Must not Call the Buddha Fat

Except in Thailand, the Buddha is ALWAYS depicted as fat. Apparently some official ignoramuses in Britain do not know that:

"The Durham, England, City Council has rejected a restaurateur's request to name his Chinese eatery Fat Buddha.

Buddhist businessman Eddie Fung said he cannot understand why council member Tracey Ingle opposed him on the restaurant's name, The Mail on Sunday reported. "I cannot believe that this woman should go to so much time and trouble to take issue over an inoffensive name like Fat Buddha," Fung said.

Ingle called the name "provocative" and her fellow council members agreed.

Fung said the council just doesn't understand Buddhism. A Buddhist Society spokesman said Buddhists regard the fat Buddha as lucky. "To suggest this is offensive is to misunderstand the faith," the spokesman told the newspaper.

Source

It's probably just one of those bigotries that are accepted these days: Anti-fat bigotry. The fact that people of middling weight live longer than slim people must not be mentioned, of course.

Australian Cellphone Company Slammed for Using Public Domain Images



An example above.

"Virgin Mobile has been accused of breaching people's "moral rights" after it took images from a popular photo-sharing website without asking permission and used them in a national advertising campaign.

People around the world who posted their photos on the Yahoo-owned Flickr website have objected to their images being used in hundreds of Australian billboard ads, accompanied by provocative captions.

The campaign -- Are You With Us Or What? -- features images from the website branded with Virgin Mobile's own slogans.

They include: Work Friends Are Just That; If You Enjoy Your Company Too Much You'll Go Blind; and Strangers Are Just Serial Killers You Haven't Met Yet.

Source

I have read the TOS for Flickr and it is not at all obvious that photos posted as publically available can be used commercially. And TOS specifications are such a soup of legalese that few people would try to read them anyway. So I think that Flickr are the ones who should be taking most heat here.

Following an avalanche of complaints, Virgin Mobile has canceled the campaign. What they did was probably illegal under Australian copyright law anyway.

Islamic Rage Boy is Hate Speech?



Shakeel Bhat above is now widely referred to as "Islamic rage boy" because of his constant angry demonstrating in favour of various Muslim causes. Given the unrestrained denunciations of Christians, Israel and America that are Mr Bhat's almost-daily output, you might think that the heading on this post refers to Mr Bhat. Sadly, it does not. It refers to a drawing of Mr Bhat that you can see on various conservative websites:

"A spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Ibrahim Hooper, is unconvinced. Mr Hooper says: "I find the term Islamic Rage Boy offensive, as would anyone who applied the term to their own faith. It's an Islamophobic product by Muslim-bashers on internet hate sites."

He compares the cartoon to the anti-semitic imagery of 1930s Nazi Germany. "The cartoon is part of an overall growth of anti-Muslim rhetoric in this country. Someone is trying to link Islam with violence and anger and profiting from it."

Source

Mr Hooper must have recently arrived from Mars. The "Someone" who is trying to "link Islam with violence and anger" is any number of Muslim demonstrators and terrorists. And the antisemitic imagery of today comes not from Germany but from Muslim cartoonists. See below for an example:



GM's Corner has more of such cartoons. So, on the one hand we have quite accurate depictions of Mr Bhat and on the other we have grossly distorted depictions of Jews. But it is the accurate depiction that is hate! I wonder when Mr Hooper will denounce his Middle-Eastern co-religionists as Nazis?

More Leftist Support for Free Speech and Open debate

Not likely:

"Liberal activists are stepping up their campaign against Fox News Channel by pressuring advertisers not to patronize the network.

MoveOn.org, the Campaign for America's Future and liberal blogs like DailyKos.com are asking thousands of supporters to monitor who is advertising on the network. Once a database is gathered, an organized phone-calling campaign will begin, said Jim Gilliam, vice president of media strategy for Brave New Films, a company that has made anti-Fox videos.

The groups have successfully pressured Democratic presidential candidates not to appear at any debate sponsored by Fox, and are also trying to get Home Depot Inc. to stop advertising there.

At least 5,000 people nationwide have signed up to compile logs on who is running commercials on Fox, Gilliam said. The groups want to first concentrate on businesses running local ads, as opposed to national commercials.

Source

Censorship is the only way Leftists can deal with truth. They are desperate for people not to hear the other side of any argument.

There are more details and comments here

ACLU loses one



We read:

"A Louisiana school district that has been riddled with religious lawsuits got some backing Wednesday after a panel of judges overturned a decision that had formerly barred them from opening their meetings with prayer.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that the Tangipahoa Parish School Board - which has had five religious-related lawsuits brought against it in the past 13 years - could not be held accountable for an "offended observer" and has the right to have voluntary prayer at their meetings.

According to attorneys from the faith-based legal group Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), the decision severely undercuts the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has been filing the suits, in their use of the Establishment Clause. "The court today has delivered a serious blow to the ACLU by affirming that the far left can no longer bully its way into court without any proven, concrete injury," explained ADF senior legal counsel Mike Johnson in a statement. Johnson presented the oral argument on behalf of the school board defendants on May 22.

Source

Use of the "N-word" is Free Speech too

This site is a great tribute to American respect for free speech. Despite the unfailing public paroxysms of outrage that greet use of the "N-word" by whites, the site concerned freely uses that word.

The hysteria in America over the word does seem rather amusing to me as an Australian living and writing in Australia. The High Court of Australia has recently ruled that the word is not offensive in Australia.

That blacks use the word a lot suggests to me that it is not offensive at all. Leftists just pretend that it is and some blacks go along with that.

I don't use the word in full on this site simply because I have to be careful of falling foul of Google's haphazard "hate speech" regulations. Google is our "landlord" here. Or should I say "G*ogle"? I suspect that it is unwise to draw one's site to the attention of the invigilators at Google -- but what the heck!

This is my only site where I use Haloscan to host comments. Some of the comments can be pretty naughty here but Google cannot object to them (I hope) if the comments are not hosted by them.

Democrat Attempt to Censor Talk Radio Takes a Hit

We read:

"Project 21 Chairman Mychal Massie today applauded a statement by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin confirming that the so-called Fairness Doctrine is obsolete.

"It can't make our case any stronger than when the agency that once administered the Fairness Doctrine says it is no longer needed," said Project 21 Chairman Mychal Massie, who has hosted a talk radio show.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin says his agency has no intention of reinstating the Fairness Doctrine it dropped 20 years ago. Furthermore, he says, the need for such regulation "has lessened even further" since it was repealed.

Martin made his comments in a letter written this week to Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN). An amendment introduced by Rep. Pence to prohibit the funding of a new Fairness Doctrine passed by a vote of 309 to 155 in late June. Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), however, intends to re-introduce legislation "to restore the Fairness Doctrine" in coming weeks. President Bush has made it known he will veto any legislation that seeks to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine.

Source

Homophobic Canadian Law

An interesting vignette from a report about the Canadian government's attack on the conservative "Free Dominion" website: Apparently the man who left the wicked comments about Islam on the website is a reformed homosexual. And the Washington Times comments about him:

Mr. Whatcott, for his part, has clashed with Canada's human rights tribunal system before. A tribunal in the western province of Saskatchewan fined him $17,500 in 2005 for distributing leaflets describing homosexual marriage as "sodomite marriage" and using graphic language to describe homosexual acts, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

So describing exactly what homosexuals are and what they do is illegal in Canada! Isn't that bigotry? Why are homosexual acts so unmentionable if we are supposed to treat homosexuals the same as anybody else? When will homosexuals get equality in Canada?

Non-Wimpy Web Hosts

This could be useful to any reader here who has a website:

Dedicated Hosting Guide has a feature article on free speech web hosting, "11 Web Hosts That Won't Dump You at the First Sign of Controversy". It is a list of 11 reputable web hosts that respect first amendment rights and will proudly stand behind your website, no matter any controversy or impending litigation.

Lies Don't Matter to Leftists

That is the unsurprising conclusion we have to draw from the Leftist reaction to the sacking of academic faker Ward Churchill:

"The University of Colorado has fired an academic whose comparison of victims of the September 11 attacks to Nazis triggered a debate over free speech and scholarship in the US. The university insisted its decision was unrelated to an essay written by Ward Churchill in 2001 that called workers in the World Trade Centre "little Eichmanns", a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who was in charge of sending Jews to death camps. They said he was fired because he had committed plagiarism and fraudulent research in other writings.

Professor Churchill, 59, and his backers argued the dismissal was motivated by his leftist views, and that it would keep other academics from discussing unpopular subjects. "This is a political firing with academic camouflage," said Tom Mayer, who teaches sociology at the university.

The professor has vowed to fight to regain his position. His lawyer, David Lane, said he would file a lawsuit this week challenging the dismissal as a violation of the First Amendment. The message of the university's action, he said, "is there will be a payback for free speech".

Source

According to Leftists, the First Amendment does not protect criticism of homosexuals or Muslims but it does protect lies and misrepresentations. There would be no libel laws were that true.

Death Wishes, Right and Left

The controversy over what appears in the "Comments" sections of blogs seems to be hotting up. I first noticed it in Australia, when a Leftist outfit (Australia's main public broadcaster) attacked a mainstream newspaper over some anti-Islamic comments appearing in the Comments on one of the newspaper's blogs. The newspaper got its own back next day by pointing out some antisemitic comments on the site of the Leftist outfit. Since then, a discreet silence has reigned.

We see here, however, that there has now been a back-and-forth between Bill O'Reilly and Daily Kos. Kos and allies seem to be invoking the law over the matter. One hopes that the wisdom of the Australian approach prevails soon or it could mean that blog owners have to "own" comments made on their blogs. That would mean that bloggers as busy as I am -- who have no time to read all the comments appearing on their blogs -- would simply have to shut off their comments facility.

There does seem to be considerable acceptance of the view that blog owners must delete objectionable comments on pain of being seen to approve of the comments concerned. I certainly do not agree with that. As long as personal abuse is not directed at me I leave comments standing. They are the responsibility of the commenter only, in my view.

The comments objected to so far seem to be death wishes directed against George Bush, Muslims and others. I would think that expressing such wishes is protected by the First Amendment. When commenters actively call for someone to be killed, however, that would be a different matter.

OK for a Leftist to Call Homosexuals "Queer"

The term "queer" has become a lot like "n*gger". If you are in the group concerned you can use it but if not it is hate speech. So we find this on the Daily Kos site:

"Now, I can't make people say they support our troops. But if I'm the only one who's willing to stand up and say `I support our troops', then I'll say it; I support our troops - cowards, queers, and all. ...

So yes, I resent my support for the killing of Iraqis for which I get not even a memento or trophy. But do I still support the individual men and women who have given so much to serve their country?

No. I think they're a bunch of idiots. I also think they're morally retarded. Because they sign a contract that says they will kill whoever you tell me to kill. And that is morally retarded.

Source

No nationwide protests over use of such a naughty word yet, even though Kos is a very prominent Leftist organ. And hate-speech against the troops is fine too, of course. It is only certain groups especially selected by Leftists that you must not speak ill of.

Antisemitic Hate Speech at Wonkette

Post below lifted from LGF. See the original for links

"The left is getting more insane and more ugly by the hour. Here's another way-over-the-line post by `Pareene' at the worthless Wonkette site: Rudy Reveals Secret War! - Wonkette.

"In a stunning rocket, Rudy Jew-liani basically admitted that he doesn't know anything at all about foreign policy - or maybe that he knows too much. In an interview with the Jew York Times, Rudy inavertendly [sic] revealed that the US has been fighting an entire extra war these last few years that only he knows about.

Casual offhanded antisemitism-how edgy!

LGF also has more examples of such speech from Wonkette and her ilk. And Atlas reports some of the fallout. Antisemitic hate speech is OK now, it seems -- unless a conservative utters it, of course.

This is Hate Speech in Canada

The following are the COMMENTS on the Free Dominion website that have sparked an official Canadian government accusation of hate speech:

"I can't figure out why the homosexuals I ran into are on the side of the Muslims. After all, Muslims who practice Sharia law tend to advocate beheading homosexuals."

"I defy Islamic censorship and speak about what I believe is the truth about violent Islamism and its threat to religious liberty in Canada."

Source

"Faggot" forgiveable at the NYT?

There is a post here which looks at the report about an editor at the NYT calling another staff member a "faggot". Presumably the NYT bosses know who it is but they have yet to do anything. Isaiah Washington and others have lost their jobs over such language. Will we see the same at the NYT? Don't hold your breath. There are different rules for Leftists.

Chinese censorship failing

We read:

"The internet and mobile phones have undermined attempts by China's secretive rulers to control the news, a senior Communist party official admitted today.

He accused local governments of being "too naive" by continuing to suppress damaging information about corruption or about disasters, and urged party members to be more open with members of the public.

Wang Guoqing, a vice minister with the cabinet's information office said: "It has been repeatedly proved that information blocking is like walking into a dead end."

He said governments used to believe that they could muffle 90 per cent of all bad news. But this was no longer the case. In the internet age, he said, the party had to become adept at managing and controlling information, rather than covering it up.

Source

Must not Criticize Obama

It's OK to call Christians "Taleban" but you must not compare Obama to fanatical Muslims. And Obama actually does have a Muslim background. Post below lifted from Macsmind

Liberals are amazing at what they attemp to defend. As you might know Mitt Romney caught their anger when he posed with a supporter in SC who was holding up a sign with a play on words comparing Obama with Osama.



Obviously Romney wasn’t making the comparison - the supporter was, and in the midst of a fund rasing rally no doubt there are many signs that abound. That doesn’t mean the candidate is making any such comparison. In fact from the picture it’s not even clear whether or not Romney saw the front of the sign.

Yet the hypocrisy of liberals is astounding. Talk about “comparisons”, they have no problem when Dick (Turban) Durban compared our soldiers with Nazis, or when their supporters compare Bush with Hitler.

But the real hypocrisy is defending Obama who has himself made some of the dumbest comparisons imaginable such as when he compared the VA Tech Massacre to outsourcing, or when he compared filling up your car to being a tyrant. Or even his most recent assertion that genocide is ok so long as we don’t have to fight to stop it.

REAL hate speech



We read:

"A prominent element of Hamas' Internet network is the Palestine-info portal, which appears in eight languages (Arabic, English, French, Russian, Farsi, Urdu, Malaysian and lately also Turkish). It posts factual "information" interwoven with propaganda about Hamas' terrorist attacks, the conflict with Israel and the internal Palestinian arena.

The Russian version of Palestine-info, supported by Russian Internet companies, carries a large number of anti-Semitic (and anti-Western) cartoons which do not appear on the portal's other language sites. In our assessment that is because Hamas' propaganda policy is based on the assumption that the Russian-speaking target audiences (in Russia and the independent republics in Central Asia ) are ripe for anti-Semitic and anti-Western propaganda. It also stems from the expectation that such cartoons can promote the absorption and assimilation of other Hamas' messages of radical Islam, support for terrorism, hostility toward the United States

The cartoons on the Palestine-info have not been specifically drawn for the site. They have been taken from an anti-Semitic, anti-American Iranian site (Irancartoon.ir). It displays the work of cartoonists from all over the world, including Russia . The cartoons in the Hamas site put great emphasis on the themes of comparing Jews and Nazis, representing the Jews as bloodthirsty, Holocaust denial or minimization, and the claim that the Jews use the Holocaust to justify their own holocaust of the Palestinians

Source

Feminist censorship



We read:

"AFTER a failed attempt to ban a Nando's chicken advertisement, a women's organisation is gunning for the Advertising Standards Board.

The Women's Forum Australia will launch a campaign to have the Advertising Standards Board overhauled, saying its decisions do not reflect the wider community's standards, particularly on the exploitation of women.

After the board dismissed 200 complaints about the "Nando's Fix" advertisement showing a mother as a pole dancer, the forum will ask its 2000 members to demand from their local members of Parliament an overhaul of the board.

The forum is made up of women from across Australian society, including business leaders, academics from all fields and mothers.

Source

OK to Preach Jihad in Canada

THAT's not hate speech. Oh no!

"VisionTV says it will monitor one of its shows more closely after it broadcast a lecture by an Islamic preacher who said scripture requires Muslims to either fight jihad or finance it. The multi-faith channel, available in 7.8 million Canadian homes, said it took the precaution following a complaint about last Saturday's broadcast of a lecture by the Pakistani fundamentalist.

In the hour-long talk, Israr Ahmad said, "Jihad in the way of Allah, for the cause of Allah, can be pursued either with your financial resources or your bodily strength when you go to fight the enemy in the battlefield. So jihad, the highest form, is fighting in the cause of Allah."

Mr. Ahmad runs a seminary and bookstore in Lahore, Pakistan, and his writings foresee the "global domination of Islam," compare Jews to "parasites," describe the Holocaust as "divine punishment" and predict the "total extermination" of Jews....

VisionTV's code of ethics forbids the broadcast of programs that glorify or incite violence or "have the effect of provoking or abetting domestic or international religious or political conflicts." The broadcaster acknowledged that the show, Dil Dil Pakistan, had talked about jihad and fighting but said it did not contravene the station's policies against incitement because the comments were made in a historical context. But it said the show would be monitored more closely....

Mr. Prasuhn said the show was screened before it was aired and that no problems were identified. He said he watched the show again after receiving a complaint on Monday and did not see a problem....

Source

Only Christians and conservatives can utter hate speech in Canada.

All But One Democratic Senator Vote Against Protecting Broadcasters From Censorship

We read:

"Norm Coleman's amendment to prevent the UnFairness Doctrine from returning failed by a vote of 49-48. Only Evan Bayh on the Democratic side voted in favor of it.

They really want to do this. And they're going to.

If Democrats want "fairness" for radio, how about broadening the "fairness" to include broadcast television network news? After all, isn't more fairness even more fairerer?

Source

Background here

Sense of humor dangerous these days

We read:

"Chrysler Group apologized on Thursday for an advertisement that showed a dog being electrocuted beside its new Dodge Nitro sports utility vehicle.

The ad, created by BBDO Netherlands which supports Chrysler's sales in the Dutch market, shows a dog being electrocuted after urinating on a Nitro's wheels. The agency is part of Omnicom Group Inc's BBDO Worldwide.

The ad, which ends with the dog going up in flames, has the tagline "charged with adrenaline." According to Chrysler, the ad was placed exclusively on the Internet.

"Chrysler Group was dismayed to discover that an advertisement created by an ad agency supporting our Netherlands Market Performance Center goes far beyond the bounds of what the company considers appropriate," Chrysler said in a statement.

The company said the ad included "fictional yet inappropriate treatment of an animal" and said it was "in extremely bad taste."

Source

Canada's Human Rights Commission Targets Conservative Website With Mysterious "Hate Speech" Complaint

We read:

"Free Dominion, a Canadian conservative web forum, has been targeted via the Canada's Human Rights Commission (HRC) over allegations the conservative site promotes "hate speech."

"We have been waiting for six and a half years and the day has finally arrived, somebody is going to try to silence Free Dominion using the Canadian Human Rights Commission," Mark Fourier quipped in posting the letter. "Somebody has likely decided that because they can't defeat some argument presented by someone at Free Dominion they will instead try to silence the whole site. It isn't going to work."....

Connie Wilkins of Free Dominion spoke with LifeSiteNews.com about the human rights complaint filed with the HRC by a certain"Ms. Gentes" accusing the site of promoting "hate speech" although the HRC has refused to say what protected groups are offended....

"I think the most significant thing about this is how much in the dark we are being kept," said Wilkins. "I mean you would think that if you're being charged with something and there is an allegation against, the first thing that they would do is tell you."

Source

Leftist New Zealand Politicians Can't Take it

They are trying to stamp on unfavourable publicity:

"The vast majority of people in New Zealand are against a recent rule approved by lawmakers that bans using images captured inside Parliament to satirize, ridicule or denigrate lawmakers on broadcast and print media, according to a poll by TNS released by TV3. 71 per cent of respondents disapprove of this measure.

In June, New Zealand's House of Representatives voted to institute new media rules, which in effect ban the use of images in a way that satirizes, ridicules or denigrates lawmakers. Breaches of these measures can be treated as contempt of Parliament, a charge that can result in imprisonment.

In March 2005, speaker Margaret Wilson banned cameras from TV3 for seven days after the network showed associate education minister David Benson-Pope asleep during a parliamentary session.

Source

New Zealand is small in population. Actions like this suggest that their Leftists are small too -- small-minded. In a small and rather closed society, however, they may get away with it.

Black Group Slams the "Hush Rush" Push from Congressional Democrats

Excerpt:

"The Bush Administration is commended for announcing that it would veto any legislation reinstating the so-called "Fairness Doctrine."

The Administration's announcement came following media reports of support for reimposing the Fairness Doctrine by Senators Dianne Feinstein, Dick Durbin, Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton, and others. Rep. Maurice Hinchley (D-NY) intends to re-introduce legislation "to restore the Fairness Doctrine" in coming weeks. Hinchley's "Media Ownership Reform Act (H.R. 3302)," better known as MORA, had 16 co-sponsors in the 109th Congress, but got nowhere due to GOP control.

"It's the 'Hush Rush' crowd at it again, and it has nothing to do with fairness. They are simply trying to shut down popular radio programs because they disagree with them," said Project 21 Fellow Deneen Borelli. "The Fairness Doctrine is unfair to those who believe in limited government and a free market. If liberal talk shows fail to attract listeners and sponsors, as is the case here, then the problem must lie with their message."

Source

Democrats Want You Sued For Reporting Terrorism

A bipartisan group of Congressmen in the House passed an addition to the Homeland Security bill that would have protected members of the public from being sued for reporting suspicious behavior. The measure never got to the Senate, though. Democrats on the House/Senate conference committee have just dropped that provision from the Homeland Security bill:

"These morons voted against lawsuit protection from Islamic grievance rackets like CAIR for reporting such things as noticing jihad videos being developed by jihadis at Circuit City.

They're strong on national security - just not on letting the average person tip them off to suspicious behavior. They'll handle it, thank you. They can't even seem to pinpoint where 7 billion of their pathetic pork projects is going, but they have a lock on knowing what Johnny Jihad is up to at any one moment.

Source.

More comments at Powerline and Vigilant Freedom

Google Biffs a Couple of Conservative Blogs

Google seems to have reduced the page ranking of Atlas Shrugs to the point where it now gets very few hits from Google. Atlas has not yet however been relegated to the supplemental index, which is where a lot of my non-blog writings are. Anything in the supplemental index comes up LAST when you do a search.

Rather worse however is that blogger.com (which is owned by Google) suspended Gates of Vienna for 18 hours so that nobody could post there for that time.

Both blogs are very outspoken about Islam so there is no great mystery about what is going on.

Atlas is banned in China too but that means little. China bans a whole heap of blogs.

Bigoted Dallas Prosecutor

African woman insults homosexuals: "bunch of queers"

Homosexual abuses black woman back: "stupid bitch"

Black woman let off. Homosexual cops a fine.

Details here. The homosexual eventually appealed and got his conviction reversed but the episode does not say much for the prosecutor. He should have let the whole matter drop. Both parties were entitled to their opinions.

Kucinich: Free Speech for me but not for thee

The far-Leftist Dennis Kucinich believes in "regulating" what can appear in the media -- as long as he doesn't get regulated, of course:

"Hillary Clinton and John Edwards have been captured on audio/video discussing "limiting" debate to "serious" candidates. This has outraged the Kucinich who lambasted Edwards....

It's truly ironic that Kucinich, Mr. "We need the Fairness Doctrine" would be angry that the powers that be are looking to limit his time on air. In typical left wing fashion, speech limits are good for the common man, but not for important aristocrat wannabes like himself....

I told you that once you can ban one person it won't take long before it becomes open season on everyone who disagrees. It's nice to see libs finally trying to silence each other.

Source

"Spastic" a Very Bad Word

We read:

"Nintendo has been forced to withdraw a computer game from sale in the UK because it contains the word 'spastic' in its script. Mario Party 8, a multi-player game for the Wii console, went on sale in the UK on Friday but was taken off the shelves after the mistake was discovered.

In the game, designed to be played by groups at parties, a blue wizard called Kamek appears on screen and intones: "Magikoopa Magic! Turn the train, spastic! Make this ticket tragic!"

It is the second time in as many weeks that a Nintendo game has been withdrawn for including the word 'spastic'. Earlier this month, MindQuiz, a 'brain-training' game made for the Nintendo DS by the French company Ubisoft, was pulled because it branded players who achieved low scores 'spastics' and 'super-spastics'.

Source

But you can call Christians "Taliban" and George Bush "Hitler" and that is just free speech, of course.

"Spastic" seems to be more decried in Britain than in the USA but even Tiger Woods got into strife a while back for using the word "Spaz". It seems that Americans are less aware that the term originates from an old term for cerebral palsy.

I must say that when I went to school many years ago, "spastic" was a common term of abuse. I was myself called that (and worse) often enough but it was like water off a duck's back to me, of course.

Savage "Hate Speech"

We read:

"A group of illegal immigrants who demanded he be taken off the air because they didn't like Michael Savage's comments about their hunger strike in favor of immigration rights drew a scornful response from the talk show host.

Commenting on a hunger strike by supporters of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, which would make higher education or military service a part of the path to citizenship for young illegal immigrants, Savage lived up to his name by suggesting that it might be a good idea if they kept fasting until they inevitably died of starvation.

During a broadcast of his nationally syndicated show "Savage Nation" on July 5, Savage told his millions of listeners: "I would say let them fast till they starve to death. ... Because then we won't have a problem about giving them green cards because they're illegal aliens." ....

The students, after all, were on a hunger strike, Savage told NewsMax, adding that "the logical conclusion of a hunger strike is starvation. That's their right."

Savage went on to explain that the hunger strikers are illegal aliens, "who stole free college educations and then had the audacity to demand citizenship because they were slippery enough to beat the system out of a college degree!"

Source

Endorsing what they themselves have chosen to do is "hate"? I don't think that failure to sympathize with publicity-seeking is illegal or even improper yet. If Christians went on a hunger strike over something, I think the comments from the Left would be FILLED with hate. Most of those on the Left can hardly mention Christians without blowing their top. But as long as you don't advocate violence you have a constitutionally-protected right to such speech. Contrary to the usual Leftist chant, hate speech IS free speech in the USA.

Hate Speech OK in Canada if you are an Indian

Unlike America, hate speech is illegal in Canada but if you are a native Indian some sort of flimsy excuse will always be found for even the grossest hate speech:

"A Saskatchewan court will hear arguments on Thursday in an appeal of a former First Nations leader's hate speech conviction.

David Ahenakew, who at one time held a senate seat in the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, was convicted in provincial court of willfully promoting hatred after he made derogatory comments about Jews to a reporter in December 2002. Ahenakew was also previously head of the Assembly of First Nations.

Court of Queen's Bench Judge Robert Laing overturned Ahenakew's conviction after finding that the trial judge had not properly analyzed the issue of his intent.

On Thursday, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal will hear the Crown's appeal of the Court of Queen's Bench decision. The Court of Appeal is the highest court in the province.

Source

The court hearing is now over but the court has "reserved" its decision -- to be announced when it will get minimal attention, no doubt.

Ahenakew said that Jews were a disease and that Hitler was trying to "clean up the world" when he "fried six million of those guys." But apparently he was angry when he said that to a reporter so that's OK.

If he gets let off, the neo-Nazis who have recently been convicted in Canada would seem to have an easy ride to getting their convictions overturned too. They would just have to say they were feeling angry at the time (which they probably were). It would make Canadian hate speech laws meaningless -- but that could be a good thing.

Another Angry Guy

Rhode Island: Apparently the guy below was angry when he said a certain word. But on Canadian precedent that makes what he said OK. And we know how much the Left like non-U.S. legal precedents:

"The longtime chairman of the Roger Williams University board admitted Monday that he had used the N-word during a board meeting, saying it "kind of slipped out."

Papitto, 80, who stepped down this month after nearly 40 years on the board, admitted he used the racial slur at a May meeting of the school's board of trustees. He had been discussing the difficulty of finding blacks and other minority members to serve on the 16-member board, which at the time included 14 white men and two women.

Barbara Roberts, then a board member, said Papitto became irate when he discussed pressures to make the board more diverse, at one point using the slur to refer to black candidates.

Source

Update:

Taranto has a tongue-in-cheek comment on this story.

Mrs Edwards Misses the Point

The wife of the most gorgeous of the Presidential candidates shares her wisdom:

"Elizabeth Edwards said Saturday she is troubled by the suspected anti-gay beating death of a Sacramento man, and said the killing of Satender Singh demands renewed condemnations of hate speech in America.

Singh, a 26-year-old Fijian immigrant, died four days after he was attacked July 1 at Lake Natoma by an angry group hurling explicit gay slurs and racial remarks.

Edwards, campaigning in Sacramento for her husband, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards of North Carolina, said she was so affected by news of Singh's death that she rewrote a speech on human rights she was due to deliver later Saturday in San Francisco.

Source

I kinda thought that all violence against others should be vigorously condemned but Mrs E. seems to think that condemning a particular kind of speech is the top priority.

A Believer in Equality Gets into Trouble

As many tribes do, an Indian tribe on Rhode Island enjoys special legal privileges. A lady (Charlestown Town Council President Katharine Waterman) who opposes their plans for a casino in a scenic area thought they had enough privileges already and wrote as follows (excerpt):

"And they have free health care. For life.

And they have a good sized health clinic in Charlestown, even tho' there aren't many of them here.

We don't have one of those.

And we can't use it, even though it was paid for with our tax dollars.

And if you look around they have lots of things that the rest of us don't. I believe they have free college tuition. Not sure about that. They don't pay any taxes on their land, which was gifted to them.

They were given four million dollars by HUD to build homes for the elderly. Nobody lives in those twelve homes and the money ran out. Nobody knows where.

And just for chuckles, try to use your right to open meetings and access to public records to find out how much money (ours) do they get through the BIA. Never mind how much they get from those who would profit from exploiting them. But these reparations are paid today - by us - to folks who simply by accident of birth can claim Native American blood to some fraction.

Does that give them the right to be a sovereign people within a sovereign nation? To be free of the laws of our land? Where is the equality in that notion? Ethnicity does not convey privilege!

Source

That was "race hatred", apparently. I would have thought that it was hatred of racial discrimination. I was once accused of being a "white supremacist" for disagreeing with "affirmative action" so maybe she is getting off lightly. Odd how Leftists always preach equality but then go out of their way to deny it to large sections of the population. As Orwell said: "Some pigs are more equal than others".

As far as being a "white supremacist" is concerned, I think I am more of a "yellow supremacist". I certainly think that the Han Chinese have a lot of admirable qualities that must eventually make them the center of civilization again (The Chinese still refer to their country as "the middle kingdom") and that may be only a few decades away at the rate they are going.

But it is only Leftist stupidity that sees some sort of "supremacism" or "racism" as the only possible reason for opposing affirmative action. That some people might actually believe in the equality that Leftists preach seems to be quite beyond their understanding.

Even Democrats can be "Homophobic" (If the media don't cover up for them)

We read:

"Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson said Thursday his use of a Spanish word that some contend is a slur against homosexuals was meant to be playful but apologized to anyone who was offended....

Richardson, a Hispanic and the governor of New Mexico, was a guest on Don Imus' syndicated radio program on March 29, 2006. Imus, who later lost his job over making racial comments, jokingly said one of his staffers suggested Richardson was "not really Hispanic." Richardson replied in Spanish that if the staffer believes that, then he is a "maricon."

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation says the word means "faggot" in Spanish. In a statement this week, Richardson said that in the Spanish he grew up speaking, "the term means simply 'gay,' not positive or negative."

Source

Homosexuality trumps blackness and Leftism -- but not Islam.

Is Scotland now run by racists?

In the recent elections for the Scottish parliament, the Scottish National Party (SNP) emerged as Scotland's governing party. As I pointed out recently here however, "nationalism" is usually a snarl word these days. The National Socialist German Worker's Party (Hitler's party) is probably responsible for that. And SNP supporters do call themselves nationalists on occasions.

So is Scotland now run by Nazis? A prominent Scottish public servant seems to think so. We read:

"A top civil servant who once compared the SNP to the Omagh bombers has quit weeks after the Nationalists' win in the Holyrood election. Susan Dalgety, one of the key officials in charge of the Scottish Executive's Malawi initiative, has walked away after Labour's defeat last month. She has refused to comment on whether her departure is linked to her describing the SNP as being full of "oddballs" and "out-and-out racists".

However, she was said to be "gutted" after the SNP won last month's Holyrood election and was unsure whether she had a future under the Nationalist administration.

Her Labour loyalties and queasy attitude towards the SNP are said to have informed her decision to quit last week. The Sunday Herald understands her resignation was made around the same time her new bosses were reminded about a column she wrote before joining the Executive. Written in 1998, when she was a Labour councillor, Dalgety stated: "I detest the Scottish National Party and everything it stands for."

She continued: "Scratch below the almost acceptable surface of Smarmy Alex Salmond and his small band of MPs and his barmy army is exposed as an assortment of oddballs, extremists and out-and-out racists."

Dalgety then compared the SNP to the IRA: "We need to look no further than the butchery of Omagh to see for ourselves what happens when nationalism gets out of control. Innocent children die."

She concluded: "Readers might find my gut reaction to the SNP overdramatic, but I love Scotland too much to stand by and watch it succumb to the intolerant, adolescent demands of bigots."

Source

Basically, she is just another abusive Leftist nutcase. Anybody who can confuse the sentimental bourgeoisie who support the SNP with the vicious terror bombers of the Real IRA in Ireland (Omagh) has simply lost touch with reality.

I have myself done survey research into Scottish nationalism and believe that I may have had more academic journal articles published on the subject than almost anyone else. There is a list of them here. So I do know something about that whereof I speak. And the SNP are about as dangerous as a cup of tea. Their only major achievement would seem to be that the kilt is now widely worn on social occasions in Scotland.

Truth is no Defence in NC

We read:

"The NAACP wants Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory to apologize for remarks he made about African American youth after last week's arrests during Fourth of July festivities in uptown.

Ken White, president of the Charlotte Branch of the NAACP, on Wednesday called the mayor's comments "insensitive" and said he's concerned they painted "African American youth with a broad swath that cuts deep in many of our communities."

McCrory's comments came July 5 in a letter to the city manager congratulating police on their efforts the night before, when 169 people were arrested in uptown. McCrory also wrote that "too many of our youth, primarily African American, are imitating and/or participating in a gangster type of dress, attitude, behavior and action."

Later Wednesday, McCrory said he won't apologize. Why not? "Because my comments were accurate. Period."

Source

Must not Call a Black a Liar and a Cheat, even if he is



Indiana: Ronny Thompson is a black basketball coach who seems to have been pretty arrogant. He was certainly an unpopular basketball coach who twice broke rules and then lied about it. He has now resigned from his job at Ball State U. Before he resigned, however, his unpopularity was so great that someone Left an abusive note under his door:

"An investigation is ongoing at Ball State after someone sent harassing and racial comments to the schools coaching staff.

Sometime over the weekend, someone slipped the messages under the office door of Ball State basketball coach Ronny Thompson.

"These notes were very racially insensitive," said Ball State Athletic Director Tom Collins. "It used a word that I won't use on camera. It used a word called 'cheaters,' it used the word 'liar' that was printed on it."

Accompanying the handwritten notes were articles from the student newspaper about a second round of recently uncovered NCAA rules infractions, and the university's own investigation into the matter. That investigation concluded that Coach Thompson and some staff lied to cover up the infractions

Source

That the note called him a cheater and a liar would seem to be the plain truth so why that caused such offence can only be because Thompson is black.

The note appears to have called him other things too so that is a separate matter but even if he was called a "n*gger" that would have been offensive only if a white wrote it and there are plenty of black fans and players who might have been angry with him and been quick to use that word. Or is the university making the assumption that a black writer would not have been bothered by lying and cheating? Sounds racist to me.

Must not Laugh at Chinese Accents

When I was a kid growing up in a small Australian country town, jokes that had fun with immigrant Chinese pronunciation and Chinese names were common. An example: "Have you heard of a new Chinese book called "Spot on the Wall" by Hoo Flung Dung?" But there was no racial conflict then or since between Chinese and other Australians. Through hard work, the Chinese just got quietly rich and nobody bothered about it.

And to this day the Vietnamese currency -- the Dong -- is the target of much hilarity. Whenever it falls in value, some financial journalist somewhere is sure to headline "Sag in the Dong" or the like.

And a leading Australian Leftist politician of the 60s is remembered to this day for his comment on Asian immigration: "Two Wongs don't make a white". The politician concerned, Arthur Calwell (whom I once had the pleasure of heckling), was actually a keen student of Chinese culture and spoke Mandarin so he was clearly less prejudiced against the Chinese than most people at the time. It was just a joke that he could not resist making in the course of a debate. It was certainly not "hate speech".

A jocular NJ Republican politician, State Senator Sonny McCullough, recently made such a "Chinese" joke. He said: "Did you hear about the Chinese couple that had a black baby? They named him "Sum Ting Wong"".

That perhaps old-fashioned joke has landed him in much hot water. You can read about the uproar here. The Senator is now of course a "racist".


Update:

I am afraid that my sense of humor is rather similar to the Senator's. He and I are probably of a similar vintage. So I cannot resist giving a couple more examples of "Chinese" humor. And those who know me well will be aware that I am very Sinophilic so there is no malice in it.

Opposite the High School I went to in Cairns was a Chinese store called "Wing On Cash store" run by a Mr Wing On. Mischievous schoolboys would sometimes ring him up and say: "Is that Willie Wing On?". If he answered "Yes", they would then say: "Well, wing off!". There was of course no hostility towards Mr Wing On: just amusement at his name.

And when I was living in Sydney many years later I would often visit the Chinatown for the excellent food there. And there was in the Sydney Chinatown a Chinese supermarket of long standing called "Say Tin Fong". Every time I would pass it, I would therefore say, usually loudly, "Tin Fong" -- though whatever lady I was with would generally try to "hush" me. Quite childish, I guess, but it amused me at the time. On the odd occasion when the Chinese proprietors heard such utterances they would no doubt have greeted it with the usual Chinese patience. If it had bothered them they would no doubt have changed the name many years previously.

Must not Teach that the N-word is Wrong

Yes. You read that right. You cannot mention that word even to condemn it these days. Not in the schools of Montgomery County, Maryland anyway. Details here. Apparently just the mention of it in school upset a 15 year old black girl. I wonder what music she listens to?

The Term "Rape" must not be Used in a Rape Trial!

We read:

"An alleged victim in a Lincoln sexual assault case asked the Nebraska Supreme Court on Tuesday to overturn a judge's ban on terms like "sexual assault" and "rape" at trial.

Pamir Safi, 31, is accused of sexually assaulting former University of Nebraska-Lincoln student Tory Bowen three years ago. Jury selection in his trial began Monday.

Judge Jeffre Cheuvront has barred any references to sexual assault over concern about inflammatory statements that might prejudice the jury. On Monday, Bowen and her attorney informed the judge that they would not sign the order agreeing not to use banned terms during courtroom testimony.

Source

Go figure!

Tin Tin gets up the Nose of Official Britain



We read:

"A cartoon adventure featuring Tintin, the heroic Belgian journalist, should not be sold in Britain, the Commission for Racial Equality said yesterday.

The racism watchdog said that it was unacceptable for any shop to sell or display Tintin in the Congo, a comic book written in 1930 that features crude racial stereotypes.

A spokeswoman said that the book, which includes a scene featuring Tintin being made chief of an African village because he is a "good white man", was highly offensive. "This book contains imagery and words of hideous racial prejudice, where the `savage natives' look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles," she said....

Egmont, which publishes the book, said that every edition delivered to shops had a band of paper around the outside making clear the content is offensive. A warning notes that it features "bourgeois, paternalistic stereotypes of the period - an interpretation some readers may find offensive".

The current edition, the first in colour to be published in Britain, was released in 2005. It has been published in black and white in Britain for more than ten years. The commission was alerted to the book by David Enright, a solicitor who found it in the children's section of Borders. "I was aghast to see page after page of representations of black African people as baboons or monkeys, bowing before a white teenager and speaking like retarded children," he wrote.

Source

Australian Free Speech case goes to court

We read:

"Two Queensland academics are asking the Federal Court to set aside their suspension pending a review of the fairness of the decision to suspend them. Queensland University of Technology lecturers Gary MacLennan and John Hookham, from the Creative Industries faculty, were suspended after they campaigned against a PhD project which they say exploited the disabled for entertainment.

They were suspended for six months without pay in June after they wrote an article in The Australian newspaper attacking doctoral student Michael Noonan's reality TV-style film project, originally titled Laughing at the Disabled.

QUT's code of conduct says differences of opinion must be met with rational debate, not vilification or bullying. It also forbids behaviour that "may be distressing, offensive or humiliating". Mr MacLennan and Mr Hookham have accused the university of attacking freedom of speech. Mr Noonan's project - which continues - has since been retitled, Laughing with the Disabled.

Source

All Prejudice must be Racial?

Judges must be careful of legal abbreviations -- as one Florida judge found when he explained a bad jury verdict as resulting from prejudice against the victim. He thought that the jury did not see the victim as human because the victim was a low-life criminal. But the case concerned blacks so the judge himself got put on trial for making a "racist" comment!

"When Broward Circuit Judge Charles Greene used an acronym that attorneys said had racial overtones, he found himself in a snafu. Literally and figuratively. Last week, the state agency that polices judicial conduct found that when Greene uttered the acronym "NHI" (short for "no humans involved") he had no intention of making a racial epithet, nor did he think it would be perceived as such, according to Greene's attorney, Dale Sanders.

Greene, 51, used the "NHI" term in April after jurors acquitted a defendant of attempted murder. The victim, defendant and witnesses were all black.... That concept refers to jurors' inability to care about or sympathize with the victim and witnesses, Greene said.

After a four-day trial, the jurors reached their verdict in less than 30 minutes, Greene said, adding that he was trying to explain to a prosecutor who had a strong case why jurors might acquit the defendant. "To me, it simply meant that because of his criminal lifestyle, the jury failed to recognize the humanity of the victim and thus denied him justice," Greene explained in an affidavit presented to the Judicial Qualifications Commission.

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Some Amusing Leftist Hysteria over the Recent SCOTUS ban on School Racism

SCOTUS recently ruled that race cannot be used as a critierion for school admissions -- just as an earler incarnation of SCOTUS had ruled in 1954 when helping to end the Jim Crow era. But a black writer shows deep incomprehension of that. A few excerpts below:

"The ruling is a resounding victory for the White Citizens' Council, and the racist governors who once blocked the schoolhouse door. The spirit of Jim Crow lives on in the hearts and minds of this Supreme Court's regressive, segregationist majority, over 50 years after Brown. "Diversity is illegal" is the new standard, it would seem, and we must do everything in our power to resist this.

Meanwhile, siding with the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas concluded that school districts have no interest in remedying segregation: ".... Simply putting students together under the same roof does not necessarily mean that the students will learn together or even interact. Furthermore, it is unclear whether increased interracial contact improves racial attitudes and relations.... Some studies have even found that a deterioration in racial attitudes seems to result from racial mixing in schools."

Did he say "racial mixing"?

Source

"Diversity is illegal"? What a brain-dead interpretation of the verdict. Apparently the writer cannot tell the difference between diversity and forced diversity. And the point made by Justice Thomas that greater contact between the races often leads to LESS racial harmony is well attested in the academic literature. The fact that Thomas referred to "race mixing" (where social scientists such as myself would use the term "interracial contact") was admirable for its plain speech but apparently the writer thinks the only mixing that there is takes place in bed. I suspect that tells us more about the writer than anything else.

Some people might think that my mocking comments above on the addled effusions of a black writer are "insensitive" and show a lack of understanding of legitimate black grievance. I think however that I am simply exposing him to the same level of mockery that I direct at white Leftists. I am, in short, refusing to have different rules for different races. It seems to me that I am REFUSING to be racist and it is those who have lower standards for blacks who are being racist and paternalistic.

Hate Speech Against Climate Skeptics

At the American "Live Earth" concert:

"However, Etheridge aside, it was nonmusicians at this concert who made the most passionate pleas about demanding action for the environment. "Get rid of all these rotten politicians that we have in Washington, who are nothing more than corporate toadies," said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmentalist author, president of Waterkeeper Alliance and Robert F. Kennedy's son, who grew hoarse from shouting. "This is treason. And we need to start treating them as traitors."

Source

They clearly don't rely on reason to promote their beliefs. The shakier the evidence gets, the hoarser they get.

Washington Times Notes Internet Site Blocking

The Washington Times is of course the conservative newspaper voice in Washington but it is good to see that they have editorialized against the recent blocking of Jihad Watch and other conservative sites by filtering firms. It should help get out to a wider audience what has been happening.

Democrats Trying all Angles to Impose Censorship

A "study" sounds innocuous but it is of course intended as a launching pad for more regulation:

"The heads of the House committee and subcommittee overseeing communications issues, respectively, have asked the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) to study the use of "telecommunications to commit hate crimes."

While NTIA, which is the Bush administration's telecommunications policy advisory arm, already produced a study on the topic under the first president Bush back in 1992, Reps. John Dingell and Ed Markey urged it to update the study given the rise in the Internet since them. But, according to a release from the commitee issued Monday, they also said they are also "particularly" interested in studying "uses by broadcast facilites licensed on behalf of the public by the FCC, and whether such uses convey messages of bigotry or hatred, creating a climate of fear and inciting individuals to commit hate crimes."

Source

If I said, for instance, that homosexuality is a sexual perversion (a view that was enshrined in law until fairly recently) Reps. Dingell and Markey would no doubt classify that as "bigotry or hatred, creating a climate of fear and inciting individuals to commit hate crimes." So it is a direct attack on free speech.

This site Under Threat?

I have received the following email from a reader:

I am writing you because of a weird thing occurring on the blog Tongue Tied 3. When I access the site using the home computer, everything is fine. When I access the site using the web connection on my cell phone, I see the site fine, but a message comes up in the banner saying I flagged this blog as containing objectionable content! I did no such thing – the idea is somewhat ironic anyway since I don’t subscribe to the notion that we somehow have a right not to be offended. If I were ever going to flag something an objectionable, it would be the ACLU’s site. Anyway, there is no option anywhere on the blog that I can find that will allow me to fix this problem. So, I’m telling you about it in case someone at the blog site or Google or whoever tries to use it as a n excuse to censor you.

If anybody has any thoughts about this, leave a comment. Blogger.com do on rare occasions take down blogs on "hate speech" grounds so make sure you have bookmarked my list of mirror sites.

Blocker of Conservative Sites Identified

It seems that the blocking of "Jihad Watch" and other conservative sites was mainly the work of a "Rev." Jim Sutter, an elderly Leftist clergyman who mobilized his followers to flag and flag again sites critical of Islam. Apparently some services that list wicked sites for the benefit of business customers were more than happy to co-operate -- with an outfit called "Webwasher" being particularly quick to implement blocking. Jawa Report has details. It shows how services primarily designed to block pornography from work computers can be misused.

The latest sadly twisted post on the Rev. Jim's site says that Jihad Watch blames the London bombings on the Church of England! I wonder who the Rev. Jim thinks is to blame? George Bush, probably.

Muslim Denial Getting Worse

I mentioned on July 5 that new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has forbidden reference to Muslims in connection with the recent terror attacks in England and Scotland.

It seems that the worse the Muslim attacks get, the more the Muslim involvement has to get covered up. The New York Times has also come to the party. It claims that the various Muslim attacks in Britian have brought "home to Britain fears of homegrown terrorist attacks among its disenfranchised South Asian population"

Since most South Asians in Britain are Hindus, that is straight-out deception. And how are any of them "disenfranchised"? Nobody is denied the vote in Britain on account of their religion or race. So desperate are they that we are now getting straight lies from the mainstream media. "The people must not be told the truth" might almost be the Leftist motto. It is certainly what they practice whenever they can.

Princeton economist Alan Krueger is one representative of the coverup among academics. He admits that the old fallback -- poverty -- does not cause terrorism and says that it is "suppression of civil liberties and political rights" that causes terrorism. Yet nowhere in the world do Muslims have such great civil liberties and political rights as they do in Britain. So that is why there have been so many Muslim attacks in Britain, you see! Anything at all will be grasped at rather than admit that Islam is the problem.

An Interesting Test in Massachusetts

The Confederate flag should REALLY test the limits in Mass:

"A Watertown man is criticizing the Town Council for adopting a program that seeks to curb hate crimes, saying he believes it violates his right to free speech.

Ralph Filicchia, 71, said he's "not a hater" but believes the town's participation in the Anti-Defamation League of New England's No Place For Hate program infringes on his freedom to hold opinions that may go against the grain. "People should be free to express things without being charged with hatemongering or hate speech," said Filicchia, who is retired but does some freelance writing on political issues. "Isn't the whole idea of free speech to protect offensive speech?"

Filicchia hung a Confederate flag outside his Bellevue Road home last week in protest, saying he would leave it up until a "No Place for Hate" sign in front of Town Hall is removed.

Council President Clyde L. Younger said in an interview he was surprised at Filicchia's stance, since the No Place For Hate program is well-known and not about censoring speech, but fighting bigotry.

Source

So will they define flying the Stars n Bars as "bigotry"? I suspect that they have not asked themselves how you define bigotry nor have they asked themselves how you "fight" bigotry without fighting expressions of it.

The battle to 'bury the N-word'

Efforts to ban the epithet being stepped up in Texas:

"As a child of the '60s, Tammie Campbell endured an era when white residents frequently used the N-word to degrade black people. Local rapper D-Red knows the word's hateful history but says it's now just a hip-hop expression and a term of endearment.

Those two thoughts about one of the most divisive racial epithets in America are at the center of an extraordinary movement in recent months: to abolish the N-word from our lexicon.

Campbell, 48, is leading a diverse Houston-area group focused on eradicating the term's usage and teaching its history. They are hosting an unusual event at 9 a.m. today at a Pearland cemetery to ''bury the N-word" in a coffin.

"This word wasn't created by blacks," said Campbell, the former president of the Missouri City NAACP. "It was created by whites. They have a responsibility as well as blacks - more so than anybody else - to destroy and annihilate this racial term that has hurt this nation as a whole."

Source

He's right that blacks did not create the word. It's the ordinary Latin word for "black" in fact -- though pronounced with a shorter "i" sound -- signified by the double "g" -- unlike the single "g" in the Latin "niger". Ban Latin!

Court Overturns Punishment for Fantasy Video

San Francicso:

"The city's police chief did not go through the proper procedures before suspending an officer who produced a Christmas party video criticized as being racist, sexist and homophobic, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.

In a 3-0 ruling, the Court of Appeal in San Francisco suggested that Chief Heather Fong was overly concerned with quelling bad publicity when she suspended Officer Andrew Cohen after the video surfaced in December 2005. Fong failed to show there was an emergency justifying the immediate suspension, the court said.

"Temporary suspensions may not be used as a shortcut method of taking punitive action against an officer or as a tool for conducting public relations damage control," Justice Sandra Margulies said. The city must reimburse Cohen the four days' pay he lost during the suspension.

"They overreacted and then scurried to find some way to make Officer Cohen the scapegoat," said Harry Stern, a lawyer for Cohen.

Source

Blog Comments and Free Speech

Every now and again, somebody comes up with the notion that a blogger is responsible for comments that are left on his blog by readers of the blog. I think that is nonsense myself and so do all blog-savvy people, I think. I would sure have to delete a lot of comments here if I had to be responsible for them! As it is, it is only comments by one particularly foul-mouthed person that I have ever deleted on this site. I have also IP-banned four internet addresses he has used on various occasions. There are no other IP-bans here.

An example of the nonsense I am talking about is recorded here. Some not-very-bright Leftists on Australia's major public broadcaster criticized some of our newspapers over comments people had left on their blogs. One newspaper got its own back a few days later, however, when someone left antisemitic comments on the site of the broadcaster. The newspaper reported that fact with great glee and got lots of people to complain to the broadcaster concerned. The broadcaster actually got a fair bit of flak over it so I imagine they have decided not to throw stones in glass houses in future. See also here.

There is a much more serious case ongoing in Sweden, however. Australians and Americans can do little more than complain to one-another about content that they don't like but in Sweden "hate speech" is against the law. So comments that appeared briefly on the blog of a popular member of Sweden's conservative government are being put under the microscope -- even though the comments were fairly promptly deleted. Swedish officials have already ruled that the blog is not entitled to any free speech protections. See here and here for details.

I am guessing that the case won't go anywhere but it shows how lucky we are in Australia and America to have the freedoms we do.

In the circumstances, I am somewhat surprised that ALL Swedes don't use comment moderation -- where no comment appears until it is approved by the blog owner. Moderation does seriously harm the immediate flow of conversation that blog commenters enjoy, however, so I guess the Swedes don't want to be deprived of that.

Fortunately, Haloscan seems to have pretty good spam-blocking software so I don't have to enable moderation here to stop comment spam -- something that was an horrendous problem on the previous site for this blog. On the old site, I often had to delete over 500 spam comments in one day and legitimate comments sometimes got caught up in that.

Update on the Blocking of Sites that are Critical of Islam

As I noted two days ago, several sites that often feature uncensored reports of Muslim doings have been widely blocked lately -- though CAIR and various Jihadi sites have remained fully accessible.

Publicity about the blocking campaign seems to have had some effect. Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch has now been told by many of his readers that they can once again access his site from their work computers.

All readers here should monitor the situation, however. Unless it is nipped in the bud, Leftist censorship will just proliferate. So if you ARE blocked from accessing any conservative sites, protest loud and long about it to whoever is in charge of your work computers.

If Jihad Watch is blocked again, it may also be an idea to let Robert Spencer know. You can email him here: director-AT-jihadwatch.org. Substitute the @ sign for "-AT-", of course.

Naughty Word "Angus" gets the All-clear

We read:

"Fast food chain Jack in the Box can continue to air TV ads that make a rival restaurant the butt of its jokes, a federal judge ruled this week. U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford said he wanted to see more evidence of actual harm before barring the cheeky ads that suggest rival company CKE Restaurants, which operates Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, uses cow anuses to make its Angus beef hamburgers.

CKE sued Jack In The Box in May over two TV ads, including one in which executives laugh hysterically at the word "Angus" and another where the chain's clownish mascot Jack is asked to point to a diagram of a cow and show where Angus meat comes from. "I'd rather not," Jack replies. The employee asking the question traces a circle in the air with his pen while pronouncing the word Angus.

Source

Maybe "Angus" might become a popular term of abuse now that it has been ruled legit!

London court jails 'cyber-jihadis' for incitement to violence

I am inclined towards the moderate libertarian view that incitement to violence is reasonably denied free speech protection so see the verdict as justifiable:

"Three "cyber-jihadis" who used the internet to urge Muslims to wage holy war on non-believers were jailed for between six-and-a-half and 10 years today in the first case of its kind in Britain. Tariq Al-Daour, Younes Tsouli and Waseem Mughal had close links with al-Qaeda in Iraq and thought there was a "global conspiracy" to wipe out Islam, the Woolwich Crown Court in south-east London was told.

Moroccan-born Tsouli, 23, was jailed for 10 years; UAE-born Al-Daour, 21, received a six-and-a-half year sentence; and 24-year-old Mughal, who was born in Britain, was given seven-and-a-half years.

Sentencing them, Judge Charles Openshaw said the men had engaged in "cyber jihad", encouraging others to kill "kuffars" or non-believers. "It would seem that internet websites have become an effective means of communicating such ideas," he said, although he added that none of the men had come close to carrying out acts of violence themselves. Referring to Tsouli, whom he recommended for deportation to Morocco after serving his sentence, he said: "He came no closer to a bomb or a firearm than a computer keyboard."

Al-Daour, from west London, yesterday admitted "inciting another person to commit an act of terrorism wholly or partly outside the United Kingdom which would, if committed in England and Wales, constitute murder." Tsouli, also from west London, and Mughal, from Kent, southeast England, admitted the same charge on Monday. The guilty pleas came part way through a trial which had run for two months.

Source

European Bureaucrats Telling Governments what to Say

Lots of banned words. Policy propagated in secret, of course. They cannot stand the light of day:

"Secret EU guidelines have been drawn up warning governments not to link Islam and terrorism.

The politically correct directives are believed to be behind ministers not using words such as "Muslim'' about Britain's terrorism crisis.

Yesterday the Daily Express reported how Gordon Brown's ministers had been told to avoid inflammatory language when speaking about the attempted car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.

Neither the Prime Minister in a major interview nor Home Secretary Jacqui Smith in the Commons referred to Muslims or Islam.

Last night critics pointed to a classified EU document sent out to all European governments offering "non-offensive'' phrases to use when discussing terrorism.

Banned terms were said to include "jihad'', "Islamic'' or "fundamentalist".

Source

And I don't think any European government has the guts to tell them to take a hike. Poland is the only possibility.

Disturbing Blog Censorship -- in the USA

I have seen a few complaints about this in the last few days. People have been complaining that they cannot access various conservative sites while at work (in their lunchtimes of course!). Far-Left and Jihadi websites are always accessible, needless to say:

"The latest in this series of assaults is the banning of MEMRI, Hot Air, and Jihad Watch websites from the internet systems of the U.S. Government, the City of Chicago, Fidelity Investments, Site Coach, and Bank of America-and surely there are more-over the last few weeks. The reason given: complaints of "hate speech."

Source

The writer attributes these bans to CAIR but I think it is more likely to be the work of much bigger players -- such as some elements in the U.S. government bureaucracy or some of America's Muslim-loving Leftists.

He does however have a point in saying that it is mainly sites that are openly critical of Islam that are blocked. He also points out why it is absurd to equate the criticisms appearing on such sites with "hate speech". And even if it WERE hate speech, it is still protected under the First Amendment as far as U.S. government sites are concerned.

Now we have the "M-word"

The cringing Associated Press says that the would-be bombers in Britain were a "diverse" group! All Muslim doctors! How diverse can you get? In America, "diverse" means black. I guess in Britain it must mean "Muslim".

Gateway Pundit and others are ridiculing the "diverse" description and commenting on how the "M-word" is being avoided in reporting the attacks in Britain.

But I guess that the first names of some of the bomb-plottters does rather give the game away: Mohammed.

The instruction to ban the "M-word" actually comes from Britain's new Prime Minster

A Leftist Defence of Academic Free Speech

On June 12 I reported the case in Australia where two professors had been suspended from their jobs for six months because they spoke out against the "postmodern" crap being preached at their university.

The two professors are in fact moderate Leftists -- but that makes them conservative in a university context, of course. The university concerned has not so far backed down and is defending its actions on very hokey grounds so I am pleased to report that the Australian Left has got itself involved on the side of the professors. Leftists did a lot of protesting against university administrations in the 60s so maybe old habits die hard!

See an article on a Leftist site written by Brian Laver in defence of the professors. I know Brian from way back. He and I were on opposite sides of the Vietnam issue back in the 60s at the University of Queensland. He usually claims to be an anarchist rather than a Leftist but I think that just means that he is a Leftist who really does have some principles. I am delighted that those principles have come to the fore on this occasion.

May I repeat my call for emails to Prof. Peter Coaldrake in protest against his university's action in this matter: Click here to email him.

Another German Attack on Free Speech

I personally think all holocaust deniers are at least slightly deranged but, as many Jewish thinkers do, I don't think holocaust denial should be a crime. If anything, it helps keep alive detailed awareness of the holocaust. In Germany, however, holocaust denial has long been a crime.

In some strange way, however, a German pro-lifer seems to have fallen foul of the law:

"A city court in Erlangen, Bavaria, gave Lutheran Pastor Johannes Lerle a one year jail sentence for the "crime" of comparing abortion to the Nazi holocaust.

Pastor Johannes Lerle compared the annual murder of 150,000 babies through abortion in Germany to the murder of thousands of innocent Jews in Auschwitz. The court, which consisted of no jury and a single judge, ruled that this statement made Lerle a holocaust denier.

On 14 June, Judge Erda Erdenhofner convicted Lerle of a particular crime known as "volksverhetzung", or "incitement of the people".

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I understand that the pastor doubts the extent of the holocaust -- putting the death toll at half a million rather than six million but why that makes any difference escapes me. Half a million or six million is still a towering crime. But however you look at he is not denying the holocaust, just talking about the details. And how can he be denying it if he is comparing Germany's abortions to it?

The report above says he was sentenced for Volkverhetzung but I believe that he was in fact sentenced under the holocaust denial laws. Totally illogical but I think it shows that speaking out of place is still dangerous in Germany.

Australian TV Show in Trouble Again

Must not joke about hepatitis:

"A comedian on Rove has been told to say sorry to hepatitis sufferers after a "cheap, cruel" joke on the show. Hepatitis Australia said it was offended by a piece on the show by Peter Helliar in which he joked about giving hepatitis C to American actor Pamela Anderson for her 40th birthday.

In a segment of the Sunday night comedy show, the comedian asked what would be the best present for the former Baywatch star, who has everything. "Hepatitis, oh wait, she already got that last year," Helliar said on the program.

Hepatitis Australia chief executive Helen Tyrrell said the "irresponsible" comment was a cruel and discriminatory attempt at humour.

Source

Not long ago, a black rapper got into his sh*t and rolled out of the Rove show -- or so he said

Court Enforces the Law: ACLU Disappointed

Following is from the ACLU:

"We are disappointed that today's decision rejected the Seattle and Louisville plans. A majority of the Court nonetheless recognized that school districts have a compelling interest in racially diverse public schools. The view of Chief Justice Roberts that local school districts lack a compelling interest in racial diversity was emphatically rejected by a majority of the Court as a repudiation of Brown v. Board of Education. In a decisive concurring opinion, Justice Kennedy made clear that he disagreed with how Seattle and Louisville had structured their voluntary integration plans, but not with their efforts to end segregation.

"Even so, the rejection of the Seattle and Louisville school plans represents a significant step backwards in a nation where schools are becoming increasingly segregated by race and ethnicity. The ACLU, along with other organizations and individuals who believe in an inclusive society, will continue its efforts to bring fairness and equality to schools."

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What that seems to mean is that the ACLU disagrees with the 14th ("equal protection") Amendment -- which requires equal treatment before the law for all. Nice to be able to pick and choose which amendment you support!

They say that the court still recognizes racial integration ("diversity" in code-speak) as a good thing to be worked towards. No surprise. Very few people will disagree with that these days. But racial quotas have clearly been outlawed as a way to do it.

So how to do it? Through Christian outreach? I don't think the ACLU had that in mind. Reading between the lines, what the ACLU seems to be saying is that they will support sneaky attempts to apply racial quotas -- through selecting kids on the basis of parental income, for example. That too, would however fall foul of the 14th Amendment so should eventually get knocked on the head too, as it certainly should.

Amusing that they say they want to achieve equality when that is what the 14th Amendment MANDATES. It is they and their Leftist ilk who do their best to prevent its implementation

But Leftists have only ever given lip-service to equality, of course. Ever since Marx & Engels, what they have all really wanted to do is to divide people up into large groups and privilege one group over another. Up until quite recently, of course, it was whites that they wanted to privilege. The KKK were all Democrats, Hitler was a socialist and Engels was a fanatical German nationalist who spoke of "n*ggers" with great contempt. The failure of Hitler made Leftists change the groups they favor but they still do not have the mental complexity necessary to treat people as individuals.

Louisiana: Another ACLU attack on a Christian display

Community resisting the attack:

"Standing in the shadow of the Slidell City Court, a swarm of protesters congregated Tuesday night for a rousing and at times revival-like demonstration, denouncing the American Civil Liberties Union and offering a show of unconditional support for the controversial portrait of Jesus that hangs on the wall just inside the courthouse.

Crowe seized on the opportunity to berate the ACLU, which has decried the portrait as a violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, saying it serves to advance a religious message using a public building.

The picture, which shows Jesus holding an open book of scripture, was identified by a local priest as a 16th century Russian Orthodox icon. The scripture, written in Russian, includes a biblical quotation about judging correctly and wisely. Beneath the portrait, a sign reads: "To know peace, obey these laws."

Attorneys with the ACLU believe that the display gives the impression that only those who believe in the law of Jesus Christ will receive justice in city court.

But protesters claimed that the portrait, which has been on display since the building opened in 1997, has never posed a problem and fairly represents the majority of residents in their largely Christian community.

Originally, the ACLU gave court officials one week to remove the display, threatening to sue if they did not comply by today. The conflict has since cooled, after attorneys with the ACLU agreed to a two-week extension before filing suit, allowing the court to seek further counsel from a team of independent legal experts.

The ACLU has also sponsored six federal lawsuits in 13 years against the Tangipahoa School Board, all involving the promotion of religion in schools.

Among other things, the board has been sued for allowing the distribution of Gideon bibles in the classroom and for sanctioning a teacher-led prayer at a recent high school graduation ceremony. Both actions were filed this spring in U.S. District Court in New Orleans and are awaiting trial.

Source

Are 'Blacks too 'emotional' to obey rules'?

We read:

"So Blacks are unable to control themselves? At least one Black moderator thinks so. The moderator of Thursday's Democrat presidential debate was asked by C-Span host Brian Lamb why he didn't enforce a no-applause rule for his PBS-sponsored debate like other debate formats; moderator Tavis Smiley replied: "Because black people are an emotional people. I know it wouldn't have worked."

Smiley says the black audience attending the 90-minute session at Howard University would not have listened or complied with such a request for silence, suggesting African-Americans are unable to control themselves. He made the remarks on Friday morning's Washington Journal program aired on C-Span.

Interestingly, Smiley is a black talk show host and liberal political activist,

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What he said might be true but you can imagine the fuss if a white man had said that. Statements are no longer judged by the evidence for or against them but rather by the skin-color of the speaker. How deeply into irrationalty America has fallen. And so much for Martin Luther King's "dream".

Florida City backs down over political fliers

I think the ACLU got this one right. As long as Christianity is not involved, they can be rational:

"Orlando officials Thursday averted a free-speech fight that threatened to overshadow the city's annual Fourth of July celebration. The American Civil Liberties Union was girding for battle in support of an Orlando man who originally was told he wouldn't be allowed to hand out campaign fliers for his favorite presidential candidate at the "Fireworks at the Fountain" show at Lake Eola Park.

"I think it's reprehensible that, on the Fourth of July, you'd be threatened with arrest for passing out literature about a presidential candidate in a public park," said Nick Egoroff, the coordinator for the presidential campaign of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas.

"Fireworks at the Fountain" is the city's premier public event, held annually in its signature downtown park. About 125,000 people are expected at this year's gathering, featuring food, drink, music and entertainment spread over six hours.

The city has a contract with Cox Radio Inc. to handle the event, which marks its 30th anniversary this year. Orlando officials say that gives Cox the right to treat the Fourth of July party as a private event. Initially, city officials told Egoroff he couldn't pass out literature unless he rented a booth for $1,500.

Egoroff vowed to do it anyway, even if that meant he would be arrested. In a show of solidarity, the ACLU began inviting groups of all political stripes to hand out fliers, too. "We're going to have at least 10 groups out there, hopefully 20," said the ACLU's George Crossley. "There are going to be Republicans, Democrats, everybody with a cause. People against the war, evangelical Christians -- they'll all be invited to come out and pass out fliers."

As the tension mounted, city officials backed down Thursday, saying they had never dealt with a request like Egoroff's and had simply made a mistake. A Cox representative called it a misunderstanding. Now political activists will be allowed to hand out literature, as long as they don't impede people or threaten public safety.

Source

Political speech was clearly protected in a publicly-owned facility. City officials probably just wanted to keep it non-political but there are no exceptions in the First Amendment.