"N-word" now forbidden

We read:

"Second-grader Jaiden Haber was sent to the principal's office -- not for bad behavior, but for her T-shirt's slogan. Last week, the principal told Jaiden, 8, to change her shirt, which read, "N the 'N' Word" and "It's time!"

Jaiden's mother, Karen, 45, said teachers at Northwest Elementary in Amityville should have "seized the moment" to discuss the shirt because it aimed to encourage tolerance.

But district superintendent John Williams said the word's inflammatory effect outweighed the shirt's potential educational value. He said Amityville schools strive to regularly instill cultural lessons. "To send a little white girl wearing this shirt into a very diverse district that is almost 90 percent nonwhite was not the way to address this word," he said yesterday. "It's a lightning rod."

A gym teacher noticed Jaiden's shirt and sent her to the principal, who asked her to change into a school shirt because hers was a "distraction," Williams said.

That violated Jaiden's First Amendment rights, said Tara Keenan-Thomson, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union's Nassau chapter. "All students have the right to wear what they want, and this does not stop at the school gates, regardless of content or how old she is," she said.

Source

The "N" apparently meant "end" so it was intended as an "anti-racist" slogan. I have long foreseen that usages such as "n*gger" will become banned but I am little surprised to see that it has gone past that and extended to "N-word". The Left have really done a great job of muzzling America.

On the other hand, the Principal may have been right in seeing the shirt as dangerous for the girl. There was a case recently where a guy lost his job because his fellow black employees were upset about his wearing a "clan" badge (he was of Scottish descent). Apparently to the blacks concerned there was only one clan: The KKK. So some blacks kids might have thought the girl was dissing them -- and attacked her for it.

So is the Principal assuming that blacks will behave in dumb ways?

Some REAL hate crime

NYC blacks threw rocks at a bus full of Jewish toddlers but no media outrage and student protests about that:

We read:

"Police say four teenagers have been arrested on hate crime charges for throwing rocks at a school bus full of Jewish toddlers.

Police say the three girls and one boy yelled epithets last month as they broke windows on the bus in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights. The children were not hurt.

The case is part of a string of incidents that have stirred tensions between black and Jewish residents in Crown Heights. The teens are all 14-years-old and are black.

Source

As the blogger at the link above says:

"Jew hatred everywhere. Everywhere you go.... there it is. Of course the thing that galls me is if this was a school bus of Muslim children or a school bus of black children and white teens were yelling racial epithets, the country would be in an uproar. The media would be sleeping on lawns in Brooklyn .......... the leftist mainstream is morally bankrupt. Depraved.

They blinked!

Mark Steyn has made history! The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has dismissed the complaint against him -- as I predicted they would. It would have threatened their survival had they done otherwise. So the end result of the Muslim whining was simply to give Mark reams of free publicity. Virtue has its reward. Read the whole story on Mark's site.

More on the shutdown of anti-Obama blogs

There is quite a nice readable article here on the shutdown. I liked the following comment:

"Johnson and the other people interviewed for this article all agreed that Google was partly to blame for the outages. It was because of the search giant's "guilty until proven innocent" approach, they said, that allowed the attackers to shut down the blogs so easily.

"My biggest objection is not necessarily that these people did this, but that Blogger had the policy that basically locks you out," Snedeker said. "In other words you're guilty until proven innocent, instead of the other way around, and that was what frustrated me."

"I understand the need if you have some complaints from people that you need to investigate it," Johnson said. "But you also have to make sure that the person filing the complaint is legitimate."

I must say I feel a bit cheesed: Why wasn't my Obama blog attacked? Not worth attacking?

NYC councilman: Criticism of Mugabe is racist

We read:

"New Yorkers and longtime HA readers will know exactly which councilman it is. For the rest, it's Charles Barron, who dabbles in apologizing for the worst socialist degenerate dictators when he isn't busy calling black cops "house negroes" or fantasizing about slapping white people randomly for his mental health. He played host to Mugabe in NYC six years ago; these days he confines himself to denying that his pal's thugs are raping and murdering women from the opposition.

Source

Video clip at the link above

Canada: Radio host's Nazi remark deemed fair comment



ANYTHING is OK if you are criticizing conservatives:

"The Supreme Court of Canada has unanimously ruled that an outspoken Vancouver radio host is not liable for defamatory statements. The court upheld a previous B. C. Supreme Court decision that the right to fair comment protected "shock jock" Rafe Mair's statements in an on-air editorial about Kari Simpson, a public figure whom Mr. Mair compared to Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members...

On a Vancouver talk show in 1999, Mr. Mair criticized Ms. Simpson for having anti-gay views and said she reminded him of Adolf Hitler and prominent Ku Klux Klan members. At the time, Ms. Simpson had a reputation as a leader "of those opposed to any positive portrayal of a gay lifestyle," wrote Justice Ian Binnie....

"We live in a free country where people have as much right to express outrageous and ridiculous opinions as moderate ones," the ruling says.

Source

If the same criteria are applied, Mark Steyn should have an easy run once he gets his case into a real court.

Anti-Obama blogs being treated as spam by Google

Some are being blocked altogether and on others you have to go through an onerous process to post. Since none of the blogs concerned have any of the characteristics of spam blogs, it seems most likely that false spam notifications from Obama supporters are the reason behind all the blocks. Uppity Woman (who is a Democrat but a mocker of Obama) has a big coverage of it.

The problem is so pernicious that a lot of bloggers have moved their sites to Wordpress and other locations. I reproduce below Uppity Woman's notes on that:

Old location: http://bluelyon.blogspot.com/ has been unfairly locked up as spam thanks to false "reporting". New Location: http://bluelyon.wordpress.com/

Old Location: http://nobamablog.blogspot.com has also been locked out and falsely reported as "spam". New location: http://nobamablog.wordpress.com/

Old Location: http://hillaryorbust.blogspot.com/ has been locked out for false reports that she is a "spam" site. This blogger has moved to her own domain at Hillary Or Bust.com The Hillary or Bust site also lists the following additional blogs have been unfairly locked out due to false "spammer" accusations:

http://reflections-in-tyme.blogspot.com/ (Native Americans Against Obama) (no new site as yet)http://mccaindemocrats.blogspot.com/ Locked out, new site is:http://mccaindemocrats.wordpress.com/ Locked out: http://politicallizard.blogspot.com/ Locked out, new site is here. http://ascrivenerslament.blogspot.com/ was blocked but was reinstated earlier this month

It might be an idea to visit some of the blocked people at their new sites and give them some encouragement.

SCOTUS strikes down "millionaire's amendment"

I don't understand campaign finance laws very well at all. The McCain/Feingold law seems to have made it all very complex. But it sounds like a small victory for freer speech below:

"The US Supreme Court on Thursday struck down the so-called 'millionaire's amendment' of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, saying it violated free-speech protections. In a 5-to-4 ruling, the high court said Congress cannot use federal election laws to disadvantage candidates who choose to use their own money to run for a seat in Congress. The idea behind the law was to prevent a wealthy candidate from using massive personal spending in a campaign to drown out the voices of other candidates. It was also intended to counter the impression that seats in Congress can be purchased."

Source

The WSJ has more. Having different speech rules for different people certainly does seem obnoxious in principle.

Colorado: Trustees back school in punishing students for "violent" parody

Laughing at lesbians is "violent". Looks like FIRE might have lost this one.

"The Chair of Colorado College's (CC's) Board of Trustees has affirmed the school's actions in finding that student Chris Robinson and another student wishing to remain anonymous violated CC's 'violence' policy for posting a flyer that parodied a flyer of the Feminist and Gender Studies program.

In a letter to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), Board of Trustees Chair David van Diest Skilling wrote that 'the College acted correctly in their handling of the students' behavior' and that 'there is no need for further action.' FIRE continues to call on CC to remove the guilty verdict from the students' files immediately and to stand by its own promises of freedom of expression."

Source

The Canadian double standard

As Mark Steyn has discovered, in Canada today you cannot say anything critical of Muslims without risking a summons to appear before a "human rights" tribunal. The same does not apply to Muslims, however. They can utter all the hate-speech they like:

"You know what is the really sobering thing about that ongoing terror trial in Brampton?

Clue: It's not that there was a plot to attack Canadian targets. And of course there was; the court has heard evidence up the ying-yang that there was just such an enterprise afoot. Was it the finest plot ever? Oh hardly. Were its members variously bumblers, what those who hang around courts call "yutes" or raving hotheads? Absolutely. But there was a plot.

It's not even the hate, chiefly for Jews and Americans, that one of the group leaders preached at the drop of a hat and the top of his lungs with almost magnificently ungrammatical, near-illiterate, Koran-ignorant hysteria. It's that he felt so free to preach it.

It's that he felt comfortable enough to hand out jihadist CDs outside at least one Toronto mosque and to occasionally turn up in combat fatigues at another. It's that he giddily talked to one of his alleged co-conspirators about the obligation to kill Jews whenever one finds them. It's that the leadership of the group regularly met at a half-dozen mosques in the GTA, usually on Fridays, the day of communal prayer. It's that within minutes of meeting Mubin Shaikh, a fellow Muslim-turned-CSIS informant-turned-paid-RCMP agent, he was openly verbally indulging his bloodlust and "recruiting" Mr. Shaikh: Their shared religion was enough.

Source

Another naughty Canadian

The lesbians could dish it out but they couldn't take it. So they went crying to Momma:

"A Canadian stand-up comedian will face a human rights tribunal hearing after a woman complained she and her friends faced a "tirade of homophobic and sexist comments" while attending one of his shows.

In a decision released this week, the B. C. Human Rights Tribunal ruled there is enough evidence to hear the case of Vancouver woman Lorna Pardy against Toronto comedian Guy Earle. Zesty's Restaurant in Vancouver, where the May 22, 2007, show took place, has also been named in the complaint.

Ms. Pardy could not be reached yesterday for comment. However, the tribunal's decision says she alleges she was discriminated against over her sex and sexual orientation when Mr. Earle made public comments "intended to humiliate her."

The ruling says Mr. Earle and Ms. Pardy "have very different versions of who was to blame for the incidents, how it came about and how it escalated." There is also a dispute over what role alcohol played in the incident.

"Mr. Earle does, however, admit that he used comments which he now regrets," says the tribunal. "Those admitted comments may go to establish discrimination."

Reached yesterday, Mr. Earle said he was the show's emcee when Ms. Pardy and two of her friends walked in, sat in the booth closest to the stage and began heckling him and other comics. "Two of them started making out, flipping me the bird and saying I hated lesbians," he said.

Mr. Earle was reluctant to repeat the remarks that led to the human rights complaint. "Everybody wants to know what I said, and I invite people to come see me on stage because you can't take it out of context. And that's exactly what's happened here. "The reader or the listener or whatever has no feeling for the environment of the comedy show that is triple-X, edgiest-show-in-town, controversial and offensive, so when you walk in there you're making an agreement to be a party to this controversial show."

"They were drunk, they were being jerks and I was very rude and visceral to them because, like I said, if you have a heckler what you want to do is put them in their place by offending them, so I tried to hit them where it hurts and the only thing I had to key on was the fact that they were lesbians. "I don't care if they're lesbians, heterosexuals, homosexuals or giraffes."

Mr. Earle said the complaint is an attack on comedians' right to perform. "I would never have expected it would get escalated to a philosophical battle." He added it's been more than 40 years since controversial U.S. comic Lenny Bruce was jailed for obscenity over his comic material-- "and we're still fighting the same battle. I know it's a fight I can never win. But I've got to keep fighting."

Source

Amazing: A black guy gets criticized for his speech!

And he wasn't even dissing homosexuals! A black is normally OK as long as he leaves homosexuals out of his talk. The race card trumps all else.

"Shaquille O'Neal will lose his special deputy's badge in Maricopa County because of language he used in a rap video that mocks former teammate Kobe Bryant. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said the Phoenix Suns center's use of a racially derogatory word and other foul language left him no choice.

Arpaio made Shaq a special deputy in 2006 and promoted him to colonel of his largely ceremonial posse later that year. "I want his two badges back," Arpaio told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "Because if any one of my deputies did something like this, they're fired. I don't condone this type of racial conduct."

Source

It takes Sheriff Joe, America's most popular lawman.

Imus again

We read:

"U.S. radio personality Don Imus on Tuesday defended linking a football player's race to brushes with the police as Imus tried to dampen a brewing race controversy over remarks he made one day earlier.

During his breakfast show on Monday on Citadel Broadcasting Corp's ABC Radio Networks, Imus discussed Adam "Pacman" Jones, who was suspended by the National Football League in April 2007 because of his link to a Las Vegas triple shooting.

A colleague of Imus commented on how many times Jones had been arrested since he had been drafted by the Tennessee Titans in 2005, and Imus asked what color he was. Told that Jones is black, Imus responded: "Well, there you go. Now we know."

Source

Imus is trying to wriggle out of it but why should he? Blacks DO have a huge crime-rate.

English Council bans "brainstorming"

We read:

"A council has banned the term `brainstorming' - and replaced it with `thought showers.' Officials Tunbridge Wells Borough Council in Kent feared the phrase might offend epileptics or the mentally ill. Staff have been sent memos about the change and even sent on training courses, reports The Sun.

But Margaret Thomas, of the National Society for Epilepsy, said: `Brainstorming is a clear and descriptive phrase. Alternatives such as `thought shower' or `blue-sky thinking' are ambiguous to say the least. Any implication that the word `brainstorming' is offensive to epileptics takes political correctness too far."

Source

Thuggish Censorship of Connecticut newspaper

We read:

"Mayor Eddie A. Perez ratcheted up his campaign against "racist comments and hate speech" posted by readers on Courant.com Friday by holding a protest outside the newspaper's Broad Street headquarters.

Surrounded by a few dozen state and municipal elected officials, members of community organizations and city employees, Hartford's mayor stood in front of The Courant to take it to task.

"Let me begin by making it clear that this is not, this is not about free speech," Perez said. "This is about asking the corporate citizen in our community not to provide a platform for hate and racist material in our community." "Enough is enough," Perez said to applause. "Enough is enough."

The rally comes at the end of a week in which Perez issued two press releases targeting the reader comments, and wrote a letter to the newspaper's publisher demanding that The Courant stop the anonymous postings.

Source

The usual ignorant Leftist claim that "hate speech is not free speech". It looks like the newspaper owner is going to bend to the pressure, though. And what a hero the Mayor must have felt himself to be! Lovely cheap applause.

I have not been able to find what the "hate speech" was but the following comment from a reader of the newspaper may give a clue:

"Don't you people know that you are only supposed to say nice things about Perez and the city of Hartford, anything else you say is racist, hate speech!"

McCain adviser sorry for 9/11 remark

We read:

"A top adviser to US Republican presidential candidate John McCain apologised today after he was quoted as saying a September 11-type attack before the November election would benefit Senator McCain. "I deeply regret the comments, they were inappropriate," Charlie Black said after Senator McCain said that if Mr Black had made such a comment, "I strenuously disagree" with it.

"I recognise that John McCain has devoted his entire adult life to protecting his country and placing its security before every other consideration," said Mr Black, one of Senator McCain's most trusted political advisers.

Fortune magazine said Mr Black, in discussing how national security was Senator McCain's strong suit, had said when asked about another terrorist attack on US soil that "certainly it would be a big advantage to him".

Source

The guy was probably right, though. It's tricky to be honest in politics

Cartoon ruling may prompt 'Islamophobia'

We read:

"The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a league of 57 Muslim nations, said a Danish court's rejection of a suit against a paper for printing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad could provoke "Islamophobia".

Last Thursday the High Court for western Denmark rejected a suit against Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that first published cartoons of Islam's prophet, leading to deadly protests in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

The court said the editors had not meant to depict Muslims as criminals or terrorists, the cartoons had not broken the law, and there was a relationship between acts of violence and Islam - comments that provoked outcry among Muslim groups in Denmark. "It is a known fact that acts of terror have been carried out in the name of Islam and it is not illegal to make satire out of this relationship," the court said.

The Saudi-based OIC, the largest grouping of Muslim countries, said the ruling could encourage "Islamophobia", a fear or dislike of Islam, which the group has identified as existing in the West.

Source

It's the Muslim terrorists who encourage "Islamophobia"

"Dumb blonde" a no-no

Australia:

"A primary school teacher accused of calling a pupil a "dumb blonde" is among those to be hit with discrimination complaints. A confidential payout and apology was made after the girl's furious mother consulted Victoria's discrimination watchdog, the Herald Sun has learned. The teacher, accused of repeatedly making demeaning comments in class about the girl being blonde, was counselled. The pupil was transferred to another class.

The case is among 488 education-related discrimination claims investigated by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission in the past five years.

Source

I am inclined to agree with that one. It sounds like it was the teacher who was dumb. I know of no correlation between hair colour and IQ. I think some people are jealous of blondes, however.

I myself rather admire red hair. The fact that my father was a redhead may have something to do with that. So I was quite horrified to read that redheads are discriminated against in Britain. I have never heard of such a thing in Australia or the USA.

You cannot be too careful in talking about blacks

We read:

"An Australian political adviser to London Lord Mayor Boris Johnson has been forced to resign over a racism scandal.

James McGrath was accused of suggesting black people should ``go home'' if they did not like the new Mayor.

Responding to claims Caribbean immigrants could leave the UK if Mr Johnson was elected, Mr McGrath said: ``Let them go if they don't like it here.''

Source

If he had been talking about Americans instead of blacks he would have been applauded.

Obama flashes the race card

We read:

"Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama said on Friday he expects Republicans to highlight the fact that he is black as part of an effort to make voters afraid of him.

"It is going to be very difficult for Republicans to run on their stewardship of the economy or their outstanding foreign policy," Obama told a fundraiser in Jacksonville, Florida. "We know what kind of campaign they're going to run. They're going to try to make you afraid.

"They're going to try to make you afraid of me. He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?"

"We know the strategy because they've already shown their cards. Ultimately I think the American people recognize that old stuff hasn't moved us forward. That old stuff just divides us," he said.

Source

There has been NO comment from the GOP about him being unfit because he is black. Nor will there be. You would never hear the end of it if they did so. So why is Obama making an obviously false statement? Because he is the one who wants to use race for his advantage -- by accusing anyone who does not support him of being a racist.

And As MacRanger says: "But all along it was Obama himself that said that race didn't matter, even while liberals called him "The Magic Negro" and wondered, "Is he black enough?" Yet all the race card playing has come from him and his minions since the race began."