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31 August, 2010
More Leftist hate speech
According to the Left, any criticism of Muslims, blacks, or homosexuals is hate speech so I like to show from time to time what REAL hate speech looks like:"Joshua Blakeney, media coordinator of globalization studies at the University of Lethbridge, has written a piece for the alternative e-weekly The Canadian Charger where he gleefully rejoices in Christopher Hitchens’ recent throat cancer diagnosis. Hitchens, a journalist and pundit, is known for his staunch views on religion and unapologetic support for the war in Iraq.
But for Blakeney writing in The Canadian Charger, it seems “impending” can’t come soon enough. The cancer is “something to be celebrated,” writes Blakeney, a U of L Masters student, “because it deprives the war propaganda machine of one of its most erudite apologists.”
Source
Canada: Praying publicly and reading from the Bible is preaching hate?
We read:"Tensions have erupted between residents of an east-Toronto neighbourhood and a church group accused of preaching hate outside the home of a local same-sex couple.I guess noisy preaching and praying could be annoying but the underlying Christian teaching that moves the group is to hate the sin but love the sinner. And if you can't hate sin, that's about the end of Christianity.
Over the weekend about a dozen parishioners were confronted by about 10 residents of the street. Local resident Geoff Skelding captured the moment on video and posted it to YouTube -- allegedly after the group prayed outside the home of the gay couple and condemned them as sinners.
The confrontation took place in the Leslieville neighbourhood near Dundas Street East and Greenwood Avenue. It's the same community where the church, Highfield Road Gospel Hall, is located.
In the description of the video he posted to YouTube, Skelding said the parishioners have been active in the area for years. "Apparently they have been grouping in front of a couple's house and reading their bible loudly for the past 7 years," he wrote.
Source
The people concerned are clearly ones with very strong Biblical beliefs and are trying in fact to save the souls of the sinners, not trying to project hate at them. They are just practicing their religion. And the Bible-based religion concerned is the sort that America was founded upon.
If they gathered before my house and endeavored to save me from my atheism, I would go up to them, shake them by the hand, thank them for their good work, assure them that they will get a blessing from their Lord for it, but tell them that I have thought about it long enough for them to be wasting their time on me and suggesting that they find someone who is more likely to respond to their efforts.
And whatever result that had, at least I would be setting an example of Christian behavior and not projecting hate at THEM!
And I am not fantasizing about treating Christians fundamentalists civilly. When Jehovah's Witnesses call at my door, I always greet them in a friendly manner and immediately ask them if they have put out any useful reference books on the Bible recently. That throws them completely off track and we simply move on to a civil discussion of their reference publications. I even buy something sometimes. Some of their books can be quite useful in finding Bible texts relevant to a given subject.
"Do unto others ...." is a pretty useful rule of behavior even for an old atheist like me. It's a rule that works well for everyone as far as I can see. But I am a conservative atheist. It's sad that Leftists seem to be too full of hate to use that rule too.
30 August, 2010
Muslims can use the N-word?
The guy behind the ground zero mosque in NYC is allowed to, apparently"Also, in the course of his remarks in the speech we're discussing, he uses the "N" word, referring to "n—-rs or whities." I can't help form wondering: Is the Reverend Al Sharpton, who has endorsed the Islamic supremacist mosque at Ground Zero, going to come forward and say something about this? Will he condemn Rauf? Will the mainstream media say something about it? Will they condemn Rauf?
For whatever point the Imam was arguably trying to make, by what standards is he let off the hook for using the word, while others, like Dr. Laura recently (who used the term to make a point about its usage), is not and widely condemned?
Please, Rev. Sharpton and the media, do come forward and explain this all to us, so we'll know the way that Rauf is using the "N" word that is acceptable for everyone else to use it.
Source
Tax as a way of silencing critics
We read:"Philadelphia is going after a popular method for citizens to express their discontent with government: blogs. The rulers of the City of Brotherly Love have not outlawed blogs; rather they are using what the nation’s fourth chief justice, John Marshall, called the “power to destroy”: taxation.
The city government is demanding that some bloggers pay $300 for a licensing fee and then pay taxes on all profits. Of course, most bloggers don’t make any money; their posting is informal and irregular. That, however, does not matter to Philadelphia officials.
For all of the revenue talk, however, I suspect there is a more important reason for this new government outrage: intimidation of anyone who would use a blog to criticize government officials. The connection is easy to make. Bloggers in Philadelphia who might utter words of dissent against the city’s ruling class would make themselves visible, especially if the comments took hold with a larger audience. Thus city officials would be able to access the records to see if the blogger had paid for a business license. If not, the rogue would be brought to justice.
This past year I used one of my blogs to write on the trial of Tonya Craft and its aftermath in northwest Georgia, and I admittedly took no prisoners. I reported on obvious instances of alleged perjury from prosecution witnesses and pointed out huge inconsistencies in the prosecutorial evidence.
Obviously, I did not earn friends on the prosecution side, and I am sure the prosecutors and judge would have loved to have shut down my blog, especially since the jury acquitted Craft. (Three days after the verdict the district attorney declared that the blogosphere “created an environment hostile to the State’s ability to receive a fair trial.”)
In this day of governments grasping for revenues, it is not surprising to see Philadelphia trying to milk the bloggers. I suspect other cities will follow suit. However, I believe that the larger issue is that governments once again are looking for any means to silence their detractors. Entities with the power to tax their critics also have the weapons to destroy them.
Source
29 August, 2010
PA: High school yearbook under fire for Hitler quote
We read:"A Pennsylvania high school is under fire after a quote from Adolf Hitler appeared in its 2010 student yearbook, The Express-Times reported Thursday.Something of a storm in a teacup, it seems to me. It is a perfectly normal motivational quote and nobody would have thought anything of it if Hitler had not been given as the author.
Easton Area High School in Easton, Pa., reportedly unveiled its new student yearbook this month featuring a quote from the Nazi dictator that appeared prominently alongside the words of other famous leaders and authors. The quote, which reads, ‘And in the last analysis, success is what matters,’ drew fierce criticism from parents and administrators who questioned how the words ever got published next to pictures of smiling students on Page 190 of the yearbook, the newspaper reported.”
Source
Interestingly, the yearbook was called "Rechauffe", which means something made up from old material; a rehash. So the Hitler quote did rather fit in there.
Third Circuit Vindicates Free Speech (Again)
We read:"Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued a resounding decision in favor of free speech by invalidating several unconstitutional speech codes. In McCauley v. University of the Virgin Islands, the Court struck down campus policies banning expression that is “offensive,” “unauthorized,” or which causes “emotional distress.”
The Court reasoned that such prohibitions were so “hopelessly ambiguous and subjective” that they could be used by university officials to arbitrarily silence protected speech, a danger the First Amendment does not permit.
The decision reaffirms what the Supreme Court has been saying for decades: state officials cannot prohibit expression simply because it angers or offends someone. Period. And this is especially true on campus—the proverbial “marketplace of ideas.” Having now stricken three school speech codes this decade, the Court of Appeals has sent a clear message that students’ First Amendment rights are alive and well in the Third Circuit.
Source
28 August, 2010
Must not warn of dangerous places in DC??
Not if they are black neighborhoods, apparently"Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck is planning a big rally at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday. But a Tea Party blogger is drawing critics tonight after his "Visitors Guide" to D.C. - warned people to stay out of certain neighborhoods. Neighborhoods it turns out, that also happen to be home to many African Americans.Apparently you are supposed to offer yourself up as a victim of black crime -- in support of the Leftist delusion that blacks are just the same as whites, only browner.
Conservative blogger Bruce Majors says he was trying to help. "I wrote a little blog telling them where it's safe to go, where it's cheap to eat." But that "little blog" has created a big controversy - with majors now facing accusations of racism. Majors says when it comes to his critics these people are "absolutely insane."
But some D.C. leaders say they have concerns about the tone of Majors blog and the Tea Party itself. D.C. Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton says the blog is telling people to stay away from black neighborhoods. "It's very worrisome," says Norton.
But Bruce Majors say he knows there was no racial message in his blog and stands by what he wrote saying "I think it's a deliberate political ploy by people who are desperate and who don't have any other ammunition."
Source
Leftists need their delusions. Reality freaks them. So you must not do or say anything that tends to undermine one of their delusions or they will burst into rage.
Leftist hate speech from the BBC
We read:" For most of us, condemning someone for where they went to school reeks of the class envy politics of much of the last century. No one, however, seems to have told the BBC where the terms Old Etonian, public school and Oxbridge appear to have become insults.
An editorial in the magazine Country Life has suggested the broadcaster is prejudiced against perceived ‘toffs’. It claimed that the BBC had a ‘family size bucket of chips’ on its shoulder and claimed that this type of ‘bigotry’ would be regarded as unacceptable in any other area of British life.
Country Life published the piece in response to a Channel 4 News item which interviewed state school pupils who wanted to go to Cambridge. The students suggested Coalition leaders had not experienced enough hardship to understand the issues facing the public. The magazine said: ‘These students were merely repeating the mantra of the moment.
‘The BBC, for example, has acquired a new lexicon of abuse, the only one it still permits itself. Milder terms include “Old Etonian”, “Oxbridge”, “public school”, “upper-class”, “toff”, “aristo”, and the unspeakable “posh”.
These look harmless enough, but listen to the animus with which they’re used. Even in lighter contexts, such as Radio 4’s The News Quiz, “toff” is a cue for bigotry of a kind no longer acceptable in any other area of British life.
SOURCE
27 August, 2010
Leftist thugs attack political freedoms
In the modern world, political speech that is not funded is speech suppressed"MoveOn.org is up to its usual tricks rallying support for a boycott of Target because Target gave $150,000 to gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, a Republican from Minnesota. They try to demonize Target for using corporate monies to support Emmer and influence democracy.
This is the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling which allows corporations to donate unlimited sums of money directly to political candidates."
Source
Arizona Man Fights to Keep Gadsden Flag Flying Outside His Home?
We read:"An Arizona man fighting to keep a historical American flag flying outside his home vows he will not take it down unless a judge orders him to.
Andy McDonel of Leveen, Ariz., says he received a letter from his homeowner's association, Avalon Village Community Association, on Aug. 6 instructing him to "remove debris" from his suburban Phoenix home within 10 days or face a $25 fine.
"They were talking about the Gadsden flag," McDonel told Fox News on Wednesday. "I fly it to honor the Founding Fathers of America, you know, the perseverance they went through. They sacrificed their honor, their lives and their fortune to establish this great nation."
McDonel says he's been told his 3-by-5 flag doesn't meet requirements, but he cited Arizona statutes that allow for the display of U.S. flags, military flags, the Arizona state flag or tribal nation flags. Unless a judge or a relevant authority orders him to take the flag down, McDonel said, he'll continue to fly it.
"This falls under a military service flag," McDonel said. "I think they're associating it with a political movement going on right now. The history and the significance of the flag far supersedes any political movement that's going on."
Source
26 August, 2010
Free speech for Wikileaks?
I rarely find much to agree with on Salon but the following excerpt seems well-founded:"There is not a shred of evidence that any act WikiLeaks has undertaken -- including the release of the last batch of Afghan war documents -- "has killed people." To say that Assange is "a murderer of American and Afghani people" is so far removed from reality, exhibits such an irresponsible detachment from the truth, that it's hard to express in words.
Even the Pentagon admits that there is no evidence whatsoever to support Carroll's factual claims. From The Washington Post, August 11: "'We have yet to see any harm come to anyone in Afghanistan that we can directly tie to exposure in the WikiLeaks documents,' [Pentagon spokesman Geoff] Morrell said." It's plausible to speculate that WikiLeaks' disclosure creates some risk of future harm, but to assert that "American and Afghani people" have been killed by such disclosures is just a total fabrication.
Carroll's emphatic decree that Assange "is a criminal" because he "broke U.S. law" is even more ignorant, though at least in an interesting and revealing way. He's not alone in being unaware that the U.S. -- unlike many other countries -- does not have a general criminal prohibition on disclosing state secrets. It is, of course, illegal for those with an affirmative duty to safeguard secrets (such as government and military employees) to leak certain categories of classified information, but it is generally not illegal for non-governmental third parties -- such as media outlets or private citizens -- to publish that information.
That's why it's extremely difficult to prosecute newspapers for publishing classified information -- such as when The New York Times published the Pentagon Papers or the story of Bush's illegal NSA spying program, or when Dana Priest exposed the CIA's network of secret black sites. To simply assert that WikiLeaks or Assange clearly broke the law by publishing classified information -- despite the fact that they are not government employees -- is to exhibit a monumental ignorance of the subject matter on which one is opining.
There are legal theories under the Espionage Act of 1917 which, in some very narrow cases, can make it plausible to prosecute even non-governmental actors for publishing information, but doing so is very difficult. The Bush DOJ tried and failed to invoke those theories to prosecute two AIPAC officials -- private American citizens -- who were accused of receiving classified information from a DoD official and then transmitting it to the Israeli Government and to various journalists.
Indeed, the very idea of criminalizing the mere receipt and transmission of classified information by non-government-employees is incredibly dangerous, as it would criminalize much of what investigative reporters do, which is why even harsh AIPAC critics -- such as myself -- found that AIPAC prosecution to be so chilling.
There are countries (such as Britain) that criminalize all disclosures of classified information, but the U.S. is not one of them.
What's most interesting to me about the certainty of Carroll and plenty of others that WikiLeaks broke the law is that Assange -- unlike the two AIPAC officials whom the Government was unable to convict -- is not even a U.S. citizen, and WikiLeaks is not an American organization.
Just consider the mindset implicit in this belief that they "broke U.S. law": once the Pentagon decrees that something is secret, not only American citizens -- but every human being on the planet -- is thereby barred from talking about or disclosing it, upon pain of being declared a criminal.
As I've said many times, the criticism that WikiLeaks should have been more careful in redacting the initial release of documents out of concern for innocent Afghans is a reasonable (though sometimes exaggerated and hypocritical) one. But the broader anger at WikiLeaks seems clearly grounded in its defiance of U.S. Government decrees over what may and may not be publicly aired.
Source
Columbia grad wants to know who called her a 'whore' on YouTube
I think this is a case of libel rather than free speech but the right to comment anonymously is nonetheless an important one -- in political matters at least. There are some very vindictive Muslims, homosexuals and Leftists around who are prone to attack anyone who challenges them. So anonymity ENABLES free speech in some instances"A Columbia business school grad wants a judge to unmask the cowardly creep who anonymously labeled her a "whore" on YouTube. In a Manhattan Supreme Court suit, Carla Franklin says she has "suffered damages in the form of distress and mental anguish" from the mean-spirited posting, and wants a judge to give her a court order to force Google and YouTube to turn over the poster's identity.Chastity?? There's such a thing in NYC?
Google and YouTube don't comment on specific legal cases, but typically will turn over IP addresses and other identifying information if there's a court order.
The lawyer said his client has no way of knowing how the postings may have affected her job search out of school, but noted that under New York law, calling someone a "whore" when they're not is considered defamatory because it "impugns a woman's chastity."
Source
25 August, 2010
The pathetic Leftist faith in verbal magic rolls on
Don't label heroin users as 'junkies'"People should stop calling heroin users "junkies" or "addicts", an influential think tank on drugs has said. The UK Drug Policy Commission said such names stigmatised users and made it more difficult to get off drugs.Drug addicts have for some time been referred to simply as "users" in professional circles -- but even that vague term has already acquired a tone of contempt.
Its report suggested that the policing of drugs on the streets and methadone programmes forcing users to go to chemists were "publicly humiliating".
Instead, the study said that British society needed to show more compassion towards drug users. Authors of the six-month report said the terms "junkie" and "addict" were distrustful and judgmental and led to feelings of low self-worth among drug users.
"The crux of this problem, I'm afraid, is the persistent view that drug addiction is the problem of the addict," he said. [It isn't??]
Source
US teacher loses job after Facebook posts about 'germ bag'
We read:"A teacher who was forced to resign after calling her students "germ bags" on Facebook has admitted what she did was stupid, but refused to apologise.But what if everything she said was true? I have a feeling that it might have been. So do we have here a case of someone losing their job for telling the truth?
June Talvitie-Siple, 54, from Quincy, Massachusetts said she thought her Facebook posts were only visible to her friends when she also described the parents of her students as "snobby" and "arrogant", The Patriot Ledger reported.
The high school maths and science teacher in Cohasset, Massachusetts was forced to resign from the school after parents spotted the posts and complained to the school superintendent.
Ms Talvitie-Siple had complained to her friends on the social networking site that her students were "germ bags" as she had been sick for six months and students kept infecting her.
She also wrote: "I'm so not looking forward to another year at Cohasset Schools," adding that the community was "arrogant" and "snobby".
Source
Competent math and science teachers are hard to find so I suspect that the schoolkids concerned will be the losers from the thin skin of the teacher's critics
24 August, 2010
When It Comes to the Ground Zero Mosque: `Truth Is the New Hate Speech'
Excerpt below from Pamela Geller -- as she answers the hate speech against her emanating from Britain's Leftist "Guardian". Giving voice to the fact that most Americans are opposed to the mosque is "hate speech", apparently
The left is dismissive of the grief and offense caused by the prospect of a victory mosque at Ground Zero. Despite all the competition from its many rivals in this game, the Guardian took first prize for smear, slander, libel and personal destruction. The notoriously anti-Semitic Guardian took on the Jewish Atlas, and could barely contain itself.
My crime? Hate speech. And that proves once again what I have contended all along: "truth is the new hate speech." Knowledgeable conservative readers will get a charge out of the Guardian's story, which is a mixture of pure fiction and dangerous lies, all devoted to the marginalization of those who dare to expose the liberal media propaganda machine.
The anti-Semitism was open: "Geller," claimed Chris McGreal, the author of the piece, "writes for an Israeli media network based in the occupied territories that is the voice of the Jewish settler movement."
I do? They just make stuff up. I don't even know what they are talking about, but if Chris McGreal is in touch with this "Israeli media network," he should let them know that I would love to write for them - please point the way!
The rest of the piece is just as ridiculous. "Pamela Geller," the Guardian tells its mouth-breathing readers, "is on a mission to save the free world and she's doing it, on this occasion, in a bikini as she writhes around in the sea
The 2006 bikini vlog is back! I've recorded 400 vlogs and the sticky-fingered smear machine can't stop watching the one in which I'm wearing a bikini and wading in the ocean. I just hope they watch it with the sound on.
The Guardian does try to be serious, however, and to hurl some serious charges at me: "But while Geller has inserted herself into mainstream politics in America, she has also aligned herself with far-right causes across the globe including the English Defence League in Britain, white supremacists in South Africa and Serbian war criminals."
Yes, I stand with the EDL, who are resisting the Islamization of Britain, and the Serbs, who are resisting the Islamization of the Balkans. I also stand against the genocide in South Africa. White supremacists? War criminals? This is the genocidal Guardian at its mendacious best. Nice work, goosesteppers.
Source (See the original for links)
Jewish symbols not allowed
We read:"A Grafton woman is angry after being told to take down religious symbols. Marlene Tracy was told the decorations violated her apartment’s lease, but now she suspects discrimination. Tracy had a star of David and three small Israeli flags on the front door of her Grafton apartment.
But last Sunday, she got a note from management telling her to take it all down. The note said, “Please remove religious fixtures from the door.”
But why then, Tracy asks, do other doors in the complex have decorations? It didn't add up. I thought something is wrong,” Tracy said. 12 News found flower decorations, three welcome signs and a heart-shaped American flag that read, “God bless America” -- all hanging from other apartment complex doors.
“Why was I centered out if I was to remove what was on my door and everybody else has their things still there?” Tracy said. “I personally think there is some anti-Semitism. I do.”
Source
23 August, 2010
Dutch declare a MUSLIM cartoon illegal!
Maybe there's hope for the Dutch yet!"A Dutch Muslim group was fined 2,500 euros for publishing a cartoon which suggested the Holocaust was made up or exaggerated by Jews, a Dutch appeals court ruled on Thursday.
The court in the western city of Arnhem overruled an acquittal handed down by a Dutch lower court, saying the cartoon, published on the website of the Arab European League's (AEL) in 2006, was "unnecessarily hurtful".
The cartoon shows two men in Auschwitz looking at several dead bodies. "I don't think they are Jews", says one man. The one man replies: "We have to get to the 6,000,000 (figure) somehow'. Six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.
The AEL circulated it in 2006 after a Danish newspaper published a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad which triggered an outcry among Muslims in many countries.
Source
Dirty tricks against Wikileaks quickly unravel
We read:"Swedish prosecutors withdrew an arrest warrant for the founder of WikiLeaks on Saturday, saying less than a day after the document was issued that it was based on an unfounded accusation of rape.Secrecy is a prime weapon of tyrants and all governments use it to protect themselves so I am very proud of what my fellow Australian is doing.
They said that for the moment Julian Assange remains suspected of the lesser crime of molestation in a separate case.
But Karin Rosander, a spokeswoman for the Swedish Prosecution Authority, told NBC News that the allegation of molestation remains. However, Rosander said that after a new prosecutor looked at the allegations, the arrest warrant was withdrawn because the severity of the case does not require an arrest at this stage.
A WikiLeaks spokesman, who says he goes by the name Daniel Schmitt in order to protect his identity, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Iceland that the "extremely serious allegations" came as a complete surprise and that efforts to find lawyers for Assange are under way.... "We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks.' Now we have the first one," it said.
Assange was in Sweden last week partly to apply for a publishing certificate to make sure the website, which has servers in Sweden, can take full advantage of Swedish laws protecting whistle-blowers.
Source
It is however a pity that secrecy that is really needed -- in military operational matters -- can get caught up in the process. Assange has however held back a lot so far in an awareness of that consideration so is to be congratulated on those grounds too. There have so far been no established instances of his revelations actually leading to military problems
If they arrest him, however, his co-workers will let the lot flood out so Obama is obviously running scared. The swift reversal of the Swedish action sounds to me like a direct response to an urgent request from the White House
22 August, 2010
She tried to beat the double standard and lost
Laura Schlessinger thought she could use the N-word while DISCUSSING racial abuse but even that was not allowed. She mentioned that black males used it all the time so felt that she too had some right to use it -- but conservative whites are NEVER allowed to use it -- so she lost"Talk show host Dr Laura Schlessinger is fighting back following her infamous use of the 'N' word on her syndicated radio show last week. The conservative pundit used the word 11 times during a conversation with an African American caller named Jade.
The incident set off a fire storm of criticism and Schlessinger was forced to apologise. Shortly afterwards her show, The Dr. Laura Program, was cancelled.
After appearing on Larry King Live to discuss the incident, Schlessinger sat down to an in-depth interview with the Hollywood Reporter and made it clear she felt she was being unfairly censored.
Source
Satire banned in Brazil ahead of presidential election
We read:"Brazil's comedians and satirists have been banned from making fun of candidates ahead of the nation's presidential election in October. The legal ban could last until a possible runoff on Oct 31.
Brazilian performers are planning to fight for their right to ridicule with protests in Rio de Janeiro and other cities on Sunday.
Dubbed the "anti-joking law", the relic of Brazil's 1964-1985 dictatorship prohibits ridiculing candidates in the three months before elections. Critics say the ban threatens free speech and is a blight on the reputation of Latin America's largest nation.
Source
21 August, 2010
Seneca Nation Wants Bloomberg Out Over 'Cowboy Hat and a Shotgun' Comment?
We read:"A Native American tribe is calling on New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to either apologize or resign after he said on a radio show that Gov. David Paterson -- who's trying to rustle up millions in cigarette taxes from the tribes -- should grab "a cowboy hat and a shotgun" and demand the money.That IS rather surprising language from Bloomers and it would certainly get a conservative called racist -- but Bloomers is Left-leaning so he can say what he wants
The mayor made the comments last week during an on-air discussion about the cigarette tax the state of New York wants to impose on Indian tribes starting Sept. 1. The hike has already touched off a court battle, but Bloomberg called for Paterson to flex some frontier justice.
That didn't sit well with the New York tribes. "If it were any other race of people, he would really have been ridiculed over the words that he said," said J.C. Seneca, a Tribal Council member with the Seneca Nation of Indians.
The nation said that the mayor should resign "effective immediately" over his "inflammatory and racially insensitive" remarks -- or at least apologize.
But Bloomberg is not backing down. Spokeswoman Jessica Scaperotti said the mayor is not planning to apologize or resign. "There will not be an apology forthcoming," she said. "What the New York City mayor's office is looking to do is to have the tribes follow the law."
Source
Must not parody foxy Foxman
We read:"Social networking sites' terms of service are meant to prevent fraud, defamation and hate speech, not the expression of legitimate political sentiments, however controversial. But enforcing them can sometimes have the same effect.
In late July, an anonymous user of Twitter, the microblogging service, created a parody account to criticize Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, over his opposition to the so-called "Ground Zero mosque." While the Twitter stream was titled "(Not) Abe Foxman," it used the handle @abefoxman. "I oppose bigotry against Muslims, except when I support bigotry against Muslims," (Not) Abe Foxman wrote in a typical Tweet.
But on August 2, all of (Not) Abe Foxman's posts were deleted. That was done at the request of the ADL.
Source
20 August, 2010
Federal Appeals Court Rules Against Utah Memorial Crosses Along Highway
We read:"A federal appeals court says the 14 crosses erected along state highways to commemorate fallen Utah Highway Patrol troopers are a violation of the U.S. Constitution.A cross is a conventional marker of mourning in the USA and many other countries -- many of which (such as Britain) are only minimally religious -- so might well have been allowed on those grounds.
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the memorials had the effect of conveying a state endorsement or preference of a certain religion.
The ruling reverses a 2007 judge's decision that the crosses communicate a secular message about deaths and were not an illegal public endorsement of religion.
The Texas-based American Atheists Inc., sued to have the crosses removed from state property. The group claimed that without context the crosses imply that trooper who died there was a Christian. [Rubbish! All sorts of people who were not religious during their lives have Christian rites at burial for purely social reasons]
Source
In any case, however, the crosses do NOT "establish" a religion. The State would have to be paying the clergy for that to be the case.
Next stop would be SCOTUS but that would be unlikely to be successful as SCOTUS does accept the spurious claim that the constitution demands a separation of church and State -- a much wider demand than forbidding an established church, which is what the constitution actually says
Must not juxtapose mention of baboons with mention of Africans
The passage was on the blog of the London Review of Books"R. W. Johnson, an author and emeritus fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, described the aggressive behaviour of baboons near Cape Town in the first paragraph of the article.So that readers can judge for themselves, I reproduce the censored passage below. Apparently it is wrong to say that both baboons and poor Africans were looking for food:
He then juxtaposed this with a second paragraph about migrants and xenophobic attacks in a nearby settlement, prompting widespread criticism and a letter of complaint to the LRB, signed by 73 individuals, including prominent academics and journalists from various countries.
Critics felt that the article was racist, a charge that Johnson has denied. The LRB removed the posting and later made an apology for the post.
Source“We are being besieged by baboons again. This happens quite often here on the Constantiaberg mountains (an extension of the Table Mountain range). Baboons are common in the Cape and they are a great deal larger than the vervet monkeys I was used to dealing with in KwaZulu-Natal. They jump onto roofs, overturn dustbins and generally make a nuisance of themselves; since their teeth are very dirty, their bite can be poisonous. They seem to have lots of baby baboons – it’s been a very mild winter and so spring is coming early – and they’re looking for food. The local dogs don’t like them but appear to have learned their lesson from the last baboon visit: then, a large rottweiler attacked the apes, who calmly tore it limb from limb.It seems to me that nobody would be worried about the juxtaposition unless they could see something in a comparison between blacks and baboons. So in that case, the ban on the above passage tells us rather a lot about what was in the minds of those who banned it.
“Meanwhile in the squatter camps, there is rising tension as the threat mounts of murderous violence against foreign migrants once the World Cup finishes on 11 July. These migrants – Zimbabweans, Malawians, Congolese, Angolans, Somalis and others – are often refugees and they too are here essentially searching for food. The Somalis are the most enterprising and have set up successful little shops in the townships and squatter camps, but several dozen Somali shopkeepers have already been murdered, clearly at the instigation of local black shopkeepers who don’t appreciate the competition. The ANC is embarrassed by it all and has roundly declared that there will be no such violence. The truth is that no one knows. The place worst hit by violence in the last xenophobic riots here was De Doorns and the army moved into that settlement last week, clearly anticipating trouble. The tension is ominous and makes for a rather schizoid atmosphere as the Cup itself mounts towards its climax.”
19 August, 2010
Belief in verbal magic rumbles on
"Retarded" was originally a neutral word replacing terms like "stupid", "dumb" etc. but it became a derogatory word because what it describes is unattractive. The same will rapidly happen to any new terms the do-gooders come up with. Reality bites no matter what you call it. "A rose by any other name...""A movement to eliminate references to the disabled as "mentally retarded" from laws and regulations gained steam this week after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie signed legislation replacing the terms with "intellectual disability" and "developmental disability."
This month, the U.S. Senate passed a similar bill and the House will take up its version next month.
While advocates for the disabled have campaigned for years against the R-word, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel drew attention to the issue this year when he apologized for privately calling a group of liberal Democrats "retarded" last year. Sarah Palin, who has a son with Down syndrome, criticized Emanuel in a Facebook posting.
Source
Lies are protected free speech?
The 9th circus again:"A three-year-old federal law that makes it a crime to falsely claim to have received a medal from the U.S. military is unconstitutional, an appeals court panel in California ruled Tuesday.
The decision involves the case of Xavier Alvarez of Pomona, Calif., a water district board member who said at a public meeting in 2007 that he was a retired Marine who received the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military decoration.
Alvarez was indicted in 2007. He pleaded guilty on condition that he be allowed to appeal on First Amendment grounds. He was sentenced under the Stolen Valor Act to more than 400 hours of community service at a veterans hospital and fined $5,000.
A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with him in a 2-1 decision Tuesday, agreeing that the law was a violation of his free-speech rights. The majority said there's no evidence that such lies harm anybody, and there's no compelling reason for the government to ban such lies.
The dissenting justice insisted that the majority refused to follow clear Supreme Court precedent that false statements of fact are not entitled to First Amendment protection.
Source
18 August, 2010
Fred Phelps has a win
We read:"Missouri's tight restrictions on protests and picketing outside military funerals were tossed out by a federal judge Monday, over free speech concerns.Phelps is of course offensive but he is setting precedents that may well help preserve the free speech rights of others
A small Kansas church had brought suit over its claimed right to loudly march outside the burials and memorial services of those killed in overseas conflicts. The state legislature had passed a law to keep members of the Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church from demonstrating within 300 feet of such private services.
Source
Cyberwar against Wikileaks? Good luck with that
We read:"Should the U.S. government declare a cyberwar against WikiLeaks? “The United States has the cyber capabilities to prevent WikiLeaks from disseminating those materials,” wrote Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen on Friday. “Will President Obama order the military to deploy those capabilities? … If Assange remains free and the documents he possesses are released, Obama will have no one to blame but himself.”
But a previous U.S.-based effort to wipe WikiLeaks off the internet did not go well. In 2008, federal judge Jeffrey White in San Francisco ordered the WikiLeaks.org domain name seized as part of a lawsuit filed by Julius Baer Bank and Trust, a Swiss bank that suffered a leak of some of its internal documents. Two weeks later the judge admitted he’d acted hastily, and he had the site restored. “There are serious questions of prior restraint, possible violations of the First Amendment,” he said.
The U.S. government has other, less legal, options, of course — the “cyber” capabilities Thiessen alludes to. The Pentagon probably has the ability to launch distributed denial-of-service attacks against WikiLeaks’ public-facing servers. If it doesn’t, the Army could rent a formidable botnet from Russian hackers for less than the cost of a Humvee.
But that wouldn’t do much good either. WikiLeaks wrote its own insurance policy two weeks ago, when it posted a 1.4 GB file called insurance.aes256.
The file’s contents are encrypted, so there’s no way to know what’s in it. But, as we’ve previously reported, it’s more than 19 times the size of the Afghan war log — large enough to contain the entire Afghan database, as well as the other, larger classified databases said to be in WikiLeaks’ possession.
Whatever the insurance file contains, Assange — appearing via Skype on a panel at the Frontline Club — reminded everyone Thursday that he could make it public at any time. “All we have to do is release the password to that material and it’s instantly available,” he said.
WikiLeaks is encouraging supporters to download the insurance file through the BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay. “Keep it safe,” reads a message greeting visitors to the WikiLeaks chat room. After two weeks, the insurance file is doubtless in the hands of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of netizens already.
Source
17 August, 2010
Military authorities want to keep Marines in the dark
One would have thought that -- of all people -- Marines should be as fully informed as possible"Many people have heard of the website WikiLeaks, a document sharing website where anyone can contribute leaks of sensitive governmental, corporate, organizational, or religious documents anonymously. …Military bureaucracy at its craziest
Despite the fact that the information is now available to the general public, the information is still classified.
‘We’re just trying to get the word out to everyone and prevent service members from ruining their careers over this,’ said Michael Miglionico, the information assurance manager, Marine Corps Bases Japan. ‘Luckily so far we’ve had no reported incidences.’
Viewing or downloading these documents without the proper security clearance and authority can result in a variety of repercussions from non-judicial punishment to court martial, loss of clearance and denial of reenlistment.”
Source
Students in Scotland want to censor conservative British professor
We read:"A distinguished British professor is facing a backlash from students at St Andrews University because of his stance on homosexuality. Prof Roger Scruton was appointed quarter-time professorial fellow in moral philosophy and is due to take up his new role in the spring.Good to find one university that stands up for free speech
But the university’s students’ association has hit out at comments Prof Scruton made in 2007, where he defended the rights of children in an article about same-sex adoption, and stated that homosexuality was “not normal”.
The group has raised objections to Prof Scruton’s appointment claiming his views could create an “uncomfortable” atmosphere for homosexual students.
A university statement said: “Like all members of staff, Prof Scruton will be expected to abide by our equal opportunities and anti-discrimination policies.” The statement continued: “Universities, however, particularly where philosophical argument is concerned, must be the one place where differing and difficult views can be freely held, expressed and challenged without fear of discrimination. “That is the essence of academic freedom.”
Source
16 August, 2010
Calif. school caves in on abortion -- to the tune of $50,000!
We read:"A Merced school district has agreed to pay $50,000 to settle a lawsuit filed on behalf of a former sixth-grade student who was asked to remove an anti-abortion T-shirt.
Attorneys for Tiffany Amador say officials at McSwain Union Elementary School called the shirt disruptive when she wore it in April 2008. It showed pictures of an apparent fetus and said "ABORTION: growing... growing... gone."
Los Angeles attorney William Becker says the resolution amounted to a victory for his then-12-year-old client and for free speech rights in schools.
Source
Leftist film director defends Hitler and other such folk
We read:"Director Oliver Stone belittled the Holocaust during a shocking interview with the Sunday Times today, claiming that America's focus on the Jewish massacre was a product of the "Jewish domination of the media."Well I guess Stone is consistent. Hitler WAS one of his lot. Jewish groups and some others raised hell about his comments, however, so he was forced to apologize and backtrack but it seems a pretty good example of Leftist hate speech: Classic Jew hatred in fact.
The director also defended Hitler and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and railed against the "powerful lobby" of Jews in America.
Stone said that his upcoming Showtime documentary series "Secret History of America," seeks to put Hitler and Communist dictator Joseph Stalin "in context."
"Hitler was a Frankenstein but there was also a Dr Frankenstein. German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support," Stone told reporter Camilla Long during the interview, which can be found behind the paywall on the Sunday Times' website.
Source
Any mention of race by a conservative can get you condemned as a racist with subsequent firing, blacklisting etc. But if you are a Castro-idolizing Leftist, you can praise the worst racist in history and not suffer much damage.
15 August, 2010
Rage against three judges leads to conviction
We read:"After three trials, a jury convicted Internet radio host and blogger Hal Turner of threatening the lives of three U.S. appeals-court judges.Two previous juries were "hung" but the government kept on going until a jury gave the "right" answer. It was obviously clear to many previous jurors that saying somebody "deserves" to be killed is an expression of opinion, not a threat and, as such, is entitled to first Amendment protection. One hopes that the verdict is appealed.
Turner, 48, was found guilty by a federal jury in Brooklyn, New York, of a single count of threatening in Internet postings to assault and murder the judges because he disagreed with one of their rulings. That was the only count he faced.
“There goes the First Amendment for everybody,” Turner’s mother, Kathy Diamond, said after the verdict. “Since when does words mean you threatened to kill somebody?”
Turner used his Web site to post the judges’ names, as well as their photographs and work addresses, and a map of their courthouse.
“Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed,” Turner wrote of the appeals court panel in a Web posting. “Their blood will replenish the tree of liberty. A small price to pay to assure freedom for millions.”
Source
He actually said in another posting: "We hope our method does not become necessary", referring to assassinations. So there was again no threat, just a warning of what could be.
He does seem to be a rather nasty bill of goods but he has the same speech rights as anybody else. When I hear of some atrocity, it certainly occurs to me on some occasions that the offender deserves to fry. Do I now have no right to say so in America?
Conservative organizations call out the FCC on internet regulation
We read:"The below letter was sent to the FCC regarding their proposed regulation of the internet. Over 150 organizations, bloggers and state lawmakers opposed the regs in the below letter:If it aint broke, don't fix it.
We the undersigned, representing millions of American citizens, write in strong opposition to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) effort to regulate the Internet.
Over the past 25 years, the Internet has flourished in large part due to the extremely limited role that government has played. In less than a decade, the private sector has expanded broadband Internet access to over 95 percent of American households. Since 2004, the price to access the Internet has dropped by 23 percent, while during the same period overall consumer prices have trended upward.
Despite universal acknowledgement that Americans enjoy a free, open, and vibrant Internet, the FCC is relentlessly pursuing a massive regulatory regime that would stifle broadband expansion, create congestion, slow Internet speeds, jeopardize job retention and growth, and lead to higher prices for consumers.
More here
14 August, 2010
The Leftist "Media Matters" calls for Pamela Geller to be denied TV coverage
We read:"Numerous mainstream media outlets have recently hosted right-wing "Atlas Shrugs" blogger Pamela Geller to discuss the controversy surrounding a proposed Islamic community center set to be built blocks away from Ground Zero.They go on to quote quite an encyclopedia of things she has said, most of which seem either factual or defensible to me but which they believe show her as uttering "hate speech". They seem quite grieved that she as a Jew has spoken scornfully of "Foxy" Foxman and his anti-Christian ADL
However, Geller's history of outrageous, inflammatory and false claims, particularly when it comes to issues related to Islam, demonstrate that she cannot be expected to make accurate statements and should not be rewarded with a platform on national television.
Source
There is no doubt that she is one outspoken lady. I think we need more like her. She actually gets airtime on the mainstream media, which is very hard for anyone as opposed to Islam as she is.
TWO Democrats publish death wishes for Sarah Palin
And they accuse conservatives of hate speech! If a conservative said this about a liberal there would be an uproar for months but this post will probably be the last you hear about the matter"A New Hampshire state representative has resigned his position and announced he will not run for re-election after writing that a dead Sarah Palin is "more dangerous than a live one."
State Rep. Timothy Horrigan stepped down Thursday after posting a Facebook page in which he described the "myth" of the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican presidential candidate.
His resignation comes after another New Hampshire Democratic candidate apologized the same day for his Facebook post in which he wished Sarah Palin and the father of her grandchild, Levi Johnston, had been on the plane that crashed Tuesday, killing former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.
"Just wish Sarah and Levy [sic] were on board," Keith Halloran originally wrote in reference to Palin and Johnston, her daughter Bristol's ex-boyfriend.
In his post, Horrigan wrote, "a dead Palin wd [sic] be even more dangerous than a live one...she is all about her myth & if she was dead, she cldn't [sic] commit any more gaffes."
Source
13 August, 2010
Must not criticize homosexual parenting
A Christian candidate for the Australian Senate is under fire"A mother who is raising a child with her same-sex partner has lodged a formal anti-discrimination complaint against Family First senate candidate Wendy Francis.Certain viewpoints must not be expressed -- even during an election campaign, it seems (Australians go to the polls later this month).
Kelly Pilgrim-Byrne from Perth is among several complainants seeking action against Francis, who is Family First’s lead senate candidate for Queensland, over remarks she made comparing same-sex parenting to child abuse.
In a Twitter post on Sunday, Francis said: “Children in homosexual relationships are subject to emotional abuse. Legitimising gay marriage is like legalising child abuse.”
The post was later deleted but in a subsequent interview, Francis confirmed that she had approved the message. "I was talking about emotional child abuse,” she told Fairfax Media. “And for me we don't yet know what this social experiment is going to result with.”
However, in another interview with News Limited, Francis denied she was homophobic.
Source
One should perhaps note that one can regard homosexuality as a purely personal matter while still disapproving of children being brought up in homosexual households. So the lady is not being inconsistent in denying that she is "homophobic"
"Homophobic" is just a propaganda word anyway. A phobia is an irrational fear and one can disapprove of homosexuality without fearing it.
I wonder how the anti discrimination warriors would have responded if the lady had said: "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them" (Lev. 20:13)
But at any event, the issue here is not whether she was right or wrong but rather whether there is free speech during an election. It is sad day for democracy if there is not. I personally think that Obama's entire election campaign was a gross and palpable fraud but I don't think he should be prosecuted for it.
British watchdog bans offensive police advertisement!
I rather like this one!"Britain’s advertising watchdog said on Wednesday it had banned a police advertisement encouraging people to report neighbors whose activities raised ’suspicions,’ saying it could offend innocent citizens.
The radio advert for the Anti-Terrorist Hotline listed as suspicious behavior activities which could also describe law-abiding people, the Advertising Standards Authority said.”
Source
12 August, 2010
Disgrace in Denmark
We read:"On August 4, 2010, the Public Prosecutor for Copenhagen charged International Free Press Society (IFPS) president Lars Hedegaard with racism. The IFPS describes itself as an organization "exclusively devoted to defending the right of free expression."The present Danish government seems set to change the law soon to prevent such abuses.
The basis for Hedegaard's prosecution was an interview from December 2009 in which he made controversial statements about Islam. These assertions included critiques of what Hedegaard saw as Islam's permissiveness regarding child abuse and bearing false witness, as well as Islam's general intolerance concerning apostacism and critical speech.
Hedegaard's statements earned him a hate speech charge under Danish law. While Denmark's constitution ostensibly protects freedom of expression and forbids censorship (see Section 77), the Criminal code provides that "expressing and spreading racial hatred" is a criminal offense punishable with up to two years imprisonment. (Article 266b)
Indeed, notwithstanding Section 77, article 266b has already been deployed against defendants who, like Hedegaard, dare to criticize Islam.
Source
The Danish Supreme Court must be pissweak if they have approved a law that so contravenes the Danish constitution.
Australia: 'N*gger' slur offensive, says State Premier
An Australian "Premier" is similar to an American State governor except that a Premier is elected by the legislature, not directly by the people."Premier Anna Bligh has taken issue with a Gold Coast magistrate who ruled the term "n*gger" was not offensive and suggested his views are "last century". Ms Bligh also says Queensland's racial vilification laws may need looking at at in light of the ruling.Ms Bligh is not the brightest so may have been unaware that on March 19, 2002, in the "N*gger Brown" case, the High Court of Australia rejected the allegation that the word "N*gger was offensive in Australia. Under the doctrine of "Stare decisis" that finding was binding on the magistrate
Southport magistrate Michael O'Driscoll on Monday threw out a charge against a Gold Coast man charged with sending an offensive fax to local Labor MP Peta Kaye-Croft's office. In the fax, 62-year-old Denis Mulheron called on the ALP to tighten immigration laws against 'niggers' and "sandnigger terrorists". He also described indigenous Australians as "Abos".
Mr Mulheron argued he was was using "everyday English" but Ms Kaye-Croft's electorate officer, who received the fax, said she was disturbed and offended. However, Mr O'Driscoll ruled that Mr Mulheron's words were "crude, unattractive and direct ... but were not offensive to a reasonable person".
Asked whether Queensland's racial vilification laws needed changing, Ms Bligh said she would need to seek legal advice. But she believed the laws were as "as strong as anything in the country".
SOURCE
Note: I use an asterisk in order to avoid falling foul of Google
11 August, 2010
Students at Lincoln Memorial Told to Stop Singing National Anthem
How weird can you get? Does any other nation ban the singing of its national anthem anywhere?"A group of high school students attending a conservative leadership conference in Washington, D.C. said they were ordered by a security guard to stop singing the national anthem during a June 25 visit to the Lincoln Memorial.
“They told them to stop singing,” said Evan Gassman, a spokesman for the Young America’s Foundation. “I was taken aback. You wouldn’t expect a display of national patriotism to be censored."
U.S. Park Police confirmed that the students were in violation of federal law and their impromptu performance constituted a demonstration in an area that must remain “completely content neutral.”
Source
The "racist" accusation against the Tea Partiers again
I briefly mentioned the excerpt below on DISSECTING LEFTISM but I want to say a bit more about it here. The comment is from the Left-leaning "Slate" and the author is trying to make the best of a bad job from his viewpoint."It's rarely convincing when Tea Party activists brush off attacks on the movement by claiming that the bad apples at their rallies are really agents provocateurs. That's just too convenient. Sometimes, the people who make you look bad actually are part of your movement. But a videographer at this weekend's Fancy Farm political celebration in Kentucky hounded a man wearing Rand Paul swag and holding up a racist anti-immigrant sign, badgering him to reveal who he was. The cameraman caught back up with him when, later, the man walked with supporters of Paul's opponent, [Democrat] Jack Conway."So the infiltrator was caught red-handed, as it were.
Source
The Tea Partiers are aware that anything the Left do not like will be accused of racism so make sure that none of their members do carry racist slogans. But Leftists are such intellectual midgets that the "racist" lie about the Tea Partiers is about all they can think of when they want to criticize the Tea Partiers. So they need that lie.
But even a big lie does need some oxygen to sustain it so, in a familiar Leftist strategy, Leftists themselves propagate racist utterances and blame them on the Tea Partiers. And you will note in the above quote that the Leftist author does implicitly admit that such frauds happen.
But probably the most interesting thing about the paragraph is the heading that its author put on it: "Tea Party Infiltration Done Wrong"
So rather than deploring the fraud he deplores only that it was not well done! That's a pretty revealing confession, it seems to me. It certainly reveals the utter dishonesty and corruption of the Leftist mentality.
And how come someone writing for "Slate" knows so little of grammar? "Wrong" should have been "wrongly". The midget shrinks even further.
10 August, 2010
Cartoonist Ted Rall amps up the abuse of the Tea Partiers
Ted is in quite a serious mood but it's still all just assertions below, of course. He has no evidence for his claims. But that's par for the course among Leftists. Like their National Socialist predecessors in 1930s Germany, they believe that if you shout a big enough lie often enough people will believe it.
What's crooked about Ted is that he uses the word "Fascist" while closing his eyes to what was basic to Fascism. The ONE thing that nobody disputes about Fascism is that it stands for enormous government power over the population -- The biggest of big government, in other words. So according to Ted Rall, the Tea Partiers must be advocates of big government. That their central theme is OPPOSITION to big government doesn't seem to matter to him.
It's not entirely his fault, however. He has obviously made an effort and looked up what a Leftist historian and an Italian novelist say about Fascism. That Leftist historians glide over the inconvenient bits about Fascism is just what one expects of people who believe that "There is no such thing as right and wrong", of course.
I could go on and point out, for example, that unlike Fascists, Tea Partiers don't have any leader at all, let alone a charismatic one -- and that Tea Partiers oppose socialism rather than embrace it -- but what's the point? Ted has his little fancied resemblances and to hell with the basic facts of the matter!"Certainly a sizable minority of Tea Partiers' "take America back" rhetoric is motivated by thinly disguised resentment that a black guy is president. As for the remainder, their tacit tolerance of the intolerant speaks for itself. "Take America back" from whom? You know whom. It ain't white CEOs.If you want a detailed survey of what Mussolini's Fascism was see here. If you want a detailed survey of what Hitler'a Nazism was see here. And if you want to find out where both of them got their ideas from, see here.
Yes. The Tea Party is racist. Obviously.
But racism is only one facet of a far more sinister political strain. It's more accurate to categorize the Tea Party as something the United States has never seen before, certainly not in such large numbers or as widespread.
The Tea Party is a protofascist movement.
Source
Incorrect novel depublished
Andrew Klavan is a very successful novelist and several of his books have been filmed. He has recently been informed that the French release of his thriller novel Empire of Lies has been canceled by publisher Seuil Policiers. Klavan comments:"The book, as you know, is about a politically conservative and Christian man who believes he’s uncovered an Islamist terrorist plot that’s being obscured by the bias and political correctness of our leftwing media.Even IMAGINING (in a novel) anything incorrect cannot be allowed. Those Muslims are SCARY!
The novel was bought for Seuil by a brave and intelligent editor named Robert Pepin. Robert left to establish his own imprint at another publishing house and was replaced by a young woman. She was, as she herself explained to my agent, too upset by the “political and religious” aspects of my novel to go forward with publication.
She breached our contract–for which I’d already been paid in full–and canceled the book.
Source
Sounds like Klavan is laughing all the way to the bank anyway.
9 August, 2010
The racism of anti-racists
We read:"One of the recurring arguments I hear from those who accuse conservatives of being insensitive to the travails of the underclass, whether black or Latino, is that many of those communities are filled with people so unable to take responsibility for their own lives that “we had better learn we have to take care of them or they are going to start a revolution to take us all down.”"Affirmative action" comes from the same mentality. Only a Leftist would think that you end discrimination by discriminating.
I am astounded that this thinking doesn’t register as incredibly condescending and even racist … in the sense that it ascribes no intelligence, talent or ambition to those with whom they purport to empathize. One of George W. Bush’s speechwriters came up with the phrase “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” How accurate and telling it is!
Source
In truth they DON'T want to end discrimination. They feed on it. When opponents of discrimination oppose affirmative action, that enables the Left to pose as the friend of minorities and yields a rich harvest of black votes.
Freedom of graphics?
In the era of Obama, American government agencies seem to be getting ever more and more authoritarian, petty and intrusive"The FBI has told Wikipedia to remove a hi-res image of its seal from the website. Wikipedia has said that there is no legal reason to, and will fight.Pole dancing has been held to be protected free speech so reproducing a government graphic that the taxpayers have paid for should be a shoo-in as protected free speech
“While we appreciate your desire to revise the statute to reflect your expansive vision of it, the fact is that we must work with the actual language of the statute, not the aspirational version of Section 701 that you forwarded to us”. Michael Goodwin, general counsel of the Wikipedia Foundation wrote.
The code in question, section 701, specifically prohibits the manufacturing or possession of ID cards or insignias of government agencies that are used by officers or employees of that agency.
“The use of the image on Wikipedia is not for the purpose of deception or falsely to represent anyone as an agent of the federal government,” Goodwin said in the letter. “We are in contact with outside counsel in this matter, and we are prepared to argue our view in court.”
Source
I gather that a lot of sites are putting up the seal now, just to give the FBI a challenge and to support Wikipedia. I am looking forward to receiving my letter of demand from the FBI
8 August, 2010
Man who felt sympathy for workplace shooter charged
We read:"A man has been charged with breach of peace for allegedly saying he understood the mindset of the gunman who massacred eight of his colleagues earlier this week.I understand that everybody was jittery but how an expression of sympathy was a "breach of the peace" escapes me. I don't think the charge would get far in a higher court.
Police in New Haven, Connecticut, were called to Fusco Management Company after receiving complaints about Francis Laskowski, 58, The Hartford Courant reported.
Workers at the distributor were mouring the loss of their colleagues, who were killed when Omar Thornton, 34, went on a shooting spree on Tuesday.
Source
Australia: Public broadcaster hatred of outspoken radio/TV shock jock
Sandilands is not particularly conservative but he is VERY politically incorrect"The ABC was yesterday forced to defend a "Killing Kyle Sandilands" segment on one of its comedy shows. The taxpayer-funded ABC2 screened the offensive segment on its Review With Myles Barlow last night.It could be seen as incitement to violence -- particularly as it is directed at one particular person. A similar segment about some Leftist eminence would certainly be accused of that.
The Killing Kyle Sandilands segment featured comedian Phil Lloyd, as the fictional Barlow, deciding he wanted to kill the Austereo radio shock jock and Australia's Got Talent and X Factor judge.
Footage included Barlow repeatedly stabbing a picture of Sandilands, then stabbing and burning an effigy of him.
Austereo management, the owner of 2DayFM, is said to be concerned about the segment, which was filmed without Sandilands' co-operation. "It is a danger in the current climate," an insider said. "You never know the influence it could have."
SOURCE
7 August, 2010
Hooray! Australia's conservative coalition undertakes to block the Left's planned internet censorship
And even the Greens approve! So it's dead. It can't get through the Senate with both the Greens and the coalition opposed. The Labor party obviously has a tin ear to have kept insisting on this widely deplored scheme for so long. They obviously could not see past the great Leftist vision of ever-increasing control over the lives of ordinary people.
Note: The "Liberal" Party is Australia's major conservative party. They really do believe in liberty -- unlike America's so-called "liberals""The Liberals have finally spoken and it's music to most internet users' ears. Joe Hockey's public denunciation of Labor's controversial mandatory ISP filtering plan late yesterday was warmly welcomed by the Greens and others.
The opposition treasury spokesman late yesterday told ABC Radio's Triple J that if elected the Coalition would scrap the filter scheme. But even if Labor won the August 21 poll, the Coalition would not back the filter legislation.
Labor wants ISPs to block refused classification (RC) web pages on a secret government blacklist but the policy has hit several roadblocks since first pledged in the 2007 election.
SOURCE
Australian court rules that it is OK to tell police officers to 'f*ck off'
I would be surprised if such a ruling were made anywhere in the USA (though I welcome being shown as wrong about that) but Australia has pretty strong anti-authority and anti-police traditions. There have been previous similar rulings in other Australian jurisdictions -- e.g. here"A Queensland magistrate has ruled that it is acceptable for people to tell police officers to "f*ck off". Magistrate Peter Smid yesterday threw out the court case against Mundingburra man Bardon Kaitira, 28, who swore at a female officer outside the Consortium night club on December 20, last year at 2.40am, The Townsville Bulletin reports.
Constable Belinda Young gave evidence that Mr Kaitira used the swear word twice towards her after a group of officers patrolling Flinders St East poured out his girlfriend's drink. "The defendant said 'f*ck off' and starting walking away and I asked: 'What did you say?'," she said. "He said 'f*ck off" again and then said: 'I don't like the police you think you are all heroes'.
"I told him it was an offence to swear at an officer and gave him two choices - a fine or be arrested." Mr Kaitira opted to be put in handcuffs and taken to the watch house....
Mr Greggery added that police were trying to criminalise language, which set a dangerous precedent. "When they try to set the bar this low they are saying the word f*ck is criminal conduct," he said. "This is language they use themselves on the job (while arresting offenders and to other officers)."
Mr Smid will decide today whether the Queensland Police Service will cover Mr Kaitira's legal bills.
The case follows that of Sydney student Henry Grech, who was cleared in May of an offensive language charge against police after a local court magistrate ruled the word "prick" was part of every-day speech.
SOURCE
6 August, 2010
Facebook hypocrisy
You would think it was run by Muslims"According to the Facebook "Terms" last updated April 22, 2010:
6- You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user.
7- You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.
10- You will not use Facebook to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory.
How well is Facebook enforcing the Pages that blatantly break these rules?
There are 282 pages on Facebook of pages with the name "F*** Israel!", or "F*** you Israel!" Some of these pages have over 30,000 members. I know that they have been reported because I had hundreds, if not thousands, of associates and their colleagues report these pages on several occasions since January.
Samplings of posts from some of these pages are vile to say the least....
I personally know of over a dozen people who have had their Facebook pages removed due to a complaint by another Facebook user, and they had to fight to get it back. In some cases they were never able to get back their page.
In each and every case I know of, the person was accused of "Racist/Hate speech" because they said one or more things that offended a Muslim. Never, in any of these cases did anyone call for, hint or advocate violence of any kind towards any individual, group or religion. Every one of these cases people had stated things about terrorism, Islamic law (Sharia) and the Quran.
I read the posts that caused these pages to be removed by Facebook and in every single instance, the statements were factual. At no time was anything personally derogatory either said or implied.
Source
Leftist logic. A bit too deep for me
Abe Foxman of the ADL has joined the chorus of the many New Yorkers who don't want to see a huge Islamic center right near where the twin towers were destroyed by Islamic fanatics on 9/11/2001. A prominent far-Leftist site however is enraged at Foxy's statement on the matter"[Foxman] said the position does not align ADL with anti-Islamic critics of the mosque, noting that the organization took out a full-page ad in the Times after 9/11 warning against answering hate with hate. “Just because bigots agree with positions you hold, does that make you a bigot?” Foxman askedSo opposing a super-mosque in NYC is "muzzling criticism of Israel"? I sure don't get it. Maybe you have to be a Leftist to get it.
Anyway, the reason this is so awesomely hypocritical is that the ADL, under Foxman, has basically given up any pretense of being a civil rights group and dedicated itself to muzzling criticism of Israel with constant cries of “anti-Semitism!”
Source
Why didn't they just call him a racist and be done with it? Have they got bored with that accusation? It sure has got boring so I hope so.
Aside from anything else, the idea that anybody can muzzle criticism of Israel is hilarious. I seem to read nothing but an anti-Israel slant in MSM reports about Israel-- and there is no shortage of such reports to read. Just one example of how dire the anti-Israel slant is can be found HERE
5 August, 2010
NAACP says Tea Partiers are not racist -- except when they are
A very reluctant and qualified backdown from the aptly named Ben Jealous:"NAACP President Ben Jealous said Thursday that the resolution passed by the group on Wednesday does not call the tea party "racist."First you have to find "those elements". Can Mr Jealous tell us where to look? There have been accusations of racial slurs coming from Tea Partiers but none of them have been proven.
The resolution the NAACP approved Wednesday at its annual conference in Kansas City, Mo., alleges that the tea party has used racial epithets against President Barack Obama and has verbally and physically abused African-American members of Congress.
A portion of the resolution does indeed characterize the behavior as “racist,” but Jealous said Thursday during an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that the resolution was not intended to condemn the entire movement as such.
“We aren’t saying that the tea party is racist,” Jealous said. “What we’re saying is that with their increasing power comes an increasing responsibility to act responsibly ... and to call out when they see those things on those signs.”
Jealous argued that racist groups have embraced the tea party movement and said that what the NAACP would like to see is one of the movement's leaders — whether it be former House Majority Leader Dick Armey or former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — denounce those elements of the tea party.
Source
And if such slurs were uttered, they were probably uttered by "plants", in the usual Leftist way. There is a long history of blacks and Leftists themselves creating racist graffiti etc. and trying to pin the blame for them onto conservatives.
The Tea Partiers have been exceedingly careful not to do or say anything racist because they know how the Left would pounce if they did anything like that. You would never hear the end of it.
Reference to Spanish racism censored
We read:"The US State Department said yesterday it removed a passage from its website about possible Spanish police racism after calls from Spanish media covering First Lady Michelle Obama's visit to Spain.
Spanish news organizations made many calls about an incident last year in which Spanish police detained two US government employees, both of them African-American, for no apparent reason, a US State Department official said.
The official said the reference to the incident was lifted on Monday from online travel information for Americans traveling to Spain after "we were notified by the Spanish media" calling about the First Lady's visit.
The State Department deemed it no longer relevant as the incident happened 18 months ago and "since then there have been no other reports," according to the official in the consular affairs bureau who asked not to be named.
Source
4 August, 2010
Palin a "racist" for criticizing the NYC mosque proposal?
I suppose such an accusation was to be expected from the Left. That Islam is a religion, not a race, is too deep for them, of course. As long it's abusive, a Leftist thinks it's a good argument."The war of tweets began Sunday when Palin called the mosque an "unnecessary provocation" on her Twitter feed.
"Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts," she wrote. "Pls reject it in interest of healing."
That didn't sit well with openly progressive Bloomberg aide Andrea Batista Schlesinger, who quickly issued this response from her Twitter feed: "@SarahPalinUSA whose hearts? Racist hearts?" she asked. "Mind your business."
When a reporter asked Bloomberg on Monday whether Schlesinger's tweet "seemed to suggest that Palin was being racist," the mayor responded that his aide "more than 'seemed to'" suggest it, according to The Wall Street Journal. But Bloomberg added that, just like the former governor of Alaska, Schlesinger is entitled to her opinions [and slurs, apparently. Sarah didn't slur anybody]
Source
"Brown Wash"
"Brown Wash" is a new hate-speech term decribing climate skepticism dreamed up by Warmists attached to Australia's Green/Left public broadcaster, the ABC. They say that "Brownwashers" should be prosecuted for fraud.
Such threats seem to have faded away in most of the rest of the world but the mental world of many ABC "intellectuals" still seems to be fixed somewhere in the old East Germany so their polemical primitivism is no great surprise.
My immediate response is "Bring it on". I am sure most skeptics would LOVE to present their case before a court -- where it is evidence, not abuse, that counts.
Meanwhile, however, Jo Nova has some derisive comments on the ABC effusions. The ABC Talking Head concerned was Kellie Tranter:Kellie Tranter attacks imaginary deniers who she doesn't name, cite, or reference. All her inferences and innuendo are backed up by assertive confidence, a pile of convenient guesses, and nothing else. Everything she accuses the Deniers of is something that those on the Big Scare Campaign do-and if the Deniers do it at all, those who sell-the-scare do it 100 times more...
Much more HERE (See the original for links)
3 August, 2010
Wikileaks: The man who went too far
Some libertarians disagree but most people think that speech leading directly to death or serious harm (e.g. shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater) should not be protected free speech"Australian-born Julian Assange is peddling a range of excuses for having put Afghans in harm's way.Ian Gilmour was a very notable and privileged Englishman. Most of the Royal family came to his wedding. He was also once Lord Privy Seal of England in Margaret Thatcher's government. He was not however of her faction in the Conservative party and there is much that he said that I disagree with.
Assange has been savaged publicly for releasing information that could lead to the death of many people identified in US military logs that range from 2004 to 2009.
Two days after WikiLeaks posted 76,000 of the documents on the internet, a team of reporters from The Times of London pored over the raw material. In a matter of hours they discovered that the names, villages, relatives' names and even precise GPS locations of Afghans who had co-operated with US-led forces were easy to spot.
If any Afghan informant were killed, Assange retreats to the argument that the harm caused would be outweighed by the importance of publishing the information. So disclosure is justice, apparently, regardless of consequences.
In a chronicle of the WikiLeaks saga, The Columbia Journalism Review says reporters from The Guardian and Der Spiegel specifically encouraged Assange "to be careful about the lethal harm that could come to people identified in the logs if he released certain documents unredacted". He did not follow this advice.
Much more HERE
He did however write a book Inside Right which presented extensive and persuasive arguments from history in favor of the view that Conservatives have always been "trimmers" -- people who try to find a middle way in difficult matters -- so it seems clear that Assange is not of a conservative persuasion
Leftist hate speech against tea-partiers not matched by any condemnation of Black Panthers
I guess that they don't want to condemn fellow haters"Over the past year, members of the liberal media, progressive politicians and the Hollywood elite have demonized the Tea Party movement partly by claiming that that Tea Partiers are a fringe group driven by racial animosity.
Now, faced with unequivocally racist antics by members of the New Black Panther Party, the progressive establishment seems devoid of passion to root out hatred.
This apparently selective outrage exposes what’s seemingly propelling progressives. Politics rather than morality appears to be the motivation behind the progressive crusade against Tea Party reformers.
Slandering Tea Party activists is apparently a politically expedient necessity because they pack the punch to change the political landscape and knock down President Obama’s progressive agenda.
These Herculean efforts on the part of the progressive media-politician-Hollywood complex to slime the Tea Parties, however, are long on claims and short on proof. As a result, the race card failed to tarnish the image or effectiveness of Tea Party activism.
And it doesn’t help when progressives turn a blind eye to radicalism in their own ranks. When confronted with videotaped evidence of the morally abhorrent behavior by members of the New Black Panther Party, progressives are noticeably silent.
Another video, taken for a National Geographic documentary, shows the nightstick-wielding Panther from Election Day delivering a hateful racial rant targeting whites — specifically white children — for murder.
It’s long past time for someone on the left to rise above the political fray and make a strong statement against black hate speech. It’s time to view this as a matter of right or wrong, not left or right.
Source
2 August, 2010
Conservatives must not be allowed to exaggerate
"Bush=Hitler" is just fine but some rather milder exaggerations by a conservative radio host are headlined as "hate speech" by the Leftist "Media Matters". Some of them are not even exaggerations, though they are all rather colorful and all are legitimate expressions of opinion. See below."Right-wing radio host Bill Cunningham is getting a nationally syndicated television show, the Chicago Tribune reported today. One is left to wonder how the Tribune Co., which will syndicate the show, thought it would be a good idea to broadcast Cunningham's caustic commentary on TV.There are plenty of extreme Leftists parading opinions on mainstream TV so why should an extreme conservative not parade his opinions on radio?
Cunningham is no radio powerhouse in the mold of Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, but what he lacks in audience size, he makes up for in sheer vitriol.
Vituperative remarks about President Obama are a staple of Cunningham's radio show. He has attacked Obama as a racist, alleged that the president wants to "gas the Jews," and invoked "six-six-six" and "the beast" in discussing "Barack Hussein Obama." He's adopted the rhetoric of birthers and even made racially charged remarks about Obama's father, stating, "That's what black fathers do. They simply leave."
The poor are also among Cunningham's favorite targets for attack: He has stated that they are impoverished "because they lack values, ethics, and morals," and advocated "beat[ing] the hell outta" homeless people with "a big old cane, Singapore-style."
Source
Iranian hate speech against Israel really is dangerous
And it could get Iran itself wiped off the map as well. Missile-equipped Israeli submarines are already at sea in the area and there is little doubt about the payload on those missiles.
So the furious hate speech from the Iranian leadership could well be seen as preparing Iranians for national suicide. Suicide does seem very popular among Muslims."We are witnessing the toxic convergence of the advocacy of the most horrific of crimes, genocide, embedded in the most virulent of hatreds, anti-Semitism. It is dramatised by the parading in Tehran streets of a Shihab-3 missile draped in the words "Israel must be wiped off the map" while the assembled thousands are exhorted to chants of "death to Israel".
Ahmadinejad's Iran is increasingly resorting to incendiary and demonising language, including epidemiological metaphors reminiscent of Nazi incitement. Ahmadinejad and other officials characterise Israel as a "filthy germ", a "stain of disgrace" and "a stinking corpse", while referring to Israelis as "the true manifestation of Satan" and "blood-thirsty barbarians", as a prologue to - and justification for - a Middle East genocide, while at the same time denying the Nazi one.
Source
1 August, 2010
Obama’s surveillance power grab
The comment below is from a Leftist site but I think they have a point"They’re calling it a tweak — a ‘technical clarification’ — but make no mistake: The Obama administration and the FBI’s demand that Congress approve a huge expansion of their authority to obtain the sensitive Internet records of American citizens without a judge’s approval is a brazen attack on civil liberties.
At issue is the scope of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s power to obtain information from ‘electronic communications service providers’ using National Security Letters (NLS), which compel private companies to allow government access to communication records without a court order.
The administration wants to add four words — ‘electronic communication transactional records’ — to Section 2709 of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which spells out the types of communications data that can be obtained with an NSL.”
Source
Catholic professor reinstated
Previously covered here on July 11"The University of Illinois says it reinstated a professor removed from the classroom for allegedly engaging in anti-gay "hate speech" in his religion class.
Kenneth Howell will be back teaching Introduction to Catholicism in the fall with his salary paid by the St. John's Catholic Newman Center rather than the university
Howell had been pulled from his Catholic studies class in May after a student complained to the religion department that Howell was spewing anti-gay ideas in his discussions on the church's stance on homosexuality.
The move sparked protests from hundreds of supporters of Howell who contended his right to freedom of speech had been violated,
Source
Posts from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).
"HATE SPEECH" is free speech: The U.S. Supreme Court stated the general rule regarding protected speech in Texas v. Johnson (109 S.Ct. at 2544), when it held: "The government may not prohibit the verbal or nonverbal expression of an idea merely because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable." Federal courts have consistently followed this. Said Virginia federal district judge Claude Hilton: "The First Amendment does not recognize exceptions for bigotry, racism, and religious intolerance or ideas or matters some may deem trivial, vulgar or profane."
Even some advocacy of violence is protected by the 1st Amendment. In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the U.S. Supreme Court held unanimously that speech advocating violent illegal actions to bring about social change is protected by the First Amendment "except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."
The traditional advice about derogatory speech: "Sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you". Apparently people today are not as emotionally robust as their ancestors were.
A phobia is an irrational fear, so the terms "Islamophobic" and "homophobic" embody a claim that the people so described are mentally ill. There is no evidence for either claim. Both terms are simply abuse masquerading as diagnoses and suggest that the person using them is engaged in propaganda rather than in any form of rational or objective discourse.
Leftists often pretend that any mention of race is "racist" -- unless they mention it, of course. But leaving such irrational propaganda aside, which statements really are racist? Can statements of fact about race be "racist"? Such statements are simply either true or false. The most sweeping possible definition of racism is that a racist statement is a statement that includes a negative value judgment of some race. Absent that, a statement is not racist, for all that Leftists might howl that it is. Facts cannot be racist so nor is the simple statement of them racist. Here is a statement that cannot therefore be racist by itself, though it could be false: "Blacks are on average much less intelligent than whites". If it is false and someone utters it, he could simply be mistaken or misinformed.
Whatever your definition of racism, however, a statement that simply mentions race is not thereby racist -- though one would think otherwise from American Presidential election campaigns. Is a statement that mentions dogs, "doggist" or a statement that mentions cats, "cattist"?
Was Abraham Lincoln a racist? "You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this be admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated. It is better for both, therefore, to be separated." -- Spoken at the White House to a group of black community leaders, August 14th, 1862
The spirit of liberty is "the spirit which is not too sure that it is right." and "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it." -- Judge Learned Hand
Two lines below of a famous hymn that would be incomprehensible to Leftists today ("honor"? "right"? "freedom?" Freedom to agree with them is the only freedom they believe in)
First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean
It is of course the hymn of the USMC -- still today the relentless warriors that they always were.
It seems a pity that the wisdom of the ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus is now little known. Remember, wrote the Stoic thinker, "that foul words or blows in themselves are no outrage, but your judgment that they are so. So when any one makes you angry, know that it is your own thought that has angered you. Wherefore make it your endeavour not to let your impressions carry you away."
"Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger, scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates, and hearing all manner of reason?" -- English poet John Milton (1608-1674) in Areopagitica
Hate speech is verbal communication that induces anger due to the listener's inability to offer an intelligent response
Leftists can try to get you fired from your job over something that you said and that's not an attack on free speech. But if you just criticize something that they say, then that IS an attack on free speech
"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper
Why are Leftists always talking about hate? Because it fills their own hearts
Leftists don't have principles. How can they when "there is no such thing as right and wrong"? All they have is postures, pretend-principles that can be changed as easily as one changes one's shirt
When you have an argument with a Leftist, you are not really discussing the facts. You are threatening his self esteem. Which is why the normal Leftist response to challenge is mere abuse.
The naive scholar who searches for a consistent Leftist program will not find it. What there is consists only in the negation of the present.
The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) could have been speaking of much that goes on today when he said: "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."