More Pavilions At Folkfest

The lights are going out in Denmark.

Last month, Danish MP Jesper Langballe was convicted of “hate speech” — “racial discrimination,” for having highlighted the pattern of “honor killings” in Muslim families. (Here is his “confession.”) Now in the crosshairs is my very dear friend and colleague, Lars Hedegaard, President of the Danish Free Press Society and the International Free Press Society. (A historian as well as a journalist and author, Lars took me on a special tour of Copenhagen, which I wrote about here.) On January 24 he goes on trial. His crime? Discussing the high incidence of family rape within Islamic cultures, which the prosecutor is attempting to outlaw as “racism.”
In fact, the Danish prosecutor is attempting to enforce Islamic “blasphemy” laws, which outlaw all criticism of Islam.

Featured Comment

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” – Barack Obama

BATB;

For many in the States, who are convinced that the Obamessiah’s agenda is madness, their solution has been to join the Tea Party, which is not a violent or terrorist group. The Tea Party is a legitimate, grass-roots coming together of individuals to propose alternative programs to those of the Obama-led government. The Tea Party is a bona fide element of the democratic process in the U.S. — and to suggest that U.S. citizens shouldn’t form groups like this because they might incite violence or domestic terrorism is tantamount to political blackmail: Don’t push back, folks, because something violent might happen.

As Glenn Reynolds wrote yesterday– If you’re using this event to criticize the “rhetoric” of Sarah Palin or others with whom you disagree, then you’re either asserting a connection between the “rhetoric” and the shooting — which based on evidence to date would be what we call a vicious lie — or you’re not, in which case you’re just seizing on a tragedy to try to score unrelated political points, which is contemptible. So which is it?

Hurricane at Pilgrim Hill

Here’s Hurricane at Pilgrim Hill, a delightful moral comedy (1950, 50:43) written by James Charles Lynch, directed by Richard L. Bare, produced by Hal Roach, Jr., and starring Clem Bevans as Sam ‘Bigmouth’ Smedley (hero), Cecil Kellaway as Jonathan Huntoon Smith (bad guy), David Bruce as Tom Adams, Smith’s attorney, Virginia Grey as Janet Smedley Adams, Sam’s grand- daughter & Tom’s wife, Leslie Banning as Debbie Smith, Jonathan’s daughter, Robert Board as Steve Terhune, Debbie’s true love, Syd Saylor as Sheriff Luke Arundle, and with delightful appearances by Oliver Blake as Indian Chief Running Deer, and Frank Lackteen as his sidekick Broken Head.

The story is about Sam, an elderly man who leaves Prairie Falls, Wyoming to visit Janet, his daughter, in the small Massachusetts town of Pilgrim Hill, because he believes she needs his help. When he gets there he discovers that Janet’s husband Tom, a lawyer, is under great stress because his biggest client, Jonathan, is a nasty old man who is the wealthiest & most powerful man in town, who thinks everyone should live by his rules, and who is opposed to his daughter Debbie’s love for Steve. Sam arranges for Debbie & Steve to get together again, and then decides to make Jonathan “disappear” from the problem by performing a rain dance he learned from Indian medicine man Sitting Wolf back in Wyoming. Indeed, a hurricane then does make landfall at Pilgrim Hill, with Jonathan trapped on a small island just off the coast, by Sam’s design! The storm threatens Jonathan’s life, Sheriff Luke tries to arrest Sam for attempted manslaughter, and the rest of the story I can’t tell you because that would spoil the ending 😉

Y2Kyoto: Rock, Paper, Snowmageddon

Brendan O’Neill;

You couldn’t have asked for a better snapshot of the chasm that divides today’s so-called expert classes from the mass of humanity than the snow crisis of Christmas 2010. They warn us endlessly about the warming of our planet; we struggle through knee-deep snow to visit loved ones. They host million-dollar conferences on how we’ll cope with our Mediterranean future; we sleep for days in airport lounges waiting for runways to be de-iced. They pester the authorities for more funding for global-warming research; we keep an eye on our elderly neighbours who don’t have enough cash to heat their homes.

Via

Reader Tips

A while back we saw a knife-throwning Mom who showed her skills by barely missing her two-and-a-half and six-year-old daughters. Tonight, we look at archival footage of a rifle-totin’ husband who tests out that newfangled bullet-proof glass by having his wife hold a sheet of it in front of her face while he fires away. Why so jumpy, hon?
You are invited, as always, to provide your Reader Tips in the comments.

The Speech

I am your new principal, and honoured to be so. There is no greater calling than to teach young people.
I would like to apprise you of some important changes coming to our school. I am making these changes because I am convinced that most of the ideas that have dominated public education in Canada have worked against you, against your teachers and against our country.
First, this school will no longer honour race or ethnicity. I could not care less if your racial makeup is black, brown, red, yellow or white. I could not care less if your origins are African, Latin American, Asian or European, or when your ancestors arrived here or how they got here.

Keep reading Adler.

Y2Kyoto: Denier Denial

So…

“… while there have been many extraordinary claims made that the the downturn in public belief and concern with climate change is attributed to the work of the “denier” movement, far more parsimonious, theoretically grounded, and more likely explanations exist for this downturn.”

How’s That Hopey-Changey Thing Working Out For Ya?

While today’s unemployment number came at a low 9.4%, well below expectations, the one and only reason for this is that the labor force in America has plunged to a fresh 25 year low. Assuming a reversion to the mean in the long-term average participation rate back to 66%, means that the civilian labor force, which in December came at 153,690, a drop of 260,000 from November, is in reality 157.6 million, a delta of 3.91 million currently unaccounted for. Maybe someone can ask Bernanke during his imminent presentation before Congress what happened to the unemployed population, which would have been 18.4 million if this labor force delta was incorporated, resulting in an unemployment rate of 11.7%.

Still, it’s Bush’s fault.

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