a law is nul and void given the ruling by SCOTUS on the matter. It would seem to be a case of lawmakers not respecting the law -- which would seem more troubling than what Fred Phelps does.

Your name must not be rude in any foreign language



We read:

"It had been a term of endearment which had cemented links with her Greek heritage and first adorned her cars more than five years ago following a loving gift from her husband.

But the nickname Kiki, given to lawyer Kristen Perry before she could even walk, has now put her in hot water with the Roads and Traffic Authority because her number plate also translates into a term for female genitals in the Filipino language of Tagalog.

Mrs Perry has been left flabbergasted after being sent a "please explain", the RTA threatening to confiscate the number plate if she did not "show cause" within a fortnight.

Mrs Perry said Kiki was a shortening of her name in the Greek language and the number plates were given to her by her husband, Steven, five years ago

And she did not take long to reply to the RTA. "I have never been advised by anyone who speaks the Tagalog language that my name or number plate offends them," she wrote. "... it has been my name since birth and your letter calling my name 'offensive' is disturbing."

Source

Muslims practice apartheid

They really do. Christians are second-class citizens in Saudi Arabia. Neither churches nor Bibles are allowed there. But nobody usually calls it apartheid because of the furore that it would evoke -- with great steaming accusations of "hate speech" being heard. But if someone says that Israel practices apartheid (when it doesn't. There's a huge mosque right in the middle of Jerusalem) then that's OK, of course:

"A report by City of Toronto officials has dealt a blow to one hope of the Ford administration: The group Queers Against Israeli Apatheid (QuAIA), which has been a thorn in the city’s side due to its participation in the partially city-funded Pride Parade, has been ruled to not constitute a hate group, and the term Israeli Apartheid, not hate speech.

This will disappoint many staunch defenders of Israel, but is the correct ruling. Unfair, overheated and frankly ignorant as the claim that Israel is an apartheid state may be, such political opinions are not hate speech (though no doubt many genuine anti-Semites find succor in the language).

Source

Lady Gaga racist and intolerant?

We read:

"The 25-year-old pop star—who will portray prostitute-turned-disciple Mary Magdalene in the video—is being accused of racial intolerance by virtue of her fixation on Catholicism.

“So, Lady Gaga is playing Mary Magdelene [sic] in her new video,” says Jorge Serrano of Take Back Aztlán, a group that believes much of the Southwestern United States was stolen from people of Aztec descent.

Lady Gaga is just exploiting the Catholic religion, which many Latinos follow,” Serrano claims.

Another Latino group took issue with Gaga’s portrayal of Magdalene. “Why can’t Lady Gaga pretend to be Muhammad? Now, that would be very brave!” said Cecilia Maldonado of Chicanos Unidos Arizona, echoing complaints that recently came from the Catholic League.

Source

Rhetoric ratcheted up again. Anything you dislike is "racist". Not that I wish to defend the !@#$%&*. I personally see nothing good in her. But she entertains many so let her box-office takings be the judgment of how good or bad she is.

I myself speak respectfully of all Christian denominations (Episcopalians excepted). I usually refer to the head of the Roman Catholic church as "The Holy Father", for instance, but respect cannot be mandated.

Australia has stalwart conservative Cardinal -- Archbishop George Pell -- and in mentioning him on my blogs I follow Roman practice and refer to him as "His Eminence". I've got a fair idea that I irritate atheists by doing that just as much as Lady Gaga offends the Hispanics. Fair return for anti-Christian hatred

I think Roman theology is absurd but it is a great help and comfort to many people. So let their collection of offerings be the judgment of how good or bad they are.

As the original Romans used to say: De gustibus non disputandum est

Censorship attempt hits the innocent

Sheer government arrogance

"Yesterday I filed a “friend of the Court” brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in the case of Gemtronics, Inc. v. Federal Trade Commission, a case I’ve reported on extensively for this and other websites. The question before the Fourth Circuit is whether to compensate a retired engineer, William Isely, who was falsely identified as the operator of a website that contained statements the FTC wanted to censor.

William Isely[1] defeated the Federal Trade Commission’s attempt to hold him legally responsible for a website he did not own, operate, or control. Isely now seeks to recover some of the $130,000 in attorney fees and other expenses he incurred defending himself. The Commission’s Administrative Law Judge held that Isely was eligible to recover an award under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), 5 U.S.C. § 504, but ultimately denied his application because the Commission’s position was “substantially justified,” as defined by § 504(a)

Source

In the USA today you can be innocent and guilty at the same time, apparently.

U.S. Ambassador Criticized by State Department for ‘Faith-Based Writing’ Resigns‏

We read:

"The U.S. ambassador to Malta, an important Roman Catholic supporter of President Barack Obama, said Sunday he would resign after a State Department report criticized him for spending too much time writing and speaking about his religious beliefs.

In letters to Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Douglas Kmiec said he would step down Aug. 15. He told The Associated Press that no one pressured him to leave.

Kmiec was a well-known conservative law professor and commentator before being taking the job in 2009. But a report this month by the State Department’s inspector general rebuked Kmiec for concentrating too much on issues such as abortion and his faith, while neglecting his ambassadorial duties

The audit of the U.S. Embassy in Malta said Kmiec’s “outside activities have detracted from his attention to core mission goals” in the Mediterranean island nation, such as promoting maritime security and American business. It acknowledged the wide respect for Kmiec in the conservative, Roman Catholic country of Malta, but said his articles distracted him and embassy officials by forcing them to carefully review his writing. They upset administration officials in Washington, too, it noted.

In his letter to Clinton, Kmiec said the report was based on “unsupported speculation that someone doing as much writing as I have done could not have also been devoted to the embassy mission.”

The ambassador claimed, in his letter to Clinton, that the inspector general report’s authors had “failed to read any of my writing or see its highly positive effect on our bilateral relations.”

Source

U.S. Military Burns Bibles in Afghanistan To Stop Proselytizing

Bush a chimp but not Obama

We read:

"Marilyn Davenport, a Tea Party activist and member of the Orange County Republican Party’s central committee, is drawing fire from people in her own party after circulating a racist email depicting President Barack Obama and his parents as chimpanzees. In the email: “Now you know why — No birth certificate!”

The OC Weekly broke the story and were able to reach Davenport for comment. Her response:

“Oh, come on! Everybody who knows me knows that I am not a racist. It was a joke. I have friends who are black. Besides, I only sent it to a few people–mostly people I didn’t think would be upset by it.”

Source

Hate speech trial in Australia

There is a big hate speech trial going on in Australia at the moment. Such trials are very rare in Australia so this one has attracted a lot of attention. The anti-discrimination laws are quite sweeping but officialdom doesn't bother about enforcing them unless some group kicks up a fuss. Then they put on a trial.

This trial arises from the curious fact that Australian government regulations regard white people as black if they say they are. No matter how white you are (blond hair and blue eyes included), if you have the tiniest bit of Aboriginal (black) ancestry you can say that you are an Aborigine and gain all the benefits, formal and informal, which accrue from that.

Australia has a range of "affirmative-action" type policies which do real blacks very little good at all but which are very useful to half-caste, quarter-caste and other part Aboriginal people. And the "black" activists are generally from that group too.

Conservative commentator Andrew Bolt voiced what most Austraians think about that. He regards it as a racket and said something to that effect. The faux-blacks, however took offence and lodged a complaint against him under the anti-discrimination laws, where truth is apparently no defence. The excerpt below starts out with Bolt's reply to what the "anti-discrimination" lawyers have said about him:

"Mr Merkel's offence, Bolt said, had been to allege that his writings on Aboriginal issues were akin to the pseudo-science of eugenics that ultimately led to the Nazi Holocaust. "It's not only false, it's totally offensive," Bolt said. For his part, Mr Merkel denied suggesting Bolt had espoused any theory of racial superiority. What he did accuse him of was focusing on biological descent to determine a person's identity in a highly offensive way.

Bolt, the alleged offender, clearly saw himself as the victim. But in this court case, victimhood is claimed by others - the nine prominent fair-skinned Aborigines who are suing the Herald Sun columnist and his employer.

Bolt's purported persecutors, Mr Merkel and Herman Borenstein, SC, represent the nine, who accuse Bolt of breaching the Racial Discrimination Act in articles and blogs published in 2009. They allege the articles implied they were "professional Aborigines" who had chosen to identify themselves as Aborigines based on the thinnest strand of their genetic make-up to gain financial and other benefits.

They want the judge hearing the case, Justice Mordy Bromberg, to issue an order restraining Bolt and the Herald Sun from publishing "substantially similar" material in the future, and want the offending articles taken off the website.

Beyond those with a direct interest, the trial is being closely watched because of its potential impact on racial vilification laws and constitutional limits on freedom of expression. As Neil Young, QC, representing Bolt, put it: "This case may ultimately be about the boundaries of free speech on one hand, and the publication of items that are likely to offend on the other."

At the centre of the trial is section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which outlaws public acts that are likely "to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate" a person or group, if the acts are "done because of the race, colour or ethnic origin" of the person or group.

Bolt and The Herald Sun deny racial vilification and say the articles were legitimate comment about people who "made a choice" to be Aboriginal, something Bolt believed was an undesirable trend that emphasised racial differences.

The free speech argument has backing from quarters not known for their sympathy for Bolt. Bernard Keane, Canberra correspondent for the [Leftist] Crikey website, accused Mr Merkel of launching a "most extraordinary" attack on Bolt and on free speech. While Bolt's articles were grossly offensive, "anyone who supports free speech cannot but be sickened" by the court proceedings, Keane wrote.

Liberty Victoria also sees risks for free speech in the case. The group's president, Spencer Zifcak, said it has always believed the Racial Discrimination Act imposes too great a restriction on free speech by banning speech that "offends or insults".

In court, Mr Merkel has denied the case is about freedom of expression, pointing out that the Racial Discrimination Act exempts fair and accurate material published in good faith. Most of the hearing was taken up with a close examination of Bolt's words, with the plaintiffs' lawyers exposing factual errors and omissions in Bolt's articles, aimed at establishing that he had not acted fairly, accurately and in good faith.

Source

Appeals court overturns Day of Prayer ban

We read:

"A federal appeals court Thursday threw out a ruling that would have prohibited the president from declaring a National Day of Prayer, in a decision that cheered social conservatives and occasioned much wailing and gnashing of teeth by groups advocating a strict separation of church and state.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation announced that it would seek a rehearing by the full 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after a three-judge panel ruled against its challenge to the 1952 law, which instructs the president to issue a proclamation encouraging citizens to pray.

The Chicago-based court ruled that the organization lacked standing because it suffered no harm. It noted that the proclamation requires the president only to take action and does not compel any individual to pray “any more than a person would be obliged to hand over his money if the president asked all citizens to support the Red Cross or other charities.”

The decision overturns the April 2010 ruling of U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Crabb, a Carter appointee, who declared the law unconstitutional because it constituted a call to religious action. The appeal was filed by the Justice Department on behalf of President Obama.

Source

Biased judge behind Wilders trial

We read:

"Defence lawyers sought Wednesday to discredit a judge who ordered Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders to face trial on charges of inciting hatred against Muslims. Wilders, leader of the country's third-largest political party, says he has done nothing wrong by expressing his opinions that Islam is a violent ideology comparable with fascism, and that the Qur’an should be banned.

Defence witness Hans Jansen, a retired professor of Arabic and Islamic studies, testified that he had been approached at a dinner by appeals judge Tom Schalken to discuss the Wilders case shortly before the trial was to start. Defence lawyers argue that contact was inappropriate and grounds for dismissing the hate speech case. Schalken sat on the panel that ordered Wilders' case to proceed, even after prosecutors had declined to press charges and a trial court had endorsed that decision.

"Do you think that he(Schalken) tried to influence your testimony?" defence lawyer Bram Moszkowicz asked Jansen. "Yes. I think he did," Jansen answered.

Schalken, testifying later, denied trying to influence Jansen or having committed any impropriety. He said he was surprised to learn that Jansen considered Wilders' prosecution a "witchhunt."

Schalken said he didn't think that Jansen understood the appeals panel's reasoning, so he tried to explain it to him "so he could form his viewpoint on the basis of the right foundation."

Judges are expected to rule on the motion for dismissal on Friday.

Source

The judge's ruling was clearly an activist, not a judicial one. The whole process is therefore tainted and should be halted.

Obama Should Have Never Been Born; He proves the worth of Abortion‏

Hate speech? Maybe. But if Leftists can say that sort of thing about conservatives, surely it is OK. We know that the Democrats are the party of civility in politics (many of them told us so in the wake of the Giffords shooting) so it MUST be OK!

See here for background. Excerpt:

[Olbermann] may have gone too far today when he suggested that conservative commentator S.E. Cupp is a prime example of why the world needs Planned Parenthood (PP). Translation, she should have never been born.

Rogue university President in the gun

His own pocket is now under threat! No wonder he is appealing the verdict

"In September, I wrote about a legal victory in the remarkable case of Hayden Barnes, a former student at Georgia's Valdosta State University (VSU) who was kicked out of his college for protesting a planned parking garage complex. As justification for expelling him, the university cited only a collage he had placed on Facebook, which criticized the environmental impact of the proposed garages.

According to the decision, VSU President Ronald Zaccari ignored the advice of his top administrators who warned him that punishing Barnes would violate the First Amendment, the Constitution's guarantee of due process rights for students, and the university's own contractual promises of fair procedures. Despite these warnings, Zaccari even ordered an investigation "into Barnes's academic records, his medical history, his religion," and his records with the campus psychological counseling center. When his staffers reported back to Zaccari that Barnes--a decorated emergency medical technician and Buddhist--was a threat to no one, Zaccari unilaterally decided to kick Barnes out anyway.

Having determined the facts, the federal district court decided that Zaccari had no claim to the defense of qualified immunity. Public employees enjoy immunity from liability for violating the constitutional rights of others only if they can honestly say they did not and should not have known they were violating a constitutional right. Here, not only was it quite clear to any public campus administrator that you can't kick out a student without a hearing for simply protesting a parking garage without violating the Constitution, according to the district court opinion, Zaccari was actually told as much by other administrators. There is no protection from personal financial liability for a state official who acts as a rogue agent and violates the constitutional rights of a student, nor should there be.

Unsurprisingly, Zaccari has appealed this decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. My organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which has been fighting for Barnes since 2007, has put together a spectacular coalition of organizations from across the political and ideological spectrum to explain to the Eleventh Circuit why the Barnes case is so important in an amici curiae ("friends of the court") brief.

Source

New Zealand rapper arrested by police over insulting song

The definition of obscenity has weakened over time but it has never been considered free speech

"A top Kiwi rapper has been arrested after singing the 1980s American rap anthem F.... the Police while police were inspecting a New Zealand club.

Singer Tiki Taane, who has played at several Australian festivals and was set to tour the eastern states next month, was cuffed and charged with disorderly behaviour for rapping the song during a police club inspection early on Sunday.

The rapper posted on his website "Freedom of speech is a human right'', but most Kiwis commenting on the incident cleary disagreed.

Source

Update on British Koran burner

Apparently the pigs realized that the original charge against him would not stick (How can something done in private be an offence against public order?) so they had to let him go. They now seem to be searching for something else to charge him with.

"The case has been withdrawn against a BNP candidate for the Welsh assembly election who had been accused of being filmed burning a copy of the Koran.

Sion Owens, aged 41, was charged with a public order offence on Saturday. When he appeared at Swansea Magistrates Court the Crown Prosecution Service said it was withdrawing the case against him.

CPS prosecutor Bryn Hurford told Mr Owens to be in "no doubt" that investigations into his actions were continuing and that "almost certainly other proceedings will ensue."

Source

"Childcare" now a bad word (!)

Australia:

"The term "childcare" should be cut from job descriptions and names of government departments, an early childhood advocacy group says.

Pam Cahir, the chief executive of Early Childhood Australia, says it should be replaced by the phrase "early childhood education and care" in order to recognise the sector's importance.

Childcare representatives are split over the push. One group says it's political correctness "gone mad". But the union representing early childhood workers supports a change, saying it would show staff were more than just "babysitters".

Child Care National Association president Chris Buck said families wanted affordable care, not political correctness "gone mad". He said the focus should be on rewarding staff, and training more, rather than on paying for new letterheads. "The thought police have had a brain snap," Mr Buck said. "Stop wasting money."

SOURCE

"Early childhood education and care" really trips off the tongue, doesn't it?

A small request

Quite a few comments on this site consist of people challenging one-another's religious views. I really don't think that this is the right venue for that. Can we have a little bit of tolerance? I am myself an atheist but I don't feel any need to "convert" anybody. I defend the right of both atheists and Christians to have and express their views. Is that so hard?

Jesus Statue Set Ablaze in Minn‏

If this had been a Koran the media would have been all over it, but since it is Jesus, pretty much no one cares

"It was a clash of images on Sunday in St. Paul, MN when a local man, Tuan Pham, awoke to see his beloved, custom-made Jesus statue in flames. According to family, someone took wood from a nearby pile and used a spray can to ignite a fire at the base of Pham’s 7-foot ode to Christ.

The statue took months to ship. It is a replica of a massive one Pham helped build more than 40 years ago in his hometown of Vung Tau, Vietnam. Pham says he was jailed for his catholic beliefs before he fled the country for Minnesota.

The family wonders if the fire was racially or religiously motivated, wondering why someone would try to burn marble; guessing it was merely meant to send a message. “Why does somebody need to go this far?” Phan wondered.

Source

Interesting to see American Leftists emulating Communist Vietnam. They're the same at heart.

US House votes against internet regulation

We read:

"The House of Representatives approved a measure on Friday that would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from regulating how Internet service providers manage their broadband networks, potentially overturning a central initiative of the F.C.C. chairman, Julius Genachowski. ...

Republicans in the House maintained that the order exceeded the F.C.C.’s authority and put the government in the position of overseeing what content a consumer could see and which companies would benefit from Internet access."

Source

You can't burn Korans in Britain

We read:

"A senior member of the British National Party has been arrested for allegedly burning a copy of the Koran in his garage. Sion Owens, a BNP candidate in the forthcoming Welsh Assembly elections, was charged under the Public Order Act.

He was said to have soaked the Islamic holy book in kerosene, set fire to it and watched it burn. Footage was then apparently circulated among extremists.

The alleged act, considered highly offensive to Muslims, comes after dozens died last week in riots fuelled by a similar Koran-burning incident in America.

U.S. pastor Terry Jones – who caused an outcry when he threatened to burn the holy text last year – supervised as his assistant went through with the stunt at his church in Florida late last month.

Last night, the Home Office ‘absolutely condemned’ the Koran-burning incident. A statement said: ‘It is fundamentally offensive to the values of our pluralist and tolerant society.’

South Wales Police said: ‘We always adopt an extremely robust approach to allegations of this sort and find this sort of intolerance unacceptable in our society.’

Source

I would have thought that arresting a man for burning his own property was "fundamentally offensive to the values of our pluralist and tolerant society"

Leftist New Zealand politician calls his own party a 'gaggle of gays'

We read:

"New Zealand's struggling opposition Labour Party has been labelled a "gaggle of gays" by one of its own disgruntled MPs.

In the latest drama, senior MP Damien O'Connor has publicly complained about the party's list selection processes ahead of the November 26 general election.

He said the party's newly unveiled list was dominated by "self-serving unionists and a gaggle of gays".

The comments have generated calls of homophobia, with Mr O'Connor labelled a "redneck" by a gay business association.

Source

Because he is a Leftist, criticism of him seems to have been very muted. Only the homosexuals themselves have complained, apparently

Delaware Law School Attempting to Fire Professor for Classroom Speech

We read:

"Widener University School of Law is attempting to fire longtime criminal law professor Lawrence Connell by charging him with dubious violations of the school's harassment code, such as using the term "black folks" in class and using the names of law school Dean Linda L. Ammons and other law school colleagues as characters in class hypotheticals.

Although a faculty panel has already recommended that Widener drop its "dismissal for cause" proceedings against Connell, administrators have reportedly induced students to issue further complaints under a new process that forces Connell to keep the details of the proceedings secret. Connell, who is represented by attorney Thomas S. Neuberger, also requested help from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

"Not only do the charges against Professor Connell appear to be either unsubstantiated or totally meritless, but even after the faculty refused to assent to his firing Widener has found a new, 'confidential' procedure to use against him," FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. "Professor Connell has already addressed the charges, but now he cannot publicly discuss the details of his prosecution out of fear of punishment for 'retaliatory action' if he reveals them."

Widener originally charged Connell with a long list of supposed violations, many of which were redundant. Among them was his use of the term "black folks" to describe African-Americans, which Widener apparently sees as necessarily racist despite the fact that it is widely used by people including President Barack Obama.

Source

It sounds like he is a bit of a joker and the humorless Leftists have got it in for him as a result. He has tenure so they cannot just fire him willy nilly

Australia: Must not describe a rough suburb accurately



We read:

"Media personality Deborah Hutton [above] has copped the ire of western Sydney residents for calling one of its suburbs "a terrible place".

Hutton spoke at an urban development conference in Adelaide last week, where she met Blacktown's mayor, Alan Pendleton, who said he had approached Hutton and praised her for her professionalism.

"It was suggested to her that she should get an 'I Love Blacktown' T-shirt, and she said it would be all right if it was for Blacktown in Adelaide, but not Blacktown in Sydney because it was a terrible place," the mayor recalled.

Source

RI: Atheist girl sues to get school’s Christian prayer banner removed

Most likely the girl is just a tool being used by her family

"An atheist student and the Rhode Island ACLU have filed a lawsuit against a school in the state, demanding that a banner featuring a prayer to a 'heavenly father' be removed from their facilities on the grounds that it violates the constitutional requirement of a separation between church and state.

The banner has been in the school’s auditorium for about 50 years, according to local media."

Source

How the Left hate Christianity! But what if the Heavenly Father is Allah? That would stump them! They would have to be "tolerant" then.

Naughty cakes in Austria



They would be legal in most parts of the world. Collecting Nazi memorabilia is a hobby for some. And no-one interferes with it. You can buy such items on eBay, for instance. But Hitler was an Austrian so Austrians are sensitive about that. But Beethoven and Mozart were Austrians too. You can't judge a whole nation by one man or even a group of men

"A baker is facing jail after being reported to prosecutors for making NAZI cakes. Manfred Klaschka, from Maria Enzerdorf, Austria, decorated his sick snacks with swastikas, a Messerschmitt plane and a stormtrooper's helmet. On the same cake a uniformed arm is seen bursting through the icing and giving a Nazi salute.

Another shows the SS motto "Loyalty is My Honour" while one creation has a newborn baby giving a Heil Hitler salute.

Under Austrian law it is illegal to reproduce images or propaganda glorifying the country's World War II Nazi era.

But Klaschka claims he did not create the designs — and only made the cakes to the specific instructions of a customer. He said: "If it's requested, it's made. I don't want to be pulled into this because I'm a confectioner and there's nothing more to it."

Source

Ohio College Prohibits Student From Peacefully Distributing Anti-Birth Control Literature on Campus‏

We read:

"According to FIRE, an organization dedicated to upholding civil liberties in higher education, a student at Ohio’s Sinclair Community College was banned from handing out literature about birth control, abortion, and breast cancer to students on campus.

It all began during Breast Cancer Awareness Month when student Ethel Borel-Donohue distributed about 15 flyers to a handful of students following her Probate Law I class. Borel-Donohue was in a paralegal-prep program at Sinclair Community College. The flyers she distributed, which you can see here, discussed the possible link between taking birth control/having an abortion and getting breast cancer. In that sense, the flyers caution against such forms of birth control and can be interpreted to be pro-life.

But apparently that “offended” at least one student who had previously had an abortion. As a result, Borel-Donohue was called into the office of Paralegal Program Chair who told her she had “no right” to be distributing such pamphlets.

I’m left to reason, as FIRE President Greg Lukianoff does, that “The right to distribute literature about controversial topics is one of Americans’ most hallowed rights. If someone’s claim to be offended by speech were all it took to overrule the First Amendment, we would all be reduced to silence. Thankfully the Constitution does not recognize a ‘right not to be offended.’”

FIRE has asked the college to update its student policies to conform to the First Amendment.

Source

Australia: Must not call homosexuals queens

Even if some of them behave that way

"WA Police Minister Rob Johnson has come under attack for homophobic comments towards an openly gay Labor MP in state parliament.

Opposition frontbencher John Hyde was pursuing Mr Johnson on Thursday on the cost of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) during debate over the proposed laws for the event.

However, the police minister dismissed Mr Hyde's questions as irrelevant and remarked: "He is just really, really upset and jealous that we have got a true queen coming to WA". He withdrew the comments moments later.

Mr Johnson today claimed he was referring to Queen Elizabeth II, not making any reference to the gay MP.

Source

Australian conservative politician under fire for telling the truth about Islam

We read:

"Victorian MP Bernie Finn has landed the Liberal Party into a race row after comments about the Muslim community. But Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu has refused to condemn the Liberal MPs who denounced the Islamic religion in comments on Facebook.

The Facebook comments followed a Herald Sun story earlier this week reporting that many Muslims live in ghettoes because of racist fears. Mr Finn wrote on the social media site that he failed to understand "how concerns about a religion that seems to sanction decapitation can be construed as racism".

In a rowdy question time, Labor attacked Mr Finn's comments as racist "dog whistle" politics.

But Mr Finn defended the comments as having nothing to do with racism. "No religion is specific to a skin tone or colour. Some people need to get a hobby as they have too much time on their hands if they were concerned with those comments," he said.

Mr Baillieu yesterday told Parliament multiculturalism is vital for Victoria but refused to respond to his Upper House colleague's comments as he had not seen or heard them. And the Speaker Ken Smith refused to allow Labor to table a copy of the Facebook comments.

"I would encourage all Victorians to demonstrate tolerance and their commitment to multiculturalism," Mr Baillieu said.

Earlier this year Federal Liberal leader Tony Abbott disassociated himself from outspoken South Australian Senator Cory Bernardi's attack on Islam on as a "totalitarian, political and religious" ideology.

SOURCE

NYC judge punishes woman for answering questionnaire honestly

A blatant denial of free speech

"A federal judge in New York reportedly sentenced a Brooklyn woman to indefinite jury duty after she made racist remarks toward minorities.

"This is an outrage, and so are you!" Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis told the woman as he held up her juror questionnaire, the New York Daily News reports.

The unidentified juror -- an Asian woman in her 20s who said she works in the garment industry -- was being screened for jury duty on Tuesday in the death penalty trial of Bonanno crime boss Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano.

Asked to name three people she least admired, the woman wrote on her questionnaire: "African-Americans, Hispanics and Haitians."

When Garaufis asked why she answered the question that way, the woman replied, "You always hear about them in the news doing something."

Garaufis then instructed the court that the woman would be seeing a lot of Brooklyn Federal Court in coming days. "She's coming back [today], Thursday and Friday -- and until the future, when I am ready to dismiss her," he said.

Source

It's the judge who should be charged. He is certainly misusing the processes of the court.

Michigan Auto Shop's Massive U.S. Flag Runs Afoul of Town Rules, Sparks Controversy‏

An American flag is a traffic hazard?

"It has the distinction of being the biggest American flag in Meridian, Mich. -- and it's illegal.

Belle Tire's 8-by-12 flag, at 96 square feet, is nearly three times larger than what the township allows, and the company would like to upgrade to an even larger, 600-square-foot flag. Town ordinances prohibit flags of more than 35 square feet, such as a 5-by-7 flag.

The auto care company isn't shy about its love of American flags, which it displays at its various locations in Michigan. But the flag at its Meridian location sparked controversy in February when the town issued it a notice of violation, saying that it would be fined $75 a day if the oversize flag continued to fly.

The ordinance limiting the size of flags was created to address concerns that large flags could be a distraction for drivers or even block the line of sight on streets. Belle Tire is located on Grand River, a major four-lane road that sees 22, 000 cars a day.

Susan McGillicuddy, the township's supervisor, told the Lansing State Journal that she might exercise flexibility in this case, as long as they don't propose a traffic safety hazard. She cited the pole being far enough from the road as to not pose a safety issue.

Other stores have applied for super-size American flags in the township and been denied. In 2006, for example, Graff Chevrolet Dealership failed to win permission to fly a 300-square-foot flag outside its location in town.

Source

Blasphemy and the First Amendment

You have to be a bit game to burn a Koran but as long as he owns it an American is entitled to burn any book he likes.

"A small time preacher from a tiny American church finally made good on his attention seeking threat to burn a copy of the Holy Book of a rival religion.

When news of this blasphemous insult reached the ears of rival followers overseas, they went out in a rampage, murdering 21 foreigners, and injuring 80 others so far, who had absolutely nothing to do with it. ...

The pastor claims that the murderers are responsible for the killings; all he did was express his religious opinion in America. I have to admit, as much as I can’t stand book burners, he’s right."

Source

AT&T’s secret loophole: To dump an Internet contract, cuss a bit

I rather like this:

"With telecom giant AT&T rolling out limitations and additional fees on how much information its Internet users can access, it seems the company is bracing for an influx of anger.

In a little-noticed contract tweak recently, AT&T customer service representatives have been empowered to cancel the contract of any customers who behave in an abusive manner towards them. ...

in perhaps an unintended consequence of this move, that would also allow disgruntled users to wriggle out of their contract with what The L.A. Times called 'strategic cussing.'"

Source

TX: That flag again

We read:

"Members of a local Sons of Confederate Veterans group took the flag down late Monday, even as the City Council was passing a resolution asking for the flag's removal.

Anderson County commissioners voted 3-2 last week to fly the First National Flag for Confederate History and Heritage Month at the request of the local SCV.

Many in the packed crowd of 60 in City Hall leaped to their feet when Mayor Bob Herrington announced, "The flag is down!"

He and council members had criticized the flag as divisive and bad for business. Herrington said he supports studying history but that the national flag should not fly over the courthouse because "That is not our government."

Source

Some history may not be referred to -- let alone honored

Super-correct Britain

Wrong to say one class is as bad as another?

"When teacher Sonya McNally posted a throwaway comment about her rowdy 12-year-old pupils on Facebook, little did she realise it would come back to haunt her. The message, tapped out in reply to a colleague’s niggle about children at her school, seemed innocuous enough: ‘By the way, [class] 8G1 are just as bad as 8G2. LOL (laugh out loud)’ she joked sympathetically.

Within a few weeks, however, 37-year-old Sonya’s world had been turned upside down. Suspended from her job at Humberston Comprehensive School after another member of staff reported her, it sparked a chain of events that culminated in the Information Technology teacher, from Grimsby, Lincs, being sacked from the job she loved.

‘When I wrote that message, I thought nothing of it,’ she says. ‘There was no mention of the school anywhere on my account and I didn’t name any pupils. The only people who could see it were my family, friends and colleagues from the school. The teacher who reported me was a friend on Facebook.

Sonya, who was suspended on full pay, contacted her union, which took up her case. She was eventually told what she had done wrong at the hearing itself. The panel consisted of the headteacher, Sonya’s line manager and a member of the local council’s human resources department.

‘When they showed me a print out of the Facebook page, I almost burst out laughing.’ she says. ‘They said that I was bringing the school into disrepute and that the governors, parents and pupils at school could have seen it.

‘I tried to explain that only those people I was friends with could see what I’d written, not the whole world. I spent most of the time trying to explain how Facebook worked, but they couldn’t understand.’

Two years have passed since she posted those words and the mother-of-three still hasn’t managed to find another job.

Source

Mustn't say anything negative about anybody in Britain, Christians excepted, of course.

RINO opposes free speech

We read:

"Sen. Lindsey Graham said Congress might need to explore the need to limit some forms of freedom of speech, in light of Tennessee pastor Terry Jones’ Quran burning, and how such actions result in enabling U.S. enemies.

"I wish we could find a way to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war," Graham told CBS' Bob Schieffer on “Face the Nation” Sunday.

“During World War II, we had limits on what you could do if it inspired the enemy," Graham said, adding certain speech can “put our troops at risk.”

Source

If that's not letting the Jihadis win, I don't know what would be.

Attempt to close down British anti-immigrant party thoroughly defeated

The ECHR is headed by a black man whose judgment is obviously very poor. The first excerpt below is from last December:

"[Britain's] Equalities and Human Rights Commission (ECHR), has been defeated in its bid to kill the British National Party. A ruling in the Royal Courts of Justice this morning found against the ECHR which had launched a new action to have party leader Nick Griffin MEP declared in contempt of court.

The British National Party had already complied with an earlier court order to change its membership rules and the ECHR then brought another application claiming that Mr Griffin had not followed the court’s ruling and was therefore in contempt.

The ECHR initially sought to imprison Mr Griffin and seize party assets. This morning’s ruling squashed all of that and found that the party leader was not in contempt of court either.

“This is a great day for the British National Party,” Mr Griffin said. “We have won a spectacular David and Goliath victory for freedom. This is the fourth time that the politically correct state has tried to jail me, and it is the fourth time that it has blown up in their anti-British faces.

“We are a legal and legitimate political party which is entitled to organise and campaign for the fair treatment and equality of the British people,” he continued.

“Most important of all, this case forced the ECHR to acknowledge the existence of the native people of our islands as a distinct ethnic group, with the result that all members of that group are at last entitled to the full protection of anti discrimination laws. "The English people especially are now no longer a non-people in their own country,” Mr Griffin said.

Source

It took a few months for the matter of court costs to be adjudicated but that has now happened and the ECHR has really had its nose rubbed into its own very poor reasoning:

Nick Griffin has welcomed the ruling that the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) must pay the British National Party’s court costs in full as a “victory for freedom”.

“It is a massive victory for the British National Party and freedom and a crushing blow for the Equality and Human Rights Commission and Trevor Phillips' PC bullies,” he said.

Mr Griffin’s comments follow the High Court judgement ruling that the EHRC must pay all the costs incurred by him, Simon Darby and Tanya Lumby during their brave defence against the EHRC’s attempts to seize the Party's assets and throw the defendants into prison.

The ruling of Lord Justice Moore-Bick and Mr Justice Ramsey is a further crushing defeat for the Commission and a personal humiliation for Trevor Phillips and Simon Woolley, who at the start of proceedings boasted on TV that they were going to close the British National Party down.

Source

A great and much-needed victory for free speech in Britain

Must not mention that many male hairdressers are homosexual

An Australian footballer stuns a hairdressing audience with a quip about it.

"Former Lions player Richard Champion has shocked the Australian hairdressing industry by announcing he isn't gay, but he "could learn".

Champion, who presents Channel 7's The Great South East, and is a fan of the mullet haircut, spoke out while co-hosting the Australian Hair Fashion Awards in Brisbane.

His comments were followed by an awkward silence with co-host and fellow Seven presenter Pip Russell left to pick up the pieces.

A source told Confidential: "Champion really embarrassed himself. The gay comment had everyone stunned you could have heard a pin drop. "A lot of his other jokes really fell flat too. To top it all off, his mullet was badly styled."

Champion yesterday defended his comments, saying: "Given the company I was in there were a lot of gay people. I thought it was a fun, quirky comment."

Source

Australian Catholic school bans gay 'cure' seminar

Some ideas may not be expressed -- even ones that the Holy Father would endorse!

"A Catholic school has kiboshed a "curing homosexuality seminar" set to be held at their Caboolture college.

The meeting sparked outrage on Facebook, with a protest page set up against it. But the group holding the meeting has accused Catholic Education of discrimination over the decision.

Miracle Christian Center president Dorian Ballard denied the group was homophobic. He said they had been discriminated against and the case was now with their lawyers. "We are not homophobic, many of us have come out of the homosexual lifestyle," he said. "We are not afraid of homosexuals; we love them, we've ministered to them for years.

"This topic is always up for debate. It's great to hear a lot of different views in the broad spectrum and we have been silenced, we have been discriminated against."

SOURCE

Teacher suspended over Facebook post calling her six-year-old students 'future criminals'

It was probably an accurate judgment of most of them. The crime-rate is sky-high in such areas

"A teacher was suspended after parents complained that she allegedly described her students as 'future criminals' on her Facebook page. The first-grade teacher, who is in charge of six and seven-year-olds and who has not been named, wrote about feeling like 'a warden.'

She was suspended with pay after several parents, having seen the posts on Wednesday, turned up at School 21 in Paterson, New Jersey, and demanded their children be taken out of her class, according to board president Theodore Best.

Mr Best said: 'You can't simply fire someone for what they have on a Facebook page. But if that spills over and affects the classroom then you can take action. 'The reason why she was suspended was because the incident created serious problems at the school that impeded the functioning of the building.

The school is in a neighbourhood plagued with poverty, crime and single-parent households.

Source

Boy Suspended for Bringing Bible To School Files Suit

We read:

"A San Diego-area teen suspended for bringing his Bible to school and talking about his faith has filed a lawsuit against the school district, the superintendent, an assistant principal, and a teacher.

In January 2010, 16-year-old Kenneth Dominguez was suspended for two days from Gateway East High School for violating a teacher’s order not to bring his Bible to school and not to discuss his faith with others. Dominguez’s Bible was even confiscated by that teacher, who said Dominguez’s actions violated “separation of church and state:”

“He didn’t give any sermons or yell or scream… just sharing his faith with other students. That was it,” Brad Dacus, Dominguez’s attorney, told KGTV, adding that we don’t live in communist China.

Even the ACLU is calling the case a “clear” free-speech violation.

But a spokeswoman for the Grossmont Union High School District — the district named in the suit — contends there’s much more to the story. She couldn’t elaborate, however, to KGTV because of federal privacy laws

Source

Update

Thinking about it, I would have done much the same as the family of the boy above did. My son was not Christened around the time of his birth as neither I nor his mother have any religious beliefs. But at age 9 he announced his wish to be a Catholic. As both I and his mother had been religious in our teens and earlier we were delighted by this and put his baptism and confirmation immediately in train. And we also sent him thereafter to a Catholic school -- where his best subject was religion.

So nobody would have confiscated HIS Bible. But If I had been poor and sent him to a government school and someone had confiscated his Bible, they would have had me to deal with. And I am very good at pushing back.

A boy's religion is his own business and in the USA his practice of it is protected by the constitution. And "sharing" his religious beliefs is part of being Christian. Check Matthew 28:19-20 if you doubt it.

Anger as British schools ban Gideon Bibles to avoid upsetting other faiths

We read:

"The Gideons have become famed for handing out signature red Bibles to young children during school assemblies. But they have been told to stay away from some classes because it may spark complaints from different faiths.

Abbot Beyne School and Paget High School near Burton On Trent in Staffordshire have made the controversial ban. Maggie Tate, deputy head teacher of Abbot Beyne, said: 'The reason we stopped the Gideons coming in is that we are a comprehensive multi-faith school. We felt it was inappropriate to allow one faith group to distribute material in school.'

Headteacher at Paget High School in Branston, Don Smith, also cited multiculturalism as the reason behind the decision to abolish the tradition.

The decision has caused outrage among Christians, who have accused the schools of trying to silence Christianity. Gideons supporter Barry Martin said: 'We live in a Christian country. I think that if the Gideons want to offer Bibles to children then they should be allowed to do so.

'Banning them is not right because these schools are trying to silence Christianity and we must fight to defend it. Christians make this world a better place.'

Source

Must not laugh at foreign names

We read:

"Chief Magistrate Ian Gray says any offence caused to a man who complained his 19 letter Greek surname was mocked was "sincerely regretted".

Fifty-year-old Spiros Chryssanthakopoulos complained he had been humiliated and racially vilified after a magistrate, clerk and police prosecutor laughed while discussing his name.

Mr Chryssanthakopoulos discovered the comments after he requested a court transcript and recording of a proceeding involving a traffic infringement notice which he thought was not proceeding and did not attend.

Mr Chryssanthakopoulos has written to Mr Gray complaining that at one point a man can be heard on the recording making the comment "I can't pronounce that sh--". Its not clear on the recording who made the comment.

But the clerk can be heard laughing while struggling to pronounce Mr Chryssanthakopoulos's name, before magistrate Jack Vandersteen says: "No wonder we can't find him ... he would have been a hard name to recite 25 times. There's 19 letters in it."

Mr Chryssanthakopoulos complained to Chief Magistrate Ian Gray, but has gone public because he is concerned the matter has been swept under the carpet. "I feel humiliated, I feel like the court and police are ganging up on me. The ticket, the racial vilification, the bungles, the vindictiveness, it's all been a nightmare," Mr Chryssanthakopoulos said yesterday.

Source

I knew an Australian-born Greek guy once whose surname was originally "Drakakis". Early on, he changed it to "Drake". He said that "Drakakis" sounded like something you stood in and couldn't get off your shoe. He was wiser than the guy above.

An Anti-abortion billboard under fire again



We read:

"An anti-abortion billboard campaign using a likeness of US President Barack Obama to target African-American women has angered women's groups in Chicago.

Some 30 billboards declaring "Every 21 minutes our next possible leader is aborted" are being placed in predominantly African-American neighbourhoods in Obama's adopted hometown.

The Texas pastor behind the campaign by Life Always said he wants to "encourage reflection" about the high abortion rate among African-Americans. "For too long the scourge of abortion has been hidden behind political correctness," said Stephen Broden, who is African-American. "Liberal interests have deceived our women into believing that the answer to poverty is to murder their babies."

Planned Parenthood of Illinois called the billboards "an offensive and condescending effort to stigmatise and shame African-American women while attempting to limit their ability to make private, personal medical decisions".

Source

It is certainly true that black women are big users of abortion