Western Standard

The Shotgun Blog

« December 30, 2007 - January 5, 2008 |Main| January 13, 2008 - January 19, 2008 »

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Anybody up there wishing WE had won in 1812?

After following the ongoing Canadian war against free speech (it's not just Ezra, see here), I was struck with a thought: while Canada and the United States have been friends for nearly two centuries, we did fight a vicious (and largely fruitless) war from 1812 to 1814 (known as the War of 1812 down here).

At the risk of earning a full cyber-assault from all Canadian fronts, I must confess that, for the first time in my life, I actually regretted that we didn't win that war (one of its objectives was the conquest of Canada).

So I'm wondering - in light of recent events, does anybody up there wonder if they would be better off as (roughly) seventh-generation Americans?

Just asking.

Posted by D.J. McGuire on January 12, 2008 in Canadian Politics, International Affairs, Media, Western Standard | Permalink | Comments (53) | TrackBack

More video testimony

I don't answer to the state:

Ezra says: "...you're a thug, your whole company's a thug. I do not seek to convince you. Because to do so means that I grant you some moral authority...

I will lay out to my tens-of-thousands of readers my most reasonable arguments for it, but I am not attempting to be exonerated because I meet your standard of reasonableness. Because, first of all, I don't care what your standard of reasonableness is...

I don't grant you, at all, the right to sit in judgment of whether or not I'm reasonable. I'll grant that to my advertisers. I'll grant that to my readers. I'll grant that to friends and people in social society who may marginalize me or shun me if I am too rude...

I will suffer the penalties of civil society. I will suffer the marginalization of polite company... I will suffer that from my fellow man voluntarily. But I do not grant to you, or any other instrument of the state, the right to tell me whether or not I am reasonable enough to pass your test."

Friendly and polite bureaucrat #22: "Okay."

Posted by P.M. Jaworski on January 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBack

So it goes, I guess

Videos of Ezra's "interrogation," as he calls it, should be the stuff of some kind of movie.

It is absurd. Here's Ezra, sitting at an ordinary desk, in an ordinary chair, facing down a perfectly pleasant and kind lady with the collar of her button-up shirt protruding from her smart, deep-blue, V-neck sweater. She has a clipboard and occasionally takes notes as Ezra presents a fiery defense of freedom of speech, expression, and the press.

The proportions are all wrong. Ezra's tone and the content of his speech seems outlandish in this context. She's just an ordinary lady, for God's sake. Calling this an "interrogation" and insisting that you are there in protest and under duress and under compulsion, and using words like "forced" seem bizarrely out of place. The McCarthy hearing this is not.

The whole thing really could have been taken straight out of some Kafka novel. Or, better, some Vonnegut short story, where the protagonist--Vonnegut would surely have made it the bureaucrat--is scribbling "and so it goes," at the end of each line of her notes. In a novel like that, she would be busy writing down her shopping list, rather than take strict notes. She would then return to her higher-ups, to be dressed-down by someone much better at crossing all the "ts" and dotting all the "is" and knowing the difference between form A-32-5 and form A-23-5, and which one to use when. (That is, after all, how you advance in a bureaucracy).

-------

An excerpt from Ezra Goes to the Commission, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.:

"You used an HB pencil? You know we use blue ball-point pens on foolscap! It is vital that these things be done in strict accordance with our protocol. You realize how important protocol is, don't you?"

"Of course," I said sheepishly then. I didn't really catch what he said next. Something about setting a good example for the new people we had hired, who would be reading my notes. Just then, I was staring at the computer monitor on Alex's desk. The colours were spectacular. I was sure Sally, my daughter, would like a monitor like that. She's always asking me to get her something nice, and I can't be relied upon to remember exactly what it is she wants all the time. I guess I won't be winning any mother-of-the-year awards in Calgary. But why bother? There's a war going on Iraq, don't they know?

"You've really made a mockery of our Commission here," I caught him saying then. I think that's the second time he's said I've made a mockery of the Commission. I just don't see why it matters whether we use pencils or pens, so long as we take notes.

I think I looked down at the floor just then. I shuffled my feet, to make a show of it for him. Said something like "I'm sorry sir, it won't happen again." I may have said, "so it goes." But I guess I didn't, because he said, "good, make sure of it," and turned to head back into his corner office with the view of Red Mile, where the hockey fan girls had stripped off their shirts to the other hockey fans because that's what you do when your hockey team wins an important game. Strip off your shirt. I would have done that too, if I thought we had won something important, but I guess we didn't. We never win anything important. And so it goes.

---end of excerpt

Ezra references Hannah Arendt and her theory of the "banality of evil" in particular. According to Arendt, the participants in the most shocking atrocities throughout history were, well, shockingly ordinary. That concept appears in "Eichmann in Jerusalem," a book reporting on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the kingpins of the Nazis. His testimony revealed a man who wasn't anti-semitic, or sociopathic, or deranged, or in any other way mentally disturbed. He did what he thought was normal, and he did it for the perfectly normal reason of wanting to get ahead in his career, probably to be successful and provide for his family. It was all so banal.

Arendt spends a lot of time talking about Hitler's bureaucrats, the people who actually put his vile thoughts into action on the ground, and tries to illustrate that they were ordinary, polite, decent, run-of-the-mill people. People just like you and me. Ordinary people, leading ordinary lives, but participating, most mundanely, in the most unspeakable and horrifying evil.

Reading Arendt was distressing. This was a long time ago for me now, and I don't remember most of the book. Still, I do recall the horror that I felt at realizing that regular people would fall lock-step in line, and don a brown shirt because, well, that's just what we do around here. That's what's normal.

Actually, after reading Arendt I sort of thought she must have been wrong. People who do evil must intend evil, I thought. I had read plenty of Ayn Rand, and was even the President of the Objectivist Association at my University for a semester. Reading too much Ayn Rand makes you cast immediate judgment on the character of people based on the flimsiest of evidence--like whether or not somebody likes Mozart, or likes to play video games. Just about everything for Rand was black and white, good or evil. Arendt forces a confrontation with the hazy gray, and the disturbing "decent" or "ordinary."

The realization didn't come until after a particularly horrifying day in my Psychology 101 class. We were presented with two psych studies. The first was the Milgram experiment, and the second was the Stanford Prison Experiment.

The Milgram experiment was pretty simple. The experimenter wanted to discover whether ordinary Americans would not follow authority, as ordinary Nazis did when given orders by someone who appeared to be an authority. A man in a lab coat would tell unwitting participants that they were engaged in studying a new method of learning using electrocution. The unwitting dupe, sometimes taking puffs from his cigarette, would be asked to send an electric shock to the "learner" (a co-conspirator of the experiment, who wasn't actually connected to any electric shock device) whenever the learner would get some answer wrong. Each time the learner got something wrong, the voltage would be increased, all the way to 450 volts, which was marked on the panel with a "Danger" symbol.

So how did everybody do? Did the Beavers stand up to authority when the shock required was high enough to result in permanent damage? No. Nothing of the sort. Just about everybody (65 per cent, or 26 out of the first 40 participants) continued to send what they thought were electric shocks to the learners, all the way through the danger zone. And everybody, without exception, got to 300 volts. You and I, dear reader, would have pushed the button. We would have been perfectly ordinary, and perfectly decent--as I'm sure you are, and as I'm sure I am--and would have participated  in sending, what we thought would have been, excruciating electric shocks to the learners for some stupid experiment just because it's what we were told to do, and just because it is what would have been expected of us. We would have been participants in your regular garden-variety kind of evil.

So, too, with the prison experiment. Here, ordinary Stanford college students were put into two groups--one were the guards, the others were to be prisoners. The guards were to tell prisoners what to do, and were asked to ensure order. The prisoners were just prisoners. On the second day of the experiment, a riot broke out. The guards were asked to ensure order, and they volunteered to stay after-hours to ensure that, in the basement of the Psychology building, everything was as a prison should be.

Over time, the guards turned bathroom breaks into privileges. They forced prisoners to sleep naked, sometimes on the floor after having removed their beds because they misbehaved. They participated in sexual humiliation, and even forced prisoners to clean the toilets with their bare hands. Did I say guards and prisoners? I meant "guards" and "prisoners." They weren't really that, recall, they were friends and fellow college undergraduate students. All perfectly ordinary kids.

Let me tell you one more thing about this experiment. One "prisoner" had demanded to be released, and was. A replacement "prisoner," prisoner number 416, was brought in as a substitute. Shocked at what he found there, he went on a hunger strike. The guards stuffed him in a closet--for solitary confinement--for three hours with the meal he refused to eat in his hands. Then the "guards" told the other "prisoners" that, because of 416's bad attitude, they would either take away all the "prisoners'" blankets for the night, or they could keep 416 in "solitary confinement" overnight, but that they could vote on it. All but one of the "prisoners" voted to keep their blanket. 416 spent the night in solitary.

The experiment was cut short, to the distress of 1/3 of the "guards" who were really enjoying their roles, when Zimbardo's (that's the Prof) future wife, then-current grad student, expressed moral disapproval of the experiment, and objected. Zimbardo noted that she was the only one to express moral reservations, in spite of the sadism, the forced nudity, the vile and wretched conditions, out of 50 people who had come to see the experiment. I guess the rest all thought it was an important experiment, all according to the letter, totally fine, decent, and perfectly ordinary. More of your standard, expected, garden-variety evil.

There is no point in comparing the evil of Hitler or the Stanford prison experiment to the "evils" of the hrc. That comparison is hardly reasonable or appropriate. But mentioning the extreme makes sense in order to illustrate a clear case, so that we can take the lessons of that case and apply them to more temperate cases. This is standard fare in philosophy, where the whole point of thought experiments is to get a good grip on a principle that we can then take and apply in more muddy, and much less extreme, cases.

Let me give you an example from Robert Nozick's brilliant Anarchy, State & Utopia. We're asked whether, as some utilitarians have it, all that morally matters is certain mental states, like pleasure. This is, for some utilitarians, though not all, the ultimate lesson of morality--namely, we ought strive to ensure the most intense positive affect emotions amongst the greatest number of persons.

So now suppose we have an experience machine before us. This experience machine has no flaws, it is perfect in every way. It allows the user to "experience," when plugged in, all the joys and successes of the best of all possible lives. If struggles are crucial to a life that feels best, from the inside, then you'll experience those. If hardships are crucial, then you'll have those too. Whatever makes for the best feelings in the best of all possible lives, you'll have those. Your whole life will feel perfect, from the inside.

Of course, you never actually do any of those things. You're in some room, plugged into a really suped-up X-Box 360. But you don't know that. You think it's all real. You don't even remember making the decision to be plugged into the machine (or having the decision made for you at birth).

Should you plug in? For those who think mental states are all that could possibly matter, the answer is "yes, you should." If you, dear reader, are horrified at the thought, that's most probably because you don't trust the machine to actually get you those feelings. But it will! So plug in, baby.

Nozick disagrees. He thinks that we want more than merely to experience these things, we want to actually live them. The experience machine is supposed to illustrate that.

The rebuttal that we don't have anything like the experience machine, and that the whole example is extreme, and way too science-fiction-y, is totally beside the point. It's an evasion, not a rebuttal.

Hannah Arendt, Kafka, Vonnegut, Milgram, Nozick, an experience machine, and a Stanford prison. And the Human Rights Commission. That's a fine soup, and a big mess.

We can expect, let's see here, at least 65 per cent of Canadians to think an electric shock of this magnitude to our freedoms to be perfectly all right. So long as a blue ball-point pen is used, and those in charge know the difference between form A-32-5 and form A-23-5.

And at least 1/3 of the bureaucrats at the Commission would be truly disappointed to see the Commission no longer clamp down on speech. After all, all that really matters is how things feel, from the inside, and we wouldn't want people to have hurt feelings.

As for Ezra, he's just one out of 50 Canadians who would even think that there is anything morally the matter with this particular jurisdiction of the Commission. 49 out of 50 would think it is perfectly ordinary, probably important, and probably the right thing to do.

The existence of the Commission is not a "joke," as Ezra puts it. Its attempt to squelch freedom of expression, speech, and the press, is perfectly acceptable and perfectly normal. It is ordinary, decent,  and run-of-the-mill.  It is banal.

It is all of these things, and, well, evil.

And so it goes, I guess.

Posted by P.M. Jaworski on January 12, 2008 in Canadian Politics | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack

Videos from the hearing

Ezra is really hammering the hrc. Here's some video:

Opening statement by Ezra (incredible):

What was your intention, Ezra?:

What about the danger?:

Man alive. Watch!

Posted by P.M. Jaworski on January 12, 2008 in Canadian Politics | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

Are Canada's "Human Rights" Commissions just slo-mo Kristallnachts?

Just askin'...

Posted by Kathy Shaidle on January 12, 2008 | Permalink | TrackBack

Friday, January 11, 2008

Ez in the Post

Our man Ezra is busy fighting the good fight for free speech. Here's the latest from the National Post (don't forget to post updates over here, Ezra!):

"Contriteness implies that you've done something wrong for which you need to apologize or atone," Ezra Levant said moments before his 90-minute meeting with the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission in Calgary. "I have not done anything wrong."

And then, later in the article, Ezra says this:

"I don't need to be reasonsable. I have maxiumum rights of free speech," he said later. "I have the right to publish this for the most offensive reason, for the most unreasonable reasons."

That's exactly right. You should not legally *have* to be reasonable, not in a country that upholds free speech.

Posted by P.M. Jaworski on January 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (43) | TrackBack

Who is head of the Nuclear Safety Commission?

A debate is raging over the decision to prevent the reopening of the Chalk River reactor, operated by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, by the head of the Nuclear Safety Commission. This has  since been overuled by Gary Lunn, the Minister responsible, strongly supported by the Prime Minister. I think whoever is sitting in the chair of the NSC should certainly be under scrutiny.  Today on one side we have Greg Weston with a column in the Sun newspapers entitled "Grits are isotope dopes". A news item under the banner of Can West News Services on the same subject, entitled "Harper 'troubled' by nuclear head", conveniently ignores the point made by Greg Weston that problems at AECL were pointed out to the Liberal Government and Minister Dhaliwal five years ago and were completely ignored. Both these items can be read by Googling their titles.

Surely the position of the NSC should be held by someone of unusual level-headedness with their feet planted firmly on the ground. If you Google Linda Keen, the head of the NSC appointed in 2005 while the Liberals were in power,and click on "Amazon.ca: Intuition Magic: Redifining Psychic Experience" you might agree that Harper should indeed be troubled.

Addendum: I have no proof, nor in fact any information suggesting that the Linda Keen, author of the book referenced, is the Linda Keen head of the Nuclear Safety Commission. My big error for which I apologize.

Posted by Bob Wood on January 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Flying by airplane. Now with less guilt.

Anyone take a flight on Air Canada recently? Did you get a little message that told you you could offset your carbon footprint?

From the Air Canada website:

"Each flight you take produces carbon dioxide (CO2)," (it does? Golly!) "which contributes to climate change." (Holy cow farts. What can I do about that?) "At Air Canada we believe customers should have the option of offsetting the effects of their flight." (How super of them). "We have joined efforts with Zerofootprint, a not-for-profit organization that uses high standards in carbon offsetting, to help you mitigate the environmental footprint of your travel."

Got that? Now you can buy some carbon credits to make you feel less guilty. (Don't forget the carbon debit program. In case you're enamored with the idea of kicking dirt in environmentalists faces.)

N.B. there is no program for offsetting footprints left on the arse of the people putting this program together. Actually, there is. I'd guess the lawsuit will cost you a couple thousand bucks, tops.

(Okay, snarkiness aside, it's good of them to provide a market-based solution for those of us who really do think that reducing Carbon Dioxide emissions is important. Some people like red chairs and free booze on their flights, others like carbon offsetting. Let the market speak, I say.)

H/T PTBC

Posted by P.M. Jaworski on January 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBack

At last, a Republican front-runner?

This volatile race may actually be settling out - stress, may - in favor of the guy written off for dead a few months ago.

And just when I thought my primary (Virginia, one week after Super Duper Tuesday) would be interesting.

Posted by D.J. McGuire on January 11, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Tory insider took $6.46 million in advertising contracts

The Alberta NDP is calling for an investigation into almost $6.5 million in contracts awarded to Highwood Communications because of the firm’s Tory connections through its owner Barry Styles.

I’m not that surprised that the company would have 65% of the government’s advertising business. Alberta is a small market for ad agencies and Highwood Communications is the dominate player in this market.

What I’d like to know where Alberta’s advertising dollars were spent and if firms like Highwood Communications are instructed to spend advertising dollars with Tory-friendly media companies, and not to spend advertising dollars with critics of the Alberta government and the Tory party.

--------

For Immediate Release - January 11, 2008

Tory insider took $6.46 million in advertising contracts

Mason asks Fred Dunn to investigate Highwood Communications PC connections

Edmonton - NDP Leader Brian Mason is demanding an investigation into $6.46 million in government contracts awarded to a high-level Tory insider. The contracts were awarded to Highwood Communications Ltd. in 2006-07.

Mason wrote Auditor General Fred Dunn today asking him to examine whether the contracts were “appropriately tendered in a competitive process, whether the government received reasonable service for the value of the contracts awarded, and whether the partisan relationship between the director of Highwood Communications and members of the Government of Alberta entails a conflict of interest.”

A recent Tory campaign newsletter identified Highwood Communications’ owner, Barry Styles as one of three Creative/Advertising execs working on the Conservatives’ election team.

"These public funds are being transferred to a Tory-friendly advertising firm. I think Albertans deserve to know if any of these contracts will aid the Conservatives' coming election campaign," Mason said.

Highwood Communications success in earning government communications contracts vastly outstripped any competitors. According to the Treasury Board Blue Book the government spent approximately $10 million on media communications.

“The payments to Mr. Styles’ company represent about 65 per cent of the governments’ total spending on third party communications contractors,” Mason said.  “It’s hard to believe that Highwood could dominate their competitors so thoroughly if these contracts were properly tendered in a transparent, non-partisan process.”

Click here to download Mason’s letter to the Auditor General

-30-

Posted by Matthew Johnston on January 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (36) | TrackBack

Why Mike Huckabee is dangerous

Jim Bowden is a friend of mine, a fellow Virginia blogger, and my most recent favorite candidate for Congress (in last year's by-election after Jo Ann Davis died).  He is also a proud and open evangelical Christian and "a Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher."

This is what he has to say about Mike Huckabee (emphasis in original):

If Mike Huckabee gets the Republican nomination for President of the United States, Evangelicals lose. America loses with Barack Hussein Obama or HRH Hillary I when either beat Huckabee, but Evangelical American Christians lose more. Even if Huckabee won the election, he would be another Jimmy Carter in office – and, again, Evangelical American Christians would lose the most. Evangelicals, especially Southerners, and Conservatives of every stripe must stop Huckabee now. Why am I, an Evangelical and a Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher, saying this about a former Southern Baptist preacher?

Because the politics of identity lose to the politics of great ideas.

Read the whole thing; it provides the detailed case why even social conservatives should steer clear of Huckabee.

Posted by D.J. McGuire on January 11, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (21) | TrackBack

Thursday, January 10, 2008

What happened to Miss Liberty?

What happened to Miss Liberty and Jon Osborne? Freedom lovers used to rely on this website for the latest reviews by Jon Osborne of popular films and lesser known videos. Osborne wrote Miss Liberty’s Guide to Film and Video in 2001 – and has published nothing else in print since. His online writings came to an end in 2004, as far as I can see.

Without Miss Liberty, I may never have learned about the long promised film version of Atlas Shrugged rumoured to be staring power couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. And I may not have learned about the anti-slavery film Amistad, the sense-of-life classic Billy Elliot, the anti-IRS film Harry’s War or the once banned film adaptation of Ayn Rand’s We the Living.

Once I learned of the latest pro-freedom films and videos from Miss Liberty, I would visit Laissez Faire Books to source out the more obscure selections – but that too has come to an end. This year Laissez Faire Books (LFB) announced it was shutting down. The book store and mail order operation was started in 1972 and played an important role in disseminating pro-freedom ideas. (Laissez Faire Books was purchased by the International Society for Individual Liberty and will survive in a diminished capacity.)

With Miss Liberty MIA and LFB on life support, maybe The Shotgun Blog needs to recruit conservative and libertarian bloggers who can keep us up-to-date on the state of pop culture.

Any thoughts?

Until then, we’ve got an archive of Neil McLennan’s movie reviews.

UPDATE

Jon Osborne found

Sharon Hariss is the president of the Advocates for Self-Government and has explained the absence of Jon Osborne.

------

Hi, Matthew!

Jon became a Dad a few years ago and devotes most of his time to raising his daughter. I'll let him know you asked! I hope he will continue writing reviews at some point, because I'm a big fan!

Do you have his book? If not, we'll sell you a copy....

Nice Web site -- keep up the good work for liberty! Happy New Year!

Best wishes,

Sharon
       
Advocates for Self-Government
www.TheAdvocates.org
www.Libertarianism.com

--------

Thanks, Sharon!

Posted by Matthew Johnston on January 10, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Free Dominion... sold to Panama

Well... not really. Free Dominion announced that they have sold the rights to freedominion.com, .net, and .org to Liberty News Service Inc. which is based out of Panama City, Panama.

Why sell? Here's the explanation:

"Conn Esq Web Design was originally intended to be a corporation offering internet design and programming services, holding Free Dominion as an example of its production. But in the past year the corporation has begun to see ownership of Free Dominion as too much of a potential liability because the website has become a target for individuals and government organizations determined to attack freedom of speech, using a variety of methods at their disposal. Considering the political climate in Canada today, Conn Esq Web Design Ltd. has made the corporate decision to sell Free Dominion to Liberty News Service Inc. of Panama City, Panama.
 
Liberty News Service’s corporate mission is to buy websites from individuals and corporations living in countries where free speech is under attack, and protect those websites from being shut down or seized by oppressive governments. LNS is now the legal owner of the Free Dominion database and software, all logs and information about FD members, and the domains freedominion.com, freedominion.org and freedominion.net. Because it is not permissible to transfer a dot ca domain to a foreign corporation, we will retain freedominion.ca, which will continue to point to freedominion.com."

Posted by P.M. Jaworski on January 10, 2008 in Canadian Conservative Politics | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

The GOP debate

My take on it (for what it's worth) here.  Long story short: the big story was Thompson v. Huckabee.  The "southern primary" was front and center (of course, the debate was in South Carolina).

Posted by D.J. McGuire on January 10, 2008 in International Affairs | Permalink | Comments (24) | TrackBack

The Kabul Tailor Shop

No, this shop is not in Afghanistan. It is right here in Canada. I am a little hesitant to give it’s location because I did not ask permission from the owner to write this little story and also would never want to expose him to danger from some wild radical.

I took a leather jacket to the Kabul Tailor Shop to get the lining of one pocket replaced. My wife and I have been well satisfied with work they have done but have not spoken to the proprietor and his wife for some time. I asked the wife how things were going in their country, Afghanistan. She replied that things were not all that good with the roadside bombs and too many people, including Canadian soldiers, being killed. The lady’s husband joined the conversation and I volunteered that I could understand that some Afghanis may consider soldiers from other countries in their land might be considered invaders. They both responded immediately to say they, and the people of Afghanistan were very pleased to have Canadians there. They had reservations about the American soldiers suggesting the Americans have not yet learned to approach and get friendly with the people, however further on in the conversation they said the Americans are considering training their soldiers, as the Canadian Forces already do, the niceties of this valuable tool for winning over the local populace.

This is where the man’s face lit up and he pointed to a picture of a Canadian soldier and with two apparently Afghani citizens. The picture was from Wainwright Army training base. He proudly said he and other Afghani immigrants become instructors of our Canadian soldiers there on how to greet, shake hands, go to the head man of the village and all the correct ways to respect the Afghani people. I asked to shake his hand and told him I was very proud of him. He said he was thankful for what Canada is doing to return his country to normal but said it was difficult because Afghanistan is surrounded by bad neighbors.

It will be heart wrenching for me and these now friends of mine if the likes of Jack Layton and Stephane have their way and force the pullout of our forces before the job is completed.

Posted by Bob Wood on January 10, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

No-Libs asks: "Is Warren Kinsella a racist?"

Sigh.

Like getting your hundredth lap dance, Kinsella's tired moral exhibitionism somehow manages to be both revelatory and enervatingly predictable at one and the same time.

Posted by Kathy Shaidle on January 10, 2008 | Permalink | TrackBack

Now THAT'S a tax cut

Rudy Giuliani unveiled his tax-reduction plan yesterday.  The details are here, but all you really need to know are five words: "multi-trillion dollar tax cut."

Posted by D.J. McGuire on January 10, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (27) | TrackBack

Phillipine Government Plans MILF Homeland

Alas, this is less pleasant news than one might otherwise think.  Apparently, they're planning on creating a seperate homeland for Moro Islamic Liberation Front. 

Frankly, this is a pretty alarming development.  The Phillipines are an ally of ours - and here we find them appeasing Islamism, even after it's murdered more than a hundred thousand people. 

Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on January 10, 2008 in International Affairs | Permalink | Comments (24) | TrackBack

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Is religion the solution or the problem?

I attended the first ever FreedomFest in Las Vegas in 2002.

Organized by Mark Skousen, this conservative-libertarian gathering is heralded as “the world’s largest annual gathering of free minds.”

It was announced today that the 2008 event in July will include a debate between best-selling authors Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza on whether or not religion is the solution to the problem of terrorism. (Hitchens is an atheist and D'Souza is a Christian.)

You may recall the excellent article on Christopher Hitchens in the Western Standard by Terry O’Neill.

This should be a lively debate and a great event.

Posted by Matthew Johnston on January 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Human rights thugs try to roll a cabinet minister

Khurrum Awan is a busy boy.

When he's not filing spurious human rights complaints against pundits, he's a bit of a pundit himself.

Here's a sampling of Awan's scintillating wit and deep analysis that he posted as a comment on Garth Turner's website, when that MP was turfed from the Tory party:

Hello Mr Turner,
i noted on your weblog from July that you told the Arab community to go to
hell because of their criticism of you (& the Conservative party) for
behaving like an outpost of the Israeli Likud Party in Canada…seems what
goes around comes around…cuz you have been told to go to hell by the
Conservative Party!! LOL! Hope that was fun :)
Khurrum Awan

By Khurrum on 10.21.06 12:21 pm

You can read it here -- just scroll down halfway, or search for the word LOL! using your browser's find function.

(Hey, I'm the second vice president of the Calgary Southwest Constituency Association of the Israeli Likud Party in Canada, and I'm deeply offended by Awan's remarks. We would never have run Turner as a candidate.)

At least Awan didn't say what Mohamed Elmasry, his boss at the Canadian Islamic Congress, says about Likudniks (that's anti-Semitic code for Jews) -- that we are all fair game to be murdered in terrorist attacks in Israel.

Awan's writing is still infantile, as anyone who has read his submissions in the aforementioned Steyn case can attest, though Elmasry seems to have insisted that Awan eliminate the smileys. We all know how the Canadian Islamic Congress feels about cartoons.

Well, now Awan is at it again. He's sent this grammatically creative letter to Jason Kenney, the cabinet minister who has spoken out against the CIC's fatwa against Steyn.

(If you're wondering how I got this letter, it's obvious. The Israeli Likud Party in Canada is part of the "Toronto Coalition to Support the War" to which Awan sent the letter, as part of his cc list. He's not much for details, this young Johnnie Cochrane.)

Awan accuses Kenney of "undue intereference with a legal proceeding" for having publicly stood for Canadian values like freedom of speech. He also called Maclean's continuing discussion of the human rights complaints against it to be illegal "retaliation" against Muslims.

That got me thinking: Kenney's job is minister of multiculturalism, and it was recently expanded to include Canadian identity programs and domestic rights issues. It's his mandate to defend civil rights, and to inculcate those values into new Canadians, such as Egyptian-born Elmasry and Pakistan-born, Saudi-trained Syed Soharwardy, and many of the other radical immigrants who have brought illiberal foreign values into Canada.

I think Kenney shouldn't just issue a statement to the press. He should go the whole mile -- and send a lawyer, on behalf of the Canadian government, to intervene in the Elmasry vs. Steyn fight. Contrary to what Awan thinks, it's not inappropriate to take a position in legal proceedings such as this, with its public policy ramifications. If the Government of Alberta can intervene against freedom of speech in an Alberta case, then surely the feds can send a lawyer to intervene for freedom in a federal case.

It's unlikely that the Conservative government, with only a minority in Parliament, will do what it really ought to do, and pull the plug on the Canadian Human Rights Commission altogether. But until a Conservative majority comes, they can send a lawyer on behalf of the federal government, to teach the CHRC -- and Awan and his fellow censors -- that human rights in Canada mean freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the separation of mosque and state.

*******

P.S. Look at the that motley crew of lobby groups to which Awan sent his letter -- that's the coalition of censors (Mark Steyn might call it the "coalition of the chilling") that the CIC is assembling.

But what do they have in common? What does the pro-feminist, pro-abortion, pro-secular, pro-gay Canadian Federation of Students have in common with a hodge-podge of Muslim groups so strict on those matters that they make the Pope look like Liberace? (Awan himself led the CIC's charge against gay marriage).

This strange union of the domestic left with foreign fascists has only one thing that holds them together: they all loathe Canada's western, liberal traditions.

cross-posted to www.ezralevant.com

Posted by Ezra Levant on January 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack

Ron Paul - Pillars of Prosperity

Just released, Pillars of Prosperity is the second full-length book Ron Paul has released over the course of his campaign to become the Republican candidate for President. It's about his laissez faire economic policies. His first book, A Foreign Policy of Freedom, outlined his military non-interventionist views, and immediately put him at odds with the hawkish Republican base.

I'm sure the books are interesting, but they won't save what has been a weak campaign in my opinion. The best part of his campaign isn't even an official part of his campaign -- that's the spontaneous online fundraising efforts that brought in almost $20 million in the last quarter of 2007.  But for Paul's part, he has made a mess of the debates and is behaving like a marginal candidate, and not like a veteran Congressman and a 30-year ambassador for individual liberty and constitutionally limited government.

The CNN New Hampshire debate is a good example of this. In the discussion on health care, Paul talked about the war in Iraq, deficit financing, fiat money and the kitchen sink. What about a simple, coherent statement on free market health care reforms? Paul is a medical doctor and an economic libertarian -- he should dominate discussions like this.

I'm not a Ron Paul detractor, in case that's not obvious. Putting aside his foreign policy views, he's the only candidate who takes seriously the domestic policy issues that threaten traditional American liberties. But his undisciplined campaign is getting hard to watch - and his status as a respected but long-shot candidate is at risk. Unless he manages his message better, he will soon assume the status of kooky and irrelevant.

PS - Here's Ron Paul's response to The New Republic story posted on this site by Adam Yoshida.

Posted by Matthew Johnston on January 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

So what happens now?

For the Democrats: it's not as cut-and-dried as some would like down here, but Senator Clinton is the favorite once again.  For the Republicans: well, it depends.

Posted by D.J. McGuire on January 9, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Obamamania

Here's my column from today's National Post about how white reporters are covering black Barack Obama. An excerpt:

Take an "interview" three weeks ago on Good Morning America. Chris Cuomo asked Obama, "What do you think the bigger obstacle is for you in becoming president, the Clinton campaign machine or America's inherent racism?"

That's not reporting. That's not even about Obama. That's Cuomo showing how enlightened he is. Diane Sawyer asked Obama whether he thought America was "secretly … more racist or more sexist." That's what this campaign is to liberals: identity politics. Obama is nothing more than a black candidate. Hillary Clinton is nothing more than a female candidate.

For liberal, white Baby Boom reporters, Obamamania is a way to expiate their own prejudices -- and to project their guilt onto America.

They're giving Obama a free ride. Their euphoria is a form of journalistic affirmative action. And when Obama loses -- not for being black, but for being unready and ideologically extreme -- the media euphoria will turn to national self-flagellation.

Cross-posted to ezralevant.com

Posted by Ezra Levant on January 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (21) | TrackBack

Mob Rule 2 - CBSA 0

I'm not sure who exactly... thinks this is gonna get easier as time goes on. Probably the same folks who criticise Pervez Musharraf for not being able to control those mischievious folks in Waziristan.

If you have to bring in your own bigger mob to get the job done... just do it.

*

Posted by Neo Conservative on January 9, 2008 in Canadian Politics | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

One more variable in the Republican race

Huckabee, McCain, and Romney are supposed to be the big three candidates on the GOP side now.  Conventional wisdom is that Fred Thompson's last stand is South Carolina (where CW thinks he'll fall), while everyone is convinced that Giuliani's strategy of waiting for a win until Florida (January 29) will never work because voters will abandon him for the winners of the early states.

So, after Huckabee wins Iowa (and Ron Paul finishes ahead of Rudy there), Giuliani finds that the latest Florida GOP poll has him - quelle surprise - still ahead by five points.

What does it mean?  I will try - emphasis on try - to answer that tomorrow.

Posted by D.J. McGuire on January 8, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Yup, Clinton won

How do I know?  They're "re-weighting" the exit polls to put her ahead.  CYA operations like that only happen when they know the numbers won't change.

Senator Clinton is the favorite once more.

Posted by D.J. McGuire on January 8, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack

The Crying Game

Well, I’m surprised.  It looks like Hillary might actually win in New Hampshire.  I guess her campaign in the last few days worked.

Of course, I guess it should be no surprise that crying like a little girl is a key qualification to be Commander-in-Chief, so far as Democrats are concerned.  These aren’t the blue-collar Democrats of yesteryear.  The Democrats are now the party of the pink collar.

This is a dream come true for the GOP.  The Democrats have a fertile playing field and, instead, the two weakest plausible Democratic nominees for President are going to spend at least a month tearing eachother apart now.  Absolutely magnificent.

And, of course, now the field of plausible Republican nominees is reduced to McCain, Giuliani (barely), and Huckabee with McCain becoming, I think, the overwhelming favourite to be the Republican nominee for President.  McCain is probably the GOP’s strongest candidate.

Oh – and, of course, the Messiah is behind Giuliani, fighting for fifth place.

Like I said, a good night.

Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on January 8, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Clinton's cry

Having read so much yesterday and this morning about Hillary Clinton's "welling up," I just had to see for myself. Here's the YouTube link.

What do I think? An honest moment, for sure. A moment of weakness and frustration and self-pity? Perhaps. But I don't think it'll cost her a single female vote.

Posted by Terry O'Neill on January 8, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBack

Is Canada’s Economy a Model for America?

Mark Steyn's recent column: Is Canada’s Economy a Model for America?

read the rest here

Posted by Winston on January 8, 2008 in Canadian Politics, Current Affairs, Trade | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Iran's Aggression at Sea

As Ralph Peters says in the New York Post this is disgusting.

These Iranian ships approached and provoked the U.S. Navy in an extremely bold and aggressive fashion and were allowed to get away with it.

The only proper response to this sort of provocation would have been to open fire on these ships and blow them - and all of their occupants - straight to hell.  That the Americans failed to do so is a worrying sign, and doubtlessly a result of the caution bred by the slowly metastasizing treason cancer which, because of how aggressive and widespread it is, forces retreat and restraint when the opposite is called for

Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on January 8, 2008 in International Affairs | Permalink | Comments (19) | TrackBack

Ed Stelmach vs. edstelmach.ca

Ed Stelmach, the Alberta Tories'  Harry Strom, is angry that a local Liberal, David Cournoyer beat him to the punch to register the domain name www.edstelmach.ca.

Here's a copy of Stelmach's legal demand letter.

The first thing that comes to my mind is that Cournoyer didn't register the domain until April of 2007. Stelmach has been in politics for decades, and premier since 2006 (though he hasn't yet been affirmed in that position by anything as messy as an election). But don't be too hard on the old man. These Inter-Nets can be confusing!

The second thing is Stelmach's first response: go litigious. Let's see how that works out in the blogosphere. Until Stelmach's demand letter, very few people would have known about any of this -- Stelmach has the .com, .net and .org sites for his name, as well as all of the provincial Tory and government websites. His approach -- lawyers -- has brought a flurry of media coverage painting Cournoyer as a David to Stelmach's lazy, low-tech and bullying Goliath.

The third thing is that Stelmach is going to lose. The Canadian Internet Registration Authority -- the administratrive body that oversees .ca sites -- is very tough on commercial cybersquatters who have no legitimate reason to register a URL, and who clearly want to sell it for a quick buck.

But that's not Cournoyer. He clearly falls under CIRA's policy 3.6(d) which allows cybersquatting if:

"the Registrant used the domain name in Canada in good faith in association with a non-commercial activity including, without limitation, criticism, review or news reporting."

Cournoyer isn't trying to make a buck by selling the URL back to Stelmach. He's not trying to pass himself off as Stelmach. He's commenting on Stelmach in a blog.

Stelmach has looked foolish twice already -- first by not registering his own domain name, then by threatening a little blogger with a lawsuit. His third humiliation will be the most spectacular: losing his case, having to pay Cournoyer's legal costs, and having yet another round of media coverage.

Oh well. Better Stelmach keep busy with this, than with his other work -- raising taxes, paying off big unions, and building monorails.

cross-posted to www.ezralevant.com

Posted by Ezra Levant on January 8, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (79) | TrackBack

The Truth About Ron Paul

This article fron The New Republic does an excellent job detailing Ron Paul's history as a member of the pro-Confedracy, racist, militia-loving, wacko fringe side of American politics.

Indeed, I've often reflected that the one really interesting  thing about the Ron Paul campaign is how, for such a nut, he's been very careful to calibrate his message.  Hell, the guy who voted no on every Federal program pretty much ever is running for President on a promise to keep Social Security.  Indeed, asked about the government programs he's professed to hate for so long, he just goes back to his talking points on the war.  Brilliant.

Indeed, one can't help but wonder - given the relatively small number of ads that he's actually run - if, rather than a Third Party bid or whatever, Ron Paul is running this campaign as a for-profit endeavor.

Some highlights after the cut:

The rhetoric when it came to Jews was little better. The newsletters display an obsession with Israel; no other country is mentioned more often in the editions I saw, or with more vitriol. A 1987 issue of Paul's Investment Letter called Israel "an aggressive, national socialist state," and a 1990 newsletter discussed the "tens of thousands of well-placed friends of Israel in all countries who are willing to wok [sic] for the Mossad in their area of expertise." Of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a newsletter said, "Whether it was a setup by the Israeli Mossad, as a Jewish friend of mine suspects, or was truly a retaliation by the Islamic fundamentalists, matters little."

Of course, we know from Paul's more rational supporters that he doesn't support 9/11 "Truth" nuts.

(A) newsletter listed "Ten Militia Commandments," describing "the 1,500 local militias now training to defend liberty" as "one of the most encouraging developments in America." It warned militia members that they were "possibly under BATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms] or other totalitarian federal surveillance" and printed bits of advice from the Sons of Liberty, an anti-government militia based in Alabama--among them, "You can't kill a Hydra by cutting off its head," "Keep the group size down," "Keep quiet and you're harder to find," "Leave no clues," "Avoid the phone as much as possible," and "Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here."

Interesting, in light of the mob-like behaviour of his supporters.

They appear to be chock-full of conspiracy theories, warnings of an imminent race war, and even more.  Fun!

Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on January 8, 2008 in International Politics | Permalink | Comments (127) | TrackBack

"In a democracy, we do not recognize the right not to be offended"

Deliberate provocations, from the Boston Tea Party to lunch counter sit-ins to an artist signing his name to a urinal, are, for better or worse, a hallmark of Western civilization.

These provocations can be inspired, counterproductive or pedestrian, but they play a pivotal part in the ongoing development of Western culture.

Which would explain why Muslim spokesmen and their historically illiterate infidel dupes sense (rightly) that any such provocations must be condemned, pronto. Western culture must not be allowed to flourish (and part of said flourishing requires the provocative testing of limits, and the debates they inspire); if Islam is to take over, deliberate provocations must be condemned.

Posted by Kathy Shaidle on January 8, 2008 | Permalink | TrackBack

Monday, January 07, 2008

New Hampshire predictions (for what their worth)

Among the higlights, Obama wins for the Democrats and McCain wins for the GOP (Ron Paul finishes third in that field - sigh).  I also have some thoughts on what's to come after NH.

Posted by D.J. McGuire on January 7, 2008 in International Affairs | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Experts got it wrong, again!

We already know about the so-called Iran experts who appear on the mainstream media on a daily basis and talk about the Iranian regime as if they invented it or lived under it.

Today when the news broke that the Iranian boats threatened US navy ships in the Persian Gulf, I saw some of these clueless "Iran Experts" again on CNN, CBC, BBC & MSNBC talk about how the incident was just a mistake or that the higher-ups in the Mullahocracy have nothing to do with it or this confrontation was performed by a rogue unit of the Revolutionary Guards. Apparently, these so-called experts don't know that in any dictatorship where one man rules there are no rogue elements. And the dictator in Iran is the supreme leader Khamenei who is also the commander in chief of the Iranian armed forces. I've served in the Iranian military and am coming from a military family and witnessed how some orders had to be issued or confirmed by a mid-ranking cleric from the "Ideological & Political Office" of the armed forces. This office is directly linked to the office of the supreme leader and gets its mandate not from the military branch of the chain of command but right from Khamenei's office. This ideological unit exists within every battalion sized unit in all branches of the Iranian military, be it the regular army, baseej militias or the Rev. Guards. The offices are headed by an Islamic cleric and has so much influence on military commanders that no body could challenge them or disobey them. To cut the story short, it is the equivalent of the Soviet Union Political Commissar, so this might give you the idea of how things work in the Iranian armed services. Or as we used to say back home: No one can drink a glass of water without "Aghidati siyasi's" permission. ((Aghidati means Ideological and Siyasi means Political).

I've explained more about this conflict of authority within the Iranian military before. This makes me believe that the order to threaten the US navy vessels came directly from some body high up in the chain of command and was also confirmed or re-enforced by these clerics acting along side the military units.

In a country like