The Richard Warman Conundrum

Try your luck with this Skill Testing Question:

Since the Nazis imposed state censorship over speech they deemed offensive, and the Canadian Human Rights Commission imposes state censorship over speech they deem offensive, does this mean that those that use the CHRC to impose state censorship over speech they deem offensive are “Nazi sympathizers”?

Send in your answer and receive an entry in a draw for a free Canadian Human Rights Commission Reaction Figure!

censorbear.jpg
*
A perfect choice for the unsympathetic Jew on your Holiday gifting list, designed and recommended by Danish cartoon censorship advocates everywhere.

Update – Ouch.

The rise of soggy-assed relativism has brought us to a point where putative spokespeople for parties and groups regularly insist on conflating, as if it’s a human right, completely different things. For example, the common-sense, obvious observation that it’s inappropriate for a journalist to collude with a political party to manipulate parliamentary proceedings which the reporter then reports on are regularly met with a sneering “Oh, so you’re saying that reporters shouldn’t ask questions…” and other such “arguments.” The lack of accountability to reason is betrayed by the apparent belief that reasonable interlocutors will be forced to say “touche”.
And now we’ve got Kinsella suggesting that someone who defends free speech is a hypocrite if he has ever taken legal action — and submitted the challenge to due process, not some kangaroo court — against the publication of false statements damaging to his reputation.
It’s apparent that Kinsella doesn’t know the difference between an argument and an assertion, or an argument and a cheapshot, and that he measures the cogency of whatever case he’s making by the amount of foam that builds up in the corner of his mouth when he’s making it.
Alas, it’s only other people who can see the foam, so he’s probably the only one who doesn’t understand that the National Post was doing him a favour when they wiped the spittle off their site.
“Some might say Ezra Levant is not fit to carry Richard Warman’s water bottle. I won’t.”
Well, as Me No Dhimmi pointed out, you did say it. And pretty much everyone says that Warren Kinsella is a craven, would-be tyrant who is prone to juvenile, self-destructive public meltdowns that he mistakes, remarkably and publicly, for personal victory and renown. In terms of convincingness, nothing Kinsella’s ever typed out in his life would come up to Ezra Levant’s proverbial ankles; is it even possible that Kinsella doesn’t understand that? You wouldn’t think so, and yet he goes and writes a piece like that. It’s like Joel Gray challenging Vladimir Klitchko to a fist fight. Go figure.

“I vaguely recall a fable”

…. that in the end asks, “Who will bell the cat”.
Who was it who decided that children were an option for the lazy and the stupid?
Who was it decided that the God of our fathers shall have no dominion over me?
Who was it decided we shall hide our lights under a bushel basket?
Which mental midget amongst us sits bestride the backs of giants and dares imagine, we are loftier than they?
We have sown the breeze and are now reaping the whirlwind should we be surprised?
Its not the Muslim’s fault. They are but the whet stone being used to hone us that we might actually stand for something and do something and be someone who matters.
Don’t try to reform them. We must try reform ourselves and having done so see how quickly they fall.
The Islamic faith is one that dwells in fear loathing and ignorance. We only strengthen it when we deal in the same.

Thank you, Joe. It’s comments like this that make the blogging effort worthwhile.

Weather Is The New News

When you have a moment, would you Toronto-based news anchors and editors mind letting us know if there’s any end in sight to the Winter Weather Wallop: A Special Report you’ve subjected the nation to for the past 5 days? Two days of national pre-storm “a lot of snow is going to fall” coverage, followed by two days of national “the snow is now falling” coverage and today’s “a lot of snow fell” coverage is beginning to wear thin. It’s a story line we’ve seen before. We pretty much know how it turns out.
Last time I checked, it’s December. Logically speaking, snow in December isn’t news.
Now that I mention it, neither is it news when rain falls in May, wind blows in October, heat bakes in July, or cold snaps in March. But for reasons you haven’t bothered to explain, you treat it as such. And your interest knows no borders – it seems as though no Canadian newscast is complete without a storm report from Miami, or flood warning for Las Vegas.
If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion, please do something to restore your role as a news anchor. For starters, report news. Stop stealing material from your weatherman.
(And since I’m in the mood to give advice to anchor chairs – here’s a freebie. The next time your script includes a tour stop for the Spice Girls, fire somebody. That’s rightfully the domain of your advertising department).
I realize I’m just a lowly media consumer, and you’re a respected TV journalist, so don’t feel as though you need to pay any attention whatsoever to a word of this. You just keep staring at that drain, and I’ll just keep staring at my computer screen*. One of these days, you’ll figure out that sucking sound.

Against All Odds

Iraq: The best story of the year

“Iraq is more peaceful in 2007 than at any time since the 2003 invasion”. Not only is this essentially correct but it is the most important story in the world this year.
By any measure, the US-led surge has been little short of a triumph. The number of American military fatalities is reduced sharply, as is the carnage of Iraqi civilians, Baghdad as a city is functioning again, oil output is above where it stood in March 2003 but at a far stronger price per barrel and, the acid test, many of those who fled to Syria and Jordan are today returning home.

Another little known fact;

Surging Bonds: Bloomberg reports that, “[Iraq’s] $2.7 billion of 5.8 percent bonds due in 2028 returned 15.2 percent since July, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. index data. Only Ecuador’s debt gained more, rising 18 percent.” Iraqi bonds were trading at 55 cents on the dollar last August, with an 11.5 percent yield. Today, they have rallied to 64 cents, bringing the yield down to 9.9 percent. U.S. money managers are saying these are the hottest bonds in the emerging market. This is a clear sign of confidence in the conduct of the war. After all, the folks swooping up this debt have money on the line. They are backing up opinions with real money. One bond manager who oversees $14 billion says, “There’s optimism the surge is starting to pay off.”

You know, it would do Jack Layton, Stephane Dion, and a few of our favourite national columnists some good to receive these links. Then, at least they can’t claim ignorance. Because ignorance is about all they’ve been displaying lately.

The Would-Be Commandress In Chief

“Remember that movie Independence Day, where invaders were coming from outer space and the whole world was united against the invasion? Why can’t we be united on behalf of our planet? And that’s what I want to do, to get more and more people to understand that and to be involved to protect our environment.”

“I’ve been to cattle barns before and sales before, in Arkansas, but I’ve never felt like I was the one that was being bid on,” Clinton told a crowd in western Iowa. “I know you’re going to inspect me.
You can look inside my mouth if you want.
I hope by the end of my time with you I can make the case for my candidacy and to ask you to consider caucusing for me.”

“I will be a good president for dogs, I promise!”; she said, as the puppy jumped all over her slacks. “I love gingerbread houses!” she told a teacher who said she had been making them with her students that day.

None of the preceding is satire.
More at Newsbusters on…

“… what a few minutes of serious Gregory grilling did to Clinton this morning. It was by far the most intense — dare-I-say aggressive — examination of Clinton I’ve seen this campaign season.
Throughout, Hillary clung as if to a life preserver to the endorsement she received from the Des Moines Register, whose editor is that same mirthless Carolyn Washburn who moderated the past week’s debates. Strict School Marms of the World, Unite!

Y2Kyoto: The Political Climate

Speech by Jacques Chirac, Nov. 2000;

For the first time, humanity is instituting a genuine instrument of global governance, one that should find a place within the World Environmental Organisation which France and the European Union would like to see established.

Global Carbon Tax Urged at UN Climate Conference, Dec. 2007;

A panel of UN participants on Thursday urged the adoption of a tax that would represent “a global burden sharing system, fair, with solidarity, and legally binding to all nations.”
“Finally someone will pay for these [climate related] costs,” Othmar Schwank, a global tax advocate, told Inhofe EPW Press Blog following the panel discussion titled “A Global CO2 Tax.” Schwank is a consultant with the Switzerland based Mauch Consulting firm
Schwank said at least “$10-$40 billion dollars per year” could be generated by the tax, and wealthy nations like the U.S. would bear the biggest burden based on the “polluters pay principle.”

Local Transport Today (UK), Dec. 2007;

Hillman, senior fellow emeritus at the Policy Studies Institute, says carbon rationing is the only way to ensure that the world avoids the worst effects of climate change. And he says that the problems caused by burning fossil fuels are so serious that governments might have to implement rationing against the will of the people.
“When the chips are down I think democracy is a less important goal than is the protection of the planet from the death of life, the end of life on it,” he says. “This has got to be imposed on people whether they like it or not.”

Emphasis mine.

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