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TONGUE TIED ARCHIVE
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"
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21 August, 2008
"Psycho" is a bad word
And we must pretend that mad people are normal, apparently:"He was Australia's answer to the Crazy Frog but Psycho Teddy's ringtone frenzy has been toned down after protests from a mental health charity. The dancing bear's antics proved hugely popular with his eponymous debut ringtone leaping into the top 5 of the ARIA charts when it was released as a single in May.And I am sure it is very naughty of me to use the word "mad". But my doctorate is in psychology so I use it in full knowledge of what is involved. The video is below. It just seems nonsense to me but I guess I am a old grouch.
While his lyrics encourage cuddling, Sane Australia's StigmaWatch objected to the use of the word psycho and promotional material which described the cute character's transformation when he received a text "at a bad time". "He's cute, he's cuddly, he's a great dancer but he is also insane. Don't call him at a bad time or you may trigger a psychotic episode", touted Teddy's reps.
Source
Serbia: Book withdrawn for being insult to Muslims
We read:"The Islamic Community in Serbia said on Monday it was not satisfied with the withdrawal of Sherry Jones' novel, The Jewel of Medina, from the country's bookshops. Referring to the book released by Belgrade publisher Beobuk three weeks ago, the organisation's leader Muamer Zukorlic said it was "offensive to Muslims" and demanded all of the published copies be handed in.
He also called for director Aleksandar Jasic to repent for what he had done. After an initial complaint from the Islamic community, Jasic apologised saying the company "had no intention of insulting Muslims in Serbia" and announced the book would not be available in any bookstore in the country.
But Zukorlic said on Monday that this was not enough. "Jasic needs to sincerely repent because of the incident he caused," Zukorlic said. Zukorlic has already compared The Jewel of Medina with the Mohammed cartoon controversy in Denmark.
The novel is a love story about the life of Aisha, the seventh wife of the Islam prophet Mohammed, and follows her life from her betrothal to the prophet when she was six-years-old. According to the novel, Aisha was Mohammed's favourite wife and he died in her arms.
Source
20 August, 2008
Group wants to attack Obama on abortion
And they have to ask permission!"A group purporting to tell the "real truth" about Barack Obama's views on abortion wants a judge to rule it is not subject to federal election restrictions on fundraising and advertising.There is certainly some irony in this disgraceful situation. The man largely responsible for the restrictive legislation concerned is John McCain. So it is his own law ("McCain/Feingold") that obstructs a campaign which might benefit him!
The Real Truth About Obama Inc., a group formed by anti-abortion activists, is trying to establish a Web site and air radio ads. But the group's attorney says his clients fear they will be prosecuted for breaking federal rules that restrict fundraising and advertising by political action committees, or PACs.
The Richmond-based group argues it is not a PAC because it would be talking about an issue, not advocating Obama's defeat or election.
U.S. District Judge James Spencer has scheduled a Sept. 10 hearing on a motion seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the Federal Election Commission and Justice Department from imposing the restrictions.
Source
And the word "Muslim" is not mentioned
The full news report from "The Times" of London below:"German politicians are dismayed about the desecration of a monument to tens of thousands of homosexuals persecuted under the Nazis that was opened less than three months ago in Berlin. Police said they were looking for the perpetrators who attacked the monument, a large grey cube in the Tiergarten park in Central Berlin, at the weekend.I do not know who did it but it was predictable that the world's chief persecutors of homosexuals were not mentioned. That no group was named as suspect may in fact indicate that the authorities DO suspect Muslim involvement. They would be unlikely to miss the opportunity of blaming "Neo-Nazis" etc. otherwise.
The vandals smashed a window through which viewers could see a picture of two men kissing and ripped down fencing. Police said it was unclear if the motive for the attack was political. "This cowardly and shocking act is an attack on the image we have of ourselves as a tolerant and open city," said Frank Henkel, a senior politician in the Berlin assembly and a member of Chancellor Merkel's Christian Democrat party. Green Party politicians also condemned the attacks, which they described as a warning sign that homophobia was still rampant in German society.
The monument to homosexuals persecuted in the 1930s and 1940s was unveiled in May. About 50,000 gay men were convicted by Nazi courts; some were castrated and thousands were sent to concentration camps. "This attack is shocking, appalling. To see such a thing today after all the suffering and horror we had to go through, it is cruel," said Rudolf Brazda, who survived imprisonment in Buchenwald concentration camp for being gay. "People don't want to accept that there are people who are different from them by nature," he said in a statement issued by Germany's LSVD gay and lesbian association.
Klaus Wowereit, the openly gay Mayor of Berlin who unveiled the monument, took part in a vigil there yesterday. Nazi laws were used to prosecute homosexuals in Germany until 1969.
Source
19 August, 2008
More Leftist indifference to mass-murder
Some Tennesseeans of Armenian ancestry are fed up with Democrat Congressional certainty Steve Cohen. You might expect a Cohen to be bothered by genocide but when it's Muslims doing the killing and Christians are the victims, that's OK by a Leftist, of course. The Armenian genocide might have happened nearly 100 years ago but Armenians have no more forgotten it than Jews have forgotten the Shoah of over 60 years ago.
The Tennessee Armenian group took particular offense at the way Cohen generalized about Armenians on the basis of what one or two Armenians did and said. That is "stereotyping" these days (though maybe only if a conservative does it)."As if his assault wasn't enough, the hate speech about "these Armayneeians (sic)" emanating from this legislative leader would have the ACLU, NAACP, Amnesty International, and any other rights organization calling for Cohen's head if it was about any other group.
Source
Must not oppose illegal immigration
Michigan State University:"A Latino student group is rallying against what they call free speech violations at Michigan State University.Amusing terminology: "violence broke out". They are not quite bold enough to say it was the conservatives who were being violent but they still glide over the fact that it was the Leftists/Hispanics who were violent.
About 30 representatives from Chicanos y Latino Unidos (CLU), along with members of several other organizations, met for about a half hour earlier this week on the steps of MSU's Hannah Administration Center to "challenge the university into having them take a stand about ... what the difference is between freedom of speech and hate speech, fighting words and violent speech," CLU President Gabriela Alcazar said.
Specifically, CLU wants MSU officials to disallow another student organization - Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) - from hosting speakers who "speak against minorities" and "instigate and threaten people and insult people," said Alcazar, 20, who originally is from Imlay City.
"There's a point where they don't have the right to say the things they've been saying," said the international relations and social relations and policy major. CLU wants the university "to begin drawing a line and not keep covering everything with freedom of speech."
MSU's chapter of YAF has made news for various events, including an anti-immigration forum last year during which violence broke out.
Kyle Bristow, MSU's chairman of YAF, attended the event. "Free speech is a God-given right, and a group of 13 people who disagree with that are not going to take that right from us," said the 20-year-old international relations major. "We're contributing to intellectual diversity."
Bristow said he believes the rally was to protest an upcoming YAF event. YAF has invited Mark Krikorian from the Center for Immigration Studies to speak against illegal immigration from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. today at room 102 in Conrad Hall, Bristow said."
Source
Mark Krikorian (of Armenian ancestry) is the head of the Center for Immigration Studies and is a most respectable critic of illegal immigration. There is no way he has ever said anything racist -- though just disagreeing with a Leftist makes you "racist", of course.
A previous post about attacks on the YAF at MSU on Feb. 25th.
18 August, 2008
The usual Leftist logic
Recently, a loner with a gun entered the Arkansas Democratic Party headquarters and shot the head of the state party. Any number of pundits on the Left have at least implied that this is the result of hate speech against Democrats emanating from conservative radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh. Example here.
I have so far not seen a shred of proof of that however. Leftists don't need proof. They just KNOW.
By the same logic, when gunmen enter churches and shoot up the place -- something that happens all too often -- it is the fault of all the Leftist hate poured out at Christians -- calling them "Taleban", "Ayatollahs" etc.
But in their little walled-off mental world, Leftists never mention that.
Some Antisemitism is fine in "human rights" Canada
We all know the wringer that Mark Steyn was recently put though in Canada for making a few true statement about Muslims. What do the same human rights honchos think about antisemitism? The answer to that seems to depend on whether it is Left antisemitism or Right antisemitism. In the report of Left antisemitism we read below, we note that none other than the chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission deliberately ignores it.
She even claims that its gross antisemitism is "contrary to the spirit, if not the letter, of human rights law". The various antisemitic Canadian Rightist guys who have been hounded by the Canadian human rights machine would be astounded to hear that what they said was "not contrary to the letter of human rights law"! If so, why were they fined and otherwise harassed?"Since the passage 10 years ago of the Safe Streets Act with its strict controls on panhandling, the Street News has become a popular alternative, selling 4,000 copies every two weeks across Toronto. Homeless people pay a nominal fee at various collection points, then sell it for $2 an issue.
But under this guise of charity, it has become the city's most prominent vehicle for hate propaganda, outrageous conspiracy theories, blatant plagiarism and libellous personal attacks, though virtually nothing about the homeless, all published at the whim of a man who lives a two-hour drive away in Ontario's farm belt.
In the past year, the paper has claimed Liberal MP Bob Rae's name was changed from Levine to hide his Jewishness and that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's secret true birthday is the same as Adolf Hitler's, which "looks good on a resume" for "New World Order types."
It has claimed a police officer covered up racist attacks on a shopkeeper, and even the editor admits one article was an illegal incitement to genocide against Jews. Ads are rare to non-existent, and often unpaid. "It's a little left wing," the General said. "Real out there."
Barbara Hall, chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, calls it an "unpleasant rant," full of anti-Semitism and senseless paranoia that is contrary to the spirit, if not the letter, of human rights law. "I don't like it. It's offensive," she said. "I suspect that a large number of people who open it would very quickly do what I did, which is say, 'This is scurrilous stuff ' and throw it away
Source
17 August, 2008
Jealous older women get pretty young woman banned
Dress is a form of self-expression so she would have a First Amendment case:"A Kentucky college student has hired a lawyer after she was escorted out of a mall by security on Sunday because her dress was deemed too short, MyFOXBoston reports.
Kymberly Clem, a 20-year-old student at Eastern Kentucky University, wore the dress Sunday after purchasing it from the mall in Richmond the previous day, the Richmond Register reported Tuesday.
After just a few minutes inside of the mall, a security guard approached her and expressed concerns over the length of the garment. According to MyFOXBoston, the guard informed her that several female patrons had complained that she was disrupting their shopping experience because their husbands were 'checking her out.'"
Source
White teen who hung nooses sentenced to 4 months
We read:"A Louisiana teenager who hung nooses off the back of his truck to intimidate a group of black civil rights demonstrators has been sentenced to four months in prison.By driving past while they were waiting at a bus stop he was interfering with their right to travel?? Did he stop them getting on the bus? That is a totally trumped up charge that would have been dismissed by any sane court in any other circumstances.
Federal prosecutors say 19-year-old Jeremiah Munsen displayed the nooses when he drove past people who had attended a massive civil rights march in Jena on Sept. 20.
Munsen had faced up to a year in prison after pleading guilty in April to a misdemeanour charge of interfering with the marchers' federally protected right to travel.
The marchers were waiting in Alexandria for a bus home to Tennessee.
Source
16 August, 2008
Google blocks blog because of reference to Down's syndrome
It was a reference in the "Comments" section:"Google has unblocked Scamp, the UK's most popular advertising industry blog, following the removal of comments containing "hate speech". The comments, in a post on dating in the advertising industry, were removed after complaints were made to Google's "hate crimes" division. Scamp, which is run by advertising executive Simon Veksner, had been blocked since Friday by Google-owned blogging platform Blogger.Must not regard the mentally defective as undesirable, apparently. Where does this end? What about ugly women? Is it forbidden to regard them as undesirable?
Veksner speculated that the post that triggered the complaints was called Sauce Poll on the subject of "who in an ad agency you would prefer to date?". He said that while Google did not refer to which post or posts had caused the blog to be blocked, he assumed that it was an offensive comment, which has now been deleted, "along the lines of how they would rather have sex with someone with Down's syndrome than an advertising professional".
Veksner said that while the post, made on Friday, did draw a backlash from the online community he at first left it on the blog. "A lot of people were offended, but I decided not to delete the comment," he told MediaGuardian.co.uk. "My policy is I do delete comments where the commenter is intending to be offensive, but I don't delete comments where the commenter's primary intention is to be witty, even if what they say ends up offending people." Veksner said that he moved to edit the posts following the official blocking of the website.
"I've deleted all the comments on here relating to sex with people who have Down's syndrome," he said in a post on Scamp. "Although Google haven't informed me exactly which post on this blog caused the activation of their hate crimes division, the strength of feeling in the comments section here leads me to believe it was this one."
Source
Must not say bad things about Obama
But OK to insult and attack Jews:"A man selling controversial t-shirts that refer to Senator Barack Obama as a slave was attacked in his New York City boutique. The man, known as "Apollo Braun," claims that two African-American men entered his store Wednesday afternoon and shouted "Who do you call a slave, you f***ing Jew?!" before assaulting him.I would have thought that the slogan was simply silly.
Last month Braun - real name Doron Braunshtein - made news when a woman threatened to sue him after she was assaulted while wearing one his shirts that bore the words "Obama is my slave." At the time, Braun defended the shirts, saying that they reflect the views of "ordinary WASPs [white anglo-saxon protestants]."
According to an account from his publicist, the two men worked together - one grabbed Braun's hands while the other kicked him in the testicles. Now, after experiencing the physical fallout for himself, the shirt peddler is reconsidering his merchandise.
Source
15 August, 2008
Southern heritage symbols under attack again
We read:"A former Anderson County High School student has sued the school district and its leadership for suspending him for wearing Confederate battle flag apparel to school and refusing to remove or obscure it. The case is expected to go to the jury this afternoon.
Tom Defoe's complaint in federal court indicates he was suspended for wearing a Confederate flag T-shirt to school in late October 2006. The principal informed Confederate flag apparel was banned at Anderson County High School and asked him to turn it inside out or take it off. The complaint says Defoe "politely refused to comply" and was suspended from school.
A week later, Defoe wore a Confederate belt buckle to school. The assistant principal of the vocational school told him it violated school policy and asked him to cover or remove the belt buckle. The complaint indicates Defoe "politely refused to remove or cover the buckle" and was again suspended.
On the stand Tuesday, Defoe said the school suspended him at least a dozen times for refusing to take off confederate flag t-shirts or turn them inside out. "It's my heritage," he testified. "I'm proud to be a Southerner."
Defoe's complaint claims the Confederate flag apparel at no time disrupted the learning environment and that other students are allowed to wear expressions of political or controversial viewpoints. As a result, Defoe says the policy against the Confederate flag violated his First Amendment rights.
It asks for the court to declare the schools' policy unconstitutional, for any disciplinary action related to these incidents to be removed from Defoe's record, and for a permanent injunction against the schools' policy.
Source
Official spying expands in Left-run Britain
A big disincentive to free speech:"Councils [municipalities] and health authorities are to be given the right to access e-mail and internet records under surveillance powers to be introduced next year, the Home Office said yesterday. Although first proposed to tackle terrorism and serious crime, powers have been extended to cover other criminal activity, public health, threats to public safety and even prevention of self-harm.Leftists used to say they supported privacy -- but I guess that applies to homosexuals only.
The Home Office said that the move would involve internet service providers storing one billion incidents of data each day and storing them for a minimum of 12 months. Under the plans the taxpayer would pay $92 million to internet service providers for holding information, even though some already keep similar records for marketing purposes.
Opposition MPs criticised the plans as a "snoopers' charter".
Source
14 August, 2008
Racist for the Irish to abuse the British
We read:"An English pipe fitter who was racially abused and taunted in his Irish workplace has been awarded $30,000 in compensation by an equality tribunal in Dublin. The unnamed man, who worked for an engineering company on a building site in Dublin, claimed that colleagues called him names and frequently ganged up on him to sing Irish rebel songs.Irish hatred for the British goes back a long way so I doubt that there would be much popular support for the verdict
Source
New British secrecy laws are a huge temptation to corruption
We read:"Inquests that are deemed a risk to national security by the Government would be held in secret in future under proposed powers to come before the House of Lords this autumn.
The provisions, under a clause in the Counter-Terrorism Bill, allow the Home Secretary to stop a jury being summoned, replace the coroner with a government appointee and bar the public from inquests if it is deemed to be in the public interest.
It could be applied to inquests similar to those into the deaths of the weapons inspector David Kelly, "friendly-fire" military casualties or Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed. In future, inquests similar to that into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, which is due to start next month with 44 police officers giving evidence anonymously, could also be subject to the secrecy clause.
Lawyers, opposition MPs and pressure groups have told The Times that the move represents a fundamental breach of the right to a public inquiry into a death - a centuries-old mainstay of British justice...
It would enable specially vetted coroners to sit in private without a jury when there is evidence involving national intelligence to be heard, or any matter that the Home Secretary deems not in the public interest. ...
The Coroners' Society condemned the measure as an absolute disgrace, saying that the system could be abused to draw a veil over politically inconvenient cases.
Source
13 August, 2008
Australia: Male teacher gets raunchy -- kids love it
We read:"A Catholic primary school teacher's raunchy poses on a TV modelling show have shocked family groups. Despite the outcry, Sacred Heart Primary School in Melbourne has pledged its support to physical education teacher Rhys Uhlich, 24.
Mr Uhlich, 24, stripped off for the cameras along with fellow competitors in a recent episode of Channel 7's Make Me a Supermodel. He reclined on a couch in only a pair of swimmers with contestant Hannah, 19, in a bikini, draped over him.
Several pupils from the Newport school have watched Mr Uhlich in the sexually charged series, which features swimwear catwalk parades and male contestants tearing their shirts off. Sacred Heart students have posted encouraging messages to him on Seven's website. One student wrote: "Go for it Mr Uhlich you rock but please don't leave your my fav teacher."
The steamy photo session was even declared "too sexy" by one of the show's judges. Australian Family Association state president Angela Conway said Mr Uhlich was sending a dangerous message to children.
Source
Racism! Islamophobia!
We read:"Muhammad Ali was back in the ring yesterday. This time, instead of a champion boxer, it was a champion hog.As Taranto commented dryly: "Pigs, of course, are considered "unclean" in Islam. Oh well, good thing Muslims have a sense of humor".
Tyla Voight of Miami County named the barrow -- a pig castrated before maturing -- after the former heavyweight champion because "he floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee."
Source
12 August, 2008
The incorrectness of "retard"
We read:"Last week we brought you the story of the ongoing controversy over Tropic Thunder. Shockingly, it's not Robert Downey, Jr. playing a black man that has people worried, but the use of the word "retard" in the film. Disability groups went to bat with DreamWorks to try and ruin the movie by getting the word removed from the film last week, and thankfully lost.
The news of free speech's victory over the forces of political correctness comes from the NYTimes where they reveal that disability groups are now going to plan B and organizing a boycott of the film, after meeting with DreamWorks and leaving the table unsatisfied. What's truly ludicrous is that not only are they now planning a boycott, but they're going to lobby Congress for a resolution condemning the movie for the use of hate speech. That's right, calling your buddy a "retard" is now hate speech. The next time one of your friends does something stupid, think before you verbally lynch him.
The upshot here is that if these coat the world in throw-pillows special interest groups are walking away unhappy, then moviegoers will almost certainly be walking out of Tropic Thunder happy, having laughed their asses off watching the movie as it was intended to be seen. These boycotters are people who probably weren't going to see the movie anyway
Source
Not illegal speech
Apparently the Westboro nutters claim that the recent beheading of a Canadian guy by a Chinese madman on a Greyhound bus was God's punishment for Canada's love of homosexuals. Following is pretty well-balanced editorial from Canada about that:"If stupidity and mental and emotional deficiency were crimes, then it would be easy to lock up all members of the Westboro Baptist Church. The organization, which masquerades as a Christian church, uses a variety of means to express hatred for homosexuals, Catholics, Jews, Muslims and countries that support or tolerate those groups. The church believes every tragedy in the world is linked to homosexuality, which it says should be a capital crime punished by death. By its logic, therefore, the brutal slaying of Winnipeg resident Tim McClean was an act of God, a divine message that Canada is in league with the evil sodomites.Story of the funeral here. The Canadians stopped the Westboro people at the border so they never got to the funeral. No free speech in Canada.
Members of the group said they plan to picket McClean's funeral today, a tactic they employ frequently in the United States to protest the tolerance shown to homosexuals. It's not known yet if they will carry out their bizarre and offensive threat, particularly since the federal Department of Public Safety has directed border guards to turn them away if they try to enter Canada, although the group claims its Canadian members might join their pathetic crusade.
According to Winnipeg MP Pat Martin, the Public Safety department has concluded that the church's message is hate speech, and, therefore, illegal under the Criminal Code. Unfortunately, Mr. Martin's logic is also in question.
Many people of all faiths believe homosexuality is a sin and that God punishes those who practice it. It is not illegal under the Criminal Code for a person to advocate that view, if it is done in good faith and based on a belief in a religious text. But even if the law could be twisted or interpreted to silence the church, it would still be wrong.
As offensive and insensitive as the church's views may be, they have a right to express them. In this case, it may be a right that many people wish did not exist, but there is more harm in silencing them than in allowing them to express their views. The principle of free speech allows for dissent, even if it is offensive. If church members disrupt the funeral service or block traffic, other laws can be used to restore order and decorum. But silencing the church on threat of punishment, even incarceration, would be an over-reaction that threatens a basic freedom.
Source
11 August, 2008
Free the Web -- From the FCC!
We read:"Last year, Comcast tweaked its network-management system to delay slightly the uploading of data through BitTorrent, one of the peer-to-peer services people use to swap movies, music and other large-bandwidth content. Comcast didn't discriminate against BitTorrent based on the content or, it says, to compete, arguing that it acted under its terms of usage so that consumers overall had the best experience. (Think of how controlling traffic with red lights gets to the ultimate destination faster.) Comcast and BitTorrent agreed in March that Comcast would find other techniques to manage its network. The companies issued a news release saying "these technical issues can be worked out through private business discussions without the need for government intervention." The FCC didn't take the hint.
The real problem is how to maintain the Web as a free and open commons, available for all to use in reasonable ways. An article in Britain's Guardian newspaper put it well: "The family gathers for tea, and there are four cream cakes for four people. If one person grabbed three of them, words would be said. However, peer-to-peer sharers think it's perfectly OK to grab three quarters of the communal internet bandwidth."
Instead of offering ways to keep the Web unclogged, the FCC decided that from now on it must approve how Internet service providers manage the fast-changing demands on bandwidth. The rationale suggests that the FCC now thinks of the Web as a "common carrier," the phrase earlier generations of regulators used to justify government management of industries.
Today's call for government regulation is under the well-intentioned cry of "net neutrality," not the more accurate, "Let's regulate the Web the way they regulated railroads." If setting reasonable tariffs for railroad freight was overreaching, imagine regulators trying to set reasonable practices or prices for different packets of online data. Do we really want an FCC as modern-day ICC deciding how many YouTube video downloads are reasonable?
Internet service is a competitive business, though cable and telecommunication companies do themselves no favors by occasionally acting like duopolists, and they should disclose their network practices. The key matter of social policy is that the Web needs more investment to keep capacity growing faster than Web developers find ways to use it. This is harder as large-bandwidth movies and music migrate online. It will be harder still if potential investors conclude that pricing and network management will be regulated by anything other than supply and demand.
Government's role on the Web is to ensure more competition and more consumer choice, not less competition and diminished consumer choice by turning the Web into a regulated industry. The Internet has become one of the most powerful innovations of our time, in part because it hasn't been burdened by government intervention. Those of us who want to keep the Web free should remember that the best way to keep an industry free is simply to keep it free.
Source
Monarchy wins one
In a 1999 referendum, roughly two thirds of Australians voted in favor of retaining the monarchy."In what has been labelled a "triumph of pomposity", an advertisement for beer has been withdrawn from Australian billboards at a cost of nearly $10,000 after complaints by monarchists upset at its apparent pro-republican sentiment. "Forget the monarchy, support the publicans" declared the cheeky billboard for Coopers beer, one of Australia's favourite brews.Being a strong monarchist myself, I am rather pleased by this. While the Left never let up in their attempts to censor conservatives, why should not conservatives play the same game occasionally? If it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander.
But the Australian Monarchists League (AML) was not amused and, with the new centre left government aiming to reignite the republican debate in Australia, they complained to Coopers, demanding that the billboards be taken down.
AML national chairman Philip Benwell said the problem was not with the humour of the slogan but the fact that they considered it a political statement and an attack on Australia's constitutional monarchy. "Some may see the ad as humorous, and I don't doubt that some people within Coopers viewed it that way," Mr Benwell said, adding his group simply wanted to "protect the denigration of the monarchy".
Source
This has not been a big issue in Australia, however. I spend hours reading the Australian media every day but the first I heard of it was when I saw the above report from "The Times" of London.
10 August, 2008
Cartoon publisher has a win
We read:"Ezra Levant is off the hook and he isn't happy about it. Two years ago, his now-defunct Western Standard magazine - a rare conservative voice in liberal Canada - became one of the few publications to dare reprint the notorious Danish cartoons of Mohammed.Like Mark Steyn, he wanted to take the matter further so he could get a precedent-setting verdict in a higher court. There are still 17 other cases against him, however, so he may well have that chance yet.
The magazine was headquartered in the province of Alberta, leading two different local Muslim groups to file complaints against Levant with the Alberta Human Rights Commission (AHRC). Established in the 1970s to hear discrimination complaints in the areas of housing and employment, Canada's HRCs slowly morphed into a combination censor board/secret police, "investigating" so-called "hate sites" on the web, fining Christian organizations and individuals found guilty of "offending" gay activists, and charging Canada's oldest magazine, and its columnist Mark Steyn, with "flagrant Islamophobia."
Levant was interrogated by a government bureaucrat this past January - an interrogation he videotaped and posted on YouTube. Levant's mocking, impassioned performance, which challenged the HRC's very legitimacy, was viewed hundreds of thousands of times, made Levant an overnight free speech hero, and ignited a national debate about Canada's beloved policy of multiculturalism.... His legal bills topped $100,000, and he estimates the cases have cost Alberta taxpayers $500,000.
Then, for reasons that remain unclear, one Muslim group - the Supreme Islamic Council run by Imam Syed Soharwardy - suddenly dropped its complaint against Ezra Levant in February. Finally, on August 6, the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities complaint was dismissed by the Alberta HRC. Levant had "won" what he'd taken to calling "the first blasphemy case in Canada in 80 years."
Source
The incorrectness of silence
We read:"A legal appeal over a 2003 Texas law mandating a moment of silence for schoolchildren is heating up. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to hear the case this fall. Both sides have asked for oral arguments and advocacy groups are weighing in with friend-of-the-court briefs.
A North Texas couple is appealing the January ruling from a federal district court that upheld the law. U.S. District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn said the law has a secular purpose of encouraging thoughtful contemplation and does not advance or inhibit religion.
Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a news release Monday that the state will argue that the statute is constitutional. It requires schoolchildren to begin each day with pledges of allegiance to the U.S. and Texas flags followed by a minute of silence to "reflect, pray, (or) meditate."
Source
9 August, 2008
Australia: Whisky ad too sexy
Sounds like a great ad:"An alcohol advertisement with topless Swedish sunbathers being stalked by peeping toms could prompt a crackdown on the industry's advertising tactics. Outraged health groups will lodge formal complaints about the Jim Beam advertisement, describing it as one of the most offensive promotions in the industry's history. The Federal Government has slammed it.I fail to see what it has got to do with health!
The bourbon maker's campaign, The Neighbours, includes TV and internet ads showing two blondes in G-strings applying sunscreen, bouncing on a trampoline and finally stripping naked as they're watched through a hedge by "Stevo next door" and his mates.
A 30-second TV version, first shown on Friday on Fox Sports, features one semi-naked women stating: "We say, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, take off your cozzie." Viewers are then directed to a website with a longer ad in which the women are spied on as they undress. The camera zooms in on their breasts and backsides before ending with a close-up of one topless woman washing dishes at the kitchen sink.
The Australian Drug Foundation and VicHealth will make complaints against the ad, claiming it trivialises the criminal act of stalking, objectifies women and links sex to alcohol - a breach of the industry's own self-regulated advertising code.
Source
There are various videos of attractive women on the Jim Beam site but the one above seems to have been purged.
Victory for Free Speech as Third Circuit Issues Ruling against Temple University
We read:"Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued an opinion in DeJohn v. Temple University upholding a decision by a federal district court that Temple University's former speech code is unconstitutional. Temple's code prohibited, among other things, "generalized sexist remarks and behavior." In September 2007, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Third Circuit to uphold the lower court's ruling.
"The Third Circuit's ruling today is a clear and crucial victory for freedom of speech at our nation's public colleges and universities," FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. "The court's decision serves as unequivocal notice to university administrators across the country that the First Amendment still applies on campus. Today's victory demonstrates, yet again, that public universities maintain unconstitutional speech codes at their peril."
The lawsuit against Temple University was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in February 2006 by attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) on behalf of Temple student Christian DeJohn. DeJohn's complaint alleged both that Temple had engaged in actions that violated his rights and that Temple was violating the free speech rights of all of its students by maintaining an unconstitutional speech code.
Today's ruling, authored by Judge D. Brooks Smith, unequivocally states that "[d]iscussion by adult students in a college classroom should not be restricted." In holding that Temple's former speech code "provides no shelter for core protected speech," Judge Smith found the policy to be facially overbroad.
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8 August, 2008
Naughty sexist
Jocular men-talk not OK with a U.S. female audience
"Martin Bashir, famous for nodding sympathetically at both Diana, Princess of Wales and Michael Jackson, has apologised after making a series of sexist remarks to a room full of American journalists.I am inclined to think that the ladies should lighten up
The British television presenter has been forced into a grovelling apology after joking that he was surrounded by a host of "Asian babes" during an after-dinner speech to the Asian American Journalists Association.
Looking around the room in Chicago during the organisation's annual gala banquet last week, Bashir said: "I'm happy to be in the midst of so many Asian babes. In fact, I'm happy that the podium covers me from the waist down."
Not content with offending the assembled professionals just once, Bashir went on to say that a speech should be "like a dress on a beautiful woman - long enough to cover the important parts and short enough to keep your interest, like my colleague Juju's". The audience began to boo and Juju Chang, who is a fellow television presenter on the ABC channel, retorted: "See what I have to put up with?"
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State Tourism Chief Moves to Approve Gay-Welcoming Ads, Fearing PR Backlash
We read:"Upon learning last month the state had approved ads promoting South Carolina as a gay destination, the head of the state's tourism agency said this week he wanted the campaign to continue because of public relations concerns. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism director Chad Prosser said the agency had no authority to ask the ads be taken down anyway, since the contract was through a third-party British vendor. "There was nothing that could be done to pull it," Prosser said. "The campaign was going to end before that whole chain of events could take place," he added, reports Columbia, S.C.'s The State.Seems fair that an ad stupid enough to call a whole State homosexual should not be paid for.
Gov. Mark Sanford and others objected to the ad content - calling the state "So Gay" - arguing state tourism dollars were being used to make a political statement. After the ad campaign became news in S.C. - a week after Prosser found out about it - Prosser announced the state would not pay the vendor, reports State writer John O'Connor.
Prosser said he did not ask the ads be removed for three reasons: concerns the advertising and tour companies would use it for free publicity; the agency could not remove the ads; and the campaign had nearly run its course, coinciding with gay pride events in London.
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7 August, 2008
You Still Can't Write About Muhammad
We read:"Starting in 2002, Spokane, Wash., journalist Sherry Jones toiled weekends on a racy historical novel about Aisha, the young wife of the prophet Muhammad. Ms. Jones learned Arabic, studied scholarly works about Aisha's life, and came to admire her protagonist as a woman of courage. When Random House bought her novel last year in a $100,000, two-book deal, she was ecstatic. This past spring, she began plans for an eight-city book tour after the Aug. 12 publication date of "The Jewel of Medina" -- a tale of lust, love and intrigue in the prophet's harem.
It's not going to happen: In May, Random House abruptly called off publication of the book. The series of events that torpedoed this novel are a window into how quickly fear stunts intelligent discourse about the Muslim world.
Random House feared the book would become a new "Satanic Verses," the Salman Rushdie novel of 1988 that led to death threats, riots and the murder of the book's Japanese translator, among other horrors. In an interview about Ms. Jones's novel, Thomas Perry, deputy publisher at Random House Publishing Group, said that it "disturbs us that we feel we cannot publish it right now." He said that after sending out advance copies of the novel, the company received "from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment."
After consulting security experts and Islam scholars, Mr. Perry said the company decided "to postpone publication for the safety of the author, employees of Random House, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the novel."
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Evidence Of Racism (Or Not)
Post below recycled from Discriminations . See the original for links. I made a similar comment to that below on Jan. 29
Politico reports this morning that "Race-card flap reopens Clinton camp wounds.""I am not a racist," Clinton said Monday in a testy interview with ABC News in Monrovia, Liberia, in response to a question that wasn't quite related to that subject. "I've never made a racist comment and I never attacked [Obama] personally."Doesn't this imply that Clinton agrees that it would be racist to attack (maybe even criticize) Obama personally?"Obama himself never suggested that the Clintons had harbored racial animus, though his campaign did at least once make that case to the media, and some of his supporters overtly denounced the former president. Former Clinton aides acknowledge that Bill Clinton, particularly in comparing Obama's South Carolina win to Jesse Jackson's victory, all but invited the charge from Obama's allies.I must confess that I never understood how it was racist to compare Obama, a black man who won an overwhelming percentage of the black vote in the South Carolina primary, to Jesse Jackson, a black man who won an overwhelming percentage of the vote in the South Carolina primary.
Maybe some angry Obamanaut or guilty Clintonista can explain it to me.
6 August, 2008
Strange Times
An anti-Israel antisemite writes some rather unpleasant stuff about rich Jews in a French periodical and gets fired over it. A columnist in the NYT with the distinctively Muslim surname of Cohen defends the free speech rights of the foul Frog and says he should not have been fired. And I agree with the NYT columnist!
I rarely agree with anything in the NY Pravda and I am about as pro-Israel as you can get so it does feel pretty odd.
But read the whole thing, as they say in the classics.
Update:
Another account of the affair here
British government bans the word 'obese' to describe overweight children
How confused can you get? They want to harass kids into losing weight but don't want to hurt their feelings. What do they think the kids feel about being told that their weight is unacceptable?"Parents of primary schoolchildren will start getting letters next month telling them how fat their children are under Government plans to tackle childhood obesity. But however much they weigh, no child will ever be described as "obese".
The Department of Health faced criticism yesterday for a "prissy" approach to tackling obesity after it said that it did not want the term "obese" included in the letters.
The department said that research had shown that the term was a turn-off, so instead it will use the term "very overweight" for those children whose body mass index exceeds 30, in an attempt to enlist parents' support.
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5 August, 2008
Confederate flag still flying -- bigger than ever
We read:"Despite years of boycotts, schoolyard bans, and banishment from capitol domes, the Southern battle colors are flying, higher than ever. Indeed, the Tampa Confederate Veterans Memorial and its 139-foot flagpole features one of at least four giant "soldier's flags" flying over bumper-to-bumper interstates in Florida and Alabama. With more planned in Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, and possibly South Carolina, the interstate show of force, experts say, highlights the potential backlash from banning nostalgic symbols from the public square.
Moreover, the giant flags are also the outward sign of a deeper struggle within the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), a century-old organization historically more likely to hold battlefield reenactments than to stage political warfare.
What effect the flags will have on public perceptions and even tourism intensifies the issue as a political force here in the only part of the country to suffer the humiliation of total defeat.
"The battle flag "is a profound statement ... and the targets of our nerve-getting are the business community, the tourist community and the political community," says Marion Lambert, the Brandon, Fla., beekeeper who spearheaded the Tampa flag monument.
Unlike the flags that were taken down from the capitol domes in Columbia, S.C. and Tallahassee, Fla., these new auto dealer-sized flags - sewn in China - may be legally untouchable. Raised on private property, the Tampa flag was OK'd by county zoning officials and the Federal Aviation Administration.
"It's not going to go away," says Jim Farmer, a history professor at the University of South Carolina at Aiken. "There is a subculture within the white Southern population, of which the SCV is the most visible voice, that feels besieged by modern culture in general, and they identify the Old South and Confederacy as a way of life and a period of time before the siege began to really hit the South."
To Confederate sympathizers, opposition to the flag is misguided. They say the "soldier's flag" represents not slavery, but the valor of Southern men in their lost cause......
Still, it's not clear whether the flag is actually that sensitive a topic. The economic effect of NAACP and NCAA boycotts in South Carolina has been minimal, according to state officials.
More recently, a Florida newspaper poll revealed that few drivers found the Tampa flag offensive, which surprised many officials.
Source
John McCain considers Jewish running mate
Those racist Republicans again!"A young Jewish congressman from the battleground state of Virginia has joined the shortlist to be John McCain's vice-presidential running mate. Eric Cantor, 45, would be a dramatic choice for Mr McCain, who is running almost level with Barack Obama in national polls but whose aides believe he needs to shake-up the White House race if he is to prevail in November's general election.This would be an amusing choice in a few ways. It would of course drive the Jewish conspiracy theorists out of their tiny brains but the real fun would be seeing how the Left would make this into a "racist" choice. Calling black white (Whoops! Am I allowed to say that?) has never been a problem for the Left.
Aides to Mr McCain revealed that Mr Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in the House of Representatives, had been asked to submit documents as part of a rigorous vetting process to hunt out any closet skeletons.
Mr Cantor would be by far the most exciting - though potentially risky - choice. A prodigious fundraiser with a young, photogenic family, support from evangelical Christians and strong backing from hard-line conservatives, he would shore up many of Mr McCain's weaknesses.
Mr Cantor would be the first Jewish vice-president, an historic milestone that Senator Joe Lieberman just missed in 2000 when Al Gore lost to George W Bush by 567 votes.
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4 August, 2008
Obama plays the race card
We read:" Senator John McCain's campaign accused Senator Barack Obama on Thursday of playing "the race card," citing his remarks that Republicans would try to scare voters by pointing out that he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."After initially huffing and puffing, Obama admitted that it was his race that he was referring to. See here. So he was accusing McCain of racism, even though McCain has never raised the issue of Obama's race.
Source
Menthol is racist
Betcha didn't know that! Apparently there is a bill before Congress to regulate what goes into cigarettes:"Because the bill would ban the use of all other flavoring additives (like cloves and peppermint) but permit the use of menthol, and since menthol is overwhelming used by African American smokers -- including Black children -- it has already been damned for being racially insensitive if not outright racist by the Congressional Black Caucus, African American former HHH Secretary Louis W. Sullivan and most other former HHS Secretaries, the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network, and ASH, America's first antismoking organization.Did you follow that? I am not sure I did but the idea seems to be that menthol encourages black kids to smoke and smoking is bad for you so allowing menthol in cigarettes is racist. When your argument is flimsy, the race card is always a great help. The article also claims that cigarettes are dangerously radioactive.
Source
The article is by by Banzhaf, a lawyer notorious for far-out lawsuits about "threats" to health emanating from everyday products. I gather that his activities have made him a rich man.
3 August, 2008
Leftist hate is OK
An interesting report from NYC
"What I don't tolerate, and what I believe the Constitution doesn't protect, is speech designed to provoke hate or violence against groups of people. Period. So, when I saw bright-green posters declaring, "DIE YUPPIE SCUM DIE," I recognized the hate speech.
Substitute "Yuppie" with "Jew," and you see what I mean. About 70 years ago, Hitler rallied his National Socialists against the Jews - mainly because the Jews could be easily singled out, but also because they were successful, and it was easy to convince the Germans that the reason for all of their feelings of loss or oppression were caused by the "rich Jews." It's nice to sneak hate in through the back door, isn't it?
So, in protest of these signs - calling for the death of total strangers, for no other reason than that they're perceived to be richer than us, and therefore the cause of all of our misery - I began taking them down.
After about 12 posters, I was approached by Jerry The Peddler, an East Village fixture, political activist, organizer and general hustler for the antiwar movement. He asked what I thought I was doing, and I showed him the poster and explained that it was hate speech and shouldn't be tolerated. He acknowledged that I was right - it was hate speech, and, he added, "I hate Yuppies." I told him he had no right to call for their death, as I reached to take down another of his hate-filled posters. He grabbed my left hand - technically an assault - and bent my finger back. "I'll break your fingers, so that you'll never play guitar again, and if I see anymore of these posters down.I'll kill you," he said. You know the look of hate, and he had it in his eyes.
This is the true antiwar movement. These are the peace activists that you see when you turn on your TV and see a report about a protest or riot in New York City: "Support the antiwar movement - or we'll kill you."
It doesn't matter to them that I've defended their right to express their views for the last 30 years; because I "question" their motives, they've decided that I have no right to exist.
Source
Update on the AutoAdmit case
We read:""Women named Jill and Hillary should be raped."I am glad that some of the abusive scum have been exposed. Libel has never been covered by free speech. And the scum are budding lawyers! It figures, I guess. Great that their legal careers will now be stymied. Burger flipping is all that they are ethically fit for.
Those are the words of "AK-47" -- a poster to the college-admissions web forum AutoAdmit.com. AK-47 was one of a handful of students heaping misogynist scorn on women attending the nations' top law schools in 2007, in posts so vile they spurred a national debate on the limits of online anonymity, and an unprecedented federal lawsuit aimed at unmasking and punishing the posters.
Now lawyers for two female Yale Law School students have ascertained AK-47's real identity, along with the identities of other AutoAdmit posters, who all now face the likely publication of their names in court records -- potentially marking a death sentence for the comment trolls' budding legal careers even before the case has gone to trial.
The AutoAdmit controversy began even before one of the women, identified in court documents as "Jane Doe I," started classes in the fall of 2005, the lawsuit alleges. Doe I was alerted in the summer to an AutoAdmit comment thread entitled "Stupid Bitch to Attend Law School." The thread included messages such as, "I think I will sodomize her. Repeatedly" and a reply claiming "she has herpes." The second woman, Jane Doe II, was similarly attacked beginning in January 2007.
Both women tried in vain to persuade the administrators of the AutoAdmit.com site to remove the threads, according to the lawsuit. But then the story of the cyber-harassment hit the front page of The Washington Post, and the law school trolls became fodder for cable news shows. Soon after, the female law students, with help from Stanford and Yale law professors, filed the federal lawsuit in June 2007 seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages.
The Jane Doe plaintiffs contend that the postings about them became etched into the first page of search engine results on their names, costing them prestigious jobs, infecting their relationships with friends and family, and even forcing one to stop going to the gym for fear of stalkers.
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My previous post on the case was on March 14
2 August, 2008
Even the NYT gets it wrong
According to feminists"The feminist blogosphere erupted this week in a brief but intense conflagration over a New York Times story about BlogHer, the annual conference for female bloggers held this year in San Francisco. "Blogging's Glass Ceiling" was written by Times staffer Kara Jesella and appeared in the Times' Sunday "Styles" section, a week after the conclusion of BlogHer. In it, Jesella reported on the frustrations of some of the assembled writers about the lack of respect they receive on the Internet, a frontier that still whirs away on masculine energy, despite the fact that nearly as many women as men surf it every day, Salon reports.
According to some ticked critics of the Times, a lack of respect for female bloggers was etched into Jesella's piece itself. Among Feministe blogger PhysioProf's complaints was that the story was published in the "Styles" section, the section of the paper reserved for trend pieces, drink recipes, society photos and wedding announcements - in other words, the girl part of the paper, reports Salon writer Rebecca Traister.
PhysioProf also called out Jesella for her cliched lede (about BlogHer attendees taking over the men's rooms in the conference hotel), her reportorial focus on details that were female (there were lactation and changing rooms), superficial (women applying blush and eye shadow) and ridiculous (self-helpy affirmations posted in the bathroom stalls like "You are perfect"). She was also angry about Jesella's decision to draw attention to the emotional, sometimes weepy panels that took place during the gathering, and the piece's description of how the conference had "moved on" from last year's Kathy Sierra-inspired focus on how women are treated on the Internet, to discussions of how bloggers can increase their influence, reputation and profit.
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China lifts internet firewall in time for Olympics
We read:"China has opened crevices in the Great Firewall that blocks access to many internet sites, allowing the public to see some quarters of cyberspace that it has long blocked.Update:
The lifting of some restrictions could end controversy that has marred the smooth run-up to the start of the Games after the disclosure that the International Olympic Committee and the Bocog games organisers had cut a deal that enabled censors to block sites deemed sensitive or harmful to national security. The issue had caused a major stir and created dissension within the top ranks of the IOC because the move reneged on previous pledges of full free access during the August 8-24 Games.
The IOC said it had pressed China in talks on Thursday to open up the internet to visiting journalists. "The issues were put on the table and the IOC requested that the Olympic Games hosts address them."
Already today users in China were able to reach the website of Amnesty International as well Reporters Without Borders and German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. The BBC's Chinese language website was also expected to become available. Blocks on the main BBC English site were lifted a few months ago after remaining in place in China for years.
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Conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG has just offered his take on the Chinese Olympic censorship issue.
1 August, 2008
China breaks word, censors world media
We read:"Communist officials have outraged the International Olympic Committee and the world's media by barring unfettered access to the internet -- reneging on a key pre-Games promise to open China's doors to the world. Having already restricted access to Tiananmen Square during the Games, which begin in eight days, China yesterday brazenly defied the IOC and admitted it would censor the internet.Communists will be Communists, I guess. It's a good reminder of what they are, though. Those murderous old guys are not letting go.
International media were yesterday unable to access websites connected to the Falun Gong, Amnesty International or the Tiananmen Square massacre.
IOC officials, led by Australia's Kevan Gosper, were last night trying to resolve the furore but Chinese officials were unrepentant. "It was my express belief that there would be open, free and uncensored access to the internet during the Games," Mr Gosper told The Australian.
Beijing officials insisted the media had all the internet access they needed. "Our promise was that journalists would be able to use the internet for their work during the Olympic Games. So we have given them sufficient access to do that," said Sun Weide, spokesman for the Olympic organising committee.
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Insinuations of Homophobia Force Nike's Hand: Sportswear Company Yanks New Hyperdunk Shoe Ads on Anti-Gay Concerns
We read:"Nike has pulled some advertisements that appeared to send out anti-gay messages, according to the online edition of The Oregonian newspaper. The newspaper said controversy arose last week over some advertisements for Nike's new Hyperdunk basketball shoes. The ads were dubbed homophobic by bloggers and critics, the paper said, according to a Reuters report.I thought being homosexual was just great these days. Apparently not. Or is the problem that the players were black? Are blacks not allowed to be homosexual? Very strange. I guess I just don't understand the complexities of getting it just right in this area.
Concerns were first raised by Gawker. (See the blog post here). Under a post titled "Does Nike Hate Gays? Or Do Gays Hate Basketball?" the blog said the ads showed a basketball player's face in the groin area of another player seemingly dunking a ball. Gawker also carried a picture of the ad on the blog, reports Reuters writer Varsha Tickoo.
The picture was accompanied by slogans like "This ain't right" and the blog said the ads appeared offensive to African-Americans too. The two players featured in the picture looked African-American. "Nike should pull the ads. Or rework them to be friendlier to gay basketball fans, at least," the blog said in its post.
The Oregonian's report published on Saturday quoted a Nike spokesman, Bob Applegate, saying three separate poster and billboard ads would be taken down in Portland, Oregon "as expeditiously as possible." The ads also appeared in New York City streets and subway tunnels, the paper said.
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