In memoriam: The death of a great British defender of free speech

A very sad announcement below just received from Sean Gabb. I knew Chris Tame personally and find it hard to realize that someone of his vitality is gone. His good cheer and positive attitude together with his unflinching libertarianism was truly memorable

"It is with the deepest regret that I must announce the death of Dr Chris R. Tame, Founder and President of the Libertarian Alliance. Chris founded the Libertarian Alliance in the early 1970s. During the next 30 years, he worked tirelessly to recover the British libertarian tradition as a seamless heritage of freedom....

In July 2005, Chris was diagnosed with a rare and very aggressive form of bone cancer. Though only 55 at the time, and though he had avoided all those vices commonly believed to be dangerous, he took this diagnosis with great calmness. During the next eight months, he faced his approaching end with a fortitude and good humour that was an inspiration to those around him....

Chris died peacefully in his sleep at 3:37pm GMT on Monday the 20th March 2006.

Blonde Jokes to Go?



I personally do not like blonde jokes and never make them. The fact that my blonde wife gave me a very brainy blond son may have something to do with that. But jokes are jokes and people can make whatever jokes they like as far as I am concerned. But the inconsistency of allowing jokes about some groups but not about others has always bothered me. And it seems that I am not the only one. A racist group in Norway has made an official protest about a blonde joke appearing in a Norwegian newspaper. Translation:

"The Nazi organization Vigrid has charged Telemarksavisa with racism against Nordic blondes, because the paper printed a blonde joke. "A representative for the Nazi organization Vigrid has 'reported' TA [Telemarksavisa] to the Professional Press Association [PFU] for a blonde joke, and demands that the paper is fined six million kroner, writes TA. In the letter to the PFU Vigrid also demands that TA is forced to print a public apology to Nordic women and to promise that such race hate will not be repeated... "In effect, we are extending the definition of racial hatred and the devaluing of the individual to the most wounded part of our people. Namely our young, Nordic appearing teenage girls," writes Vigrid in the letter to the PFU. Vigrid's representative points out that since TA does not consider it acceptable to joke about Muslims, Jews or blacks, they should not be allowed to joke about girls with light hair or other colour characteristics of the "white race".

Source

Regardless of the people making the complaint, the complaint itself seems fair to me. What's sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. Either allow all ethnic jokes or none. I of course favour allowing ALL jokes.

Important Day in the Supreme Court Today

Apparently the Ceballos case split the Supreme Court previously and they are going to start re-hearing it today, with new judge Alito probably casting the deciding vote. A summary of the case:

"While a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles County, Richard Ceballos investigated allegations of police misconduct in a case his office was prosecuting. After finding evidence suggesting that a deputy sheriff might have lied in order to obtain a search warrant, Mr. Ceballos drafted a memo to supervisors detailing the wrongdoing and recommending that they drop the case. After supervisors proceeded with the prosecution, Mr. Ceballos informed the defense of his findings, as required by law. He was subsequently removed from the prosecution's team, demoted and transferred to a different office."

Source

Ceballos is of course suing over his victimization. He won in the 9th circuit but the 9th circuit is often overturned by the Supremes.

The really odd thing about the case is that he was victimized because he followed the rules. If he had leaked to the Press, he would have had some protection under whistleblower legislation. So there is no free speech WITHIN the government according to his bosses. Government employees are supposed to be loyal to their bosses even if it means covering up wrongdoing! A most obnoxious idea!

Sometimes Spanish is NOT Correct

It sure is hard to win these days -- as VW found out:

"Volkswagen said Friday it will remove billboards in New York, Los Angeles and Miami after receiving complaints that a word used in an advertisement was offensive to Hispanics. The ad for the new GTI 2006 had a photo of the sports car accompanied by the words ''Turbo-Cojones.'' Cojones, which means testicles in Spanish, has become a casually used term for boldness or guts in English but has never lost its more vulgar connotations in its native language....

The billboards will be replaced with two ads, with one saying ''Here today, gone tamale'' and the other ''Kick a little gracias.''"

Source

Here's betting that the replacement billboards get into trouble too

Internet Service Provider Attacked over Hosted Content

The Canadians are definitely sliding into Fascism. The internet is the last refuge for free speech but not in Canada any more. Officially disapproved speech in Canada earns penalties not only for the writer but also for his ISP. That will surely lead to massive censorship by ISPs that are accessible to Canadian law. British ISPs are of course accessible to Canadian readers and the UK government would probably co-operate with Canadian authorities in bring the operators before Canadian courts.

"For the first time in Canada, an Internet service provider has been found guilty and fined for hosting websites that spread hate messages against blacks, Jews and Muslims. In the landmark ruling by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal yesterday, southern Ontario's white supremacy movement also took a hit, with two leaders and one group found guilty of violating the Canadian Human Rights Act and ordered to pay $8,000 in fines and compensation. The Internet service provider, Affordable Space. com, was fined $5,000."

Source

The Dow Jones versus Gutnick defamation case established that American publishers can be brought before Australian courts to answer for what they publish in America as long as someone in Australia can read whatever was published. That precedent should now give international reach to Canadian "hate speech" law. Usually, however, the authorities in the other country would have to co-operate with the Canadian authorities to make anything happen -- and that co-operation may be doubtful where the USA is the other country.

And as far as the "hate speech" they are talking about is concerned, the same arguments apply as applied to holocaust-denier David Irving. There was very widespread agreement in Britain and the USA that he should not have been jailed for his "crimes" by the Austrians. I think the "hate-speakers" in this matter are in essentially the same position.

It should be interesting to see how this ruling affects the vast outpouring of hate speech by Muslims. Because Muslims are sacred in Canada, I am sure the Canadian authorities will simply turn a blind eye to it.

Update:

If you want to see how easy and without safeguards extradition can be in some cases, see here

Will it Ever End?

I guess not. Now we have a demand to change a college sports team logo so as to not be bad to animals. Someone thinks the University of South Carolina's Gamecocks logo shouldn't have claws. But would it not just be a chicken without the claws? "The Chicken University" sure sounds impressive!

"A state senator says the University of South Carolina needs to rethink its Fighting Gamecock mascot if the Legislature passes tougher penalties on cockfighting....

USC traces its gamecock history to Revolutionary War leader Thomas Sumter, whose fearlessness led the British to call him "South Carolina Game Cock.""

Source

"Congress shall Make no Law Abridging the Freedom of the Press"

But the State of Pennsylvania seems to think it can:

"In an unusual and little-known case, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office has seized four computer hard drives from a Lancaster newspaper as part of a statewide grand-jury investigation into leaks to reporters.

The dispute pits the government's desire to solve an alleged felony -- computer hacking -- against the news media's fear that taking the computers circumvents the First Amendment and the state Shield Law."

Source

If it is not abridging the freedom of the press to seize its records and the equipment it uses to do its job, I don't know what would be. But lots of people these days -- including some Supreme Court judges -- seem to think that the Constitution can mean anything they want it to mean.

The cause of the high-handed behaviour was a "leak" investigation. Some reporters had accessed a government database and claimed that the State's coroner had given them the password to enable them to do so -- which he of course denies.

So how is seizing the computers going to show how the reporters got the password? The whole thing is a nonsense and can only be seen as an attempt to intimidate and punish the newspaper.

The Redgrave Version of Free Speech





Actress Vanessa Redgrave -- one of the far-Left Redgrave family -- has recently condemned the cancellation of a play about the charming anti-Israel demonstrator, Rachel Corrie (pictured above). Although the decision to cancel the play was a private one, she sees the cancellation as an attack on free speech. She could possibly make a case for that but look at what she says about it:

"...there's many more people want the freedom to communicate, as long as it's not blasphemous and destructive in a rotten way of other people, in other words, racist. I mean, those cartoons, for instance, that have shocked us all were racist. They were fascist in character, the cartoons of the Prophet with a bomb on his head..."

Source

So it's the usual Leftist "Free speech for me but not for thee". Anything the Left disagree with is "racist" or "fascist" of course. Look at how often the centre-Right President Bush is called a "Nazi".

And as for the Danish cartoons being "Fascist", the only Fascist thing about them was the Islamic Fascism they depicted. To the nutty Left, blowing people up with bombs is not Fascist but a mere cartoon is!

(Pictures from LGF)

A Certain Internet Search Company Seems to be Getting Worse

They have just declared that a conservative Christian site is "hate speech". The site concerned, Alain's newsletter, has a copy of their letter up. I do myself excerpt content from that site from time to time and I have never seen any "hate speech" on it. Like a lot of Christian sites, it is passionately anti-abortion but if that is hate-speech, a huge slice of America is equally guilty. I suspect that it is their criticism of homosexuality that has got them into trouble. But if that is so, the Bible is hate-speech! See, for example Romans 1: 22-32, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, and 1 Corinthians 6: 9-19.

Anyone for MSN Search?

No free speech for churches?

We read:

"The IRS wants to strike the fear of God into priests, ministers and rabbis who venture too far into politics and activism. In a Feb. 24 speech to the City Club of Cleveland, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson announced that nearly three-quarters of the 82 churches and charities that the IRS investigated recently for alleged political and electoral improprieties turned out, in the IRS' view, to be violators. Among the 'offenses': Allowing candidates to speak on church premises, preachers delivering remarks from the pulpit interpreted to endorse candidates and the posting of Web links to the Web sites of candidates for office....

In November, there emerged clear signs that the IRS is considering doing more. The Rev. J. Edwin Bacon of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, Calif., discovered he was the target of IRS ire for a fiery sermon he delivered before the 2004 president election which implied endorsement of John Kerry. The sermon, titled "If Jesus debated Sen. Kerry and President Bush," provoked an IRS threat against the church's tax-exempt status. This was an egregious case of sermon-policing...."

Source

Sermon-policing?? What has the Great Republic come to? It sounds more like a totalitarian State.

Churches must of course obey the law but, as the IRS itself admits, the law is vague about what is permitted and what is not. One would hope that the IRS would use its resources to concentrate on real tax dodgers rather than this nonsense. Churches have always had great influence on society and have been behind many great movements. To muzzle them would be a huge loss to society.

An Australian Cartoon



Yep. It's a Muslim being portrayed with a bomb. Enough to make any Muslim go crazy? One would think so. But it is from Brisbane's "Courier Mail" newspaper in my home State of Queensland. The cartoon refers to a recent story to the effect that "deprogramming" of fanatical Muslims is being considered in Australia. Apparently the cartoonist thinks that Jehovah's Witnesses could be used as deprogrammers.

No reaction to the cartoon so far. It seems to me to be pretty brave (and definitely "incorrect") of the paper to print it.




Free Speech in the Jury Room Under Attack

It's pretty amazing, isn't it? Jury room confidentiality is one of our oldest and most basic protections. Yet in Idaho it has just been subjected to sustained attack by functionaries of the Idaho government. I refer to the case of former nun, Carol Asher. In the jury room, she questioned the ruling of a judge on a legal matter and also said that she answered to a higher authority than the judge -- God. Perhaps as a result of that, a government prosecution was tossed out. Note, however, that the prosecution case did have big holes in it and it was perfectly reasonable for Asher to point them out.

In breach of jury-room confidentiality, however, another juror went public with a report of Carol Asher's comments. So what did the State of Idaho do? Did it prosecute the juror who violated confidentiality? No way. It prosecuted Carol Asher. What for? For "felony perjury". Perjury?? Perjury is telling lies. What lies did she tell? She was being particularly frank, it seems to me.

The State's case against Asher was tossed out but that was not enough. They then took it to appeal. Now the appeal too has just been lost. Will that be the end of it? One certainly hopes so. See here and here.

Clearly, however, putting pressure on jurors to do what the government tells them is what it is all about. Jurors are not supposed to think any more. One of your most basic protections is being chipped away.

And do you need all the protections against conviction-hungry prosecutors that you can get!! Have a browse through the posts on Strange Justice if you doubt it.

This writer has a good comment on what should happen next.

A Most Curious Piece of Censorship

The global warming theory has caused an absolute shower of research money to fall down upon the heads of atmospheric scientists -- people who once got little funding. So few atmospheric scientists question the theory outright. It would kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Even when they find something good about global warming they manage to make it sound bad. There is for instance a report here showing that warmer seas produce more fish. Anyone who likes fish dinners (as I do) would think that was excellent news. But the article in fact sounds very mournful. You have to look very closely at it to see the good news.

So the only scientists who often question the theory are Russian scientists (they don't get much in the way of research grants anyway) and retired scientists (their research grant days are over).

So what happens when somebody gathers some data that throw the theory into a cocked hat? The report gets censored. A Russian scientist presented some findings that were reported here: http://www.physorg.com/news11671.html on a respectable Western physics site. The title of the article was: "Greenhouse theory smashed by biggest stone". But the article was up for only a matter of hours before it was taken down. And if you do a Google search or an MSN search you will find no copy of the story anywhere on the net. The censorship was thorough.

But not thorough enough. One of the naughty boys (they ignore copyright) at "Free Republic" copied the story and reposted it just in time. See here. Happy reading!

Free Republic is another of the sites that Google seems to censor -- perhaps for legal reasons. I will however take a risk and repost the article on "Greenie Watch" tomorrow.




Elderly Christian Couple Strike Back



Britain -- A further episode in a story I mentioned in late December last year:

"A retired couple questioned by police after they wrote to their local council challenging what the saw as a pro-gay stance are suing the force and council. Joe Roberts, 73, and wife Helen, 68, of Fleetwood, Lancs, were reported by Wyre Borough Council who said they showed "potentially homophobic attitudes." The devout Christians are suing Lancashire Police and the council for breach of their human rights".

Source

I don't know what particular "human rights" they are relying on but there is a lot of EU human rights law that is applicable in Britain. I would be delighted to see such law used to squash official British homophilia. I think governments should be neither for nor against homosexuality. It is a totally private matter and so should debate about it be. But official Britain seems to positively preach homosexuality.

I can however foresee that some Asian governments (e.g. Singapore) will in the future make official attempts to discourage homosexuality as part of their efforts to prevent population decline.

Actually, there has always been institutionalized homosexuality in Britain. It used to be said of Britain's great single-sex private schools (which the British call Public Schools) that "homosexuality was not so much tolerated as compulsory". But most of the boys concerned grew up to have normal marriages so indoctrination may not matter much.




Some Really Offensive Cartoons

A lot of people thought that the Muslims were over-sensitive to get as upset as they apparently did over the Mohammed cartoons. If you want to see some REALLY offensive cartoons, have a look at some Korean cartoons about the Japanese. Because Japan conquered and controlled Korea for many years (up to 1945), Koreans hate the Japanese.

An amusing story about that: When the Koreans decided that they wanted some high speed trains, did they import the famous Japanese "Shinkansen" trains from virtually next-door? No. They imported them from FRANCE -- half a world away!

Schools Now Expected to Follow the Muslim Calendar

From NYC:

"City Commissioner for Human Rights Omar Mohammedi has written to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, calling it insensitive to have held elementary-school tests on a Muslim holiday. Tests were given in January on Eid al-Adha, the feast of sacrifice. Mohammedi wrote: "Mandating these children to take state testing during this important holiday is at a minimum insensitive if not discriminatory."

Source

What about all the Hindu holidays and Jewish holidays? Is everything to shut down on those days too? If not there seems to be a heap of "insensitivity" going around.

There are a lot of Australians in NYC. Some died on 9/11/2001. So what about setting aside Australia's No. 1 memorial day -- Anzac day? How many Arabs have died fighting alongside American troops? Plenty of Australians have.

And what if some of the British in NYC want to celebrate their holidays -- such as the Queen's birthday? Seems fair! And I am sure the Poles have got some pretty important Saint's Days that they would like to celebrate. We can't be discriminatory can we? It can't just be Muslims that we cater too. That would be "discrimination"!




This Bigot has no Place in the Lecture Hall

Freedom of speech should be cherished and defended, but there is no excuse for tolerating racial lies masquerading as academic truths

The heading and subheading above are copied from an article by Mary Riddell in "The Guardian", chief organ of the British Left. The article concerned goes on to call for the sacking of a university teacher, Frank Ellis, who has publically expressed unpopular but research-based views about the low average IQ of Africans.

Note that we have ONCE AGAIN the familiar Leftist defence-mechanism of "denial". The author denies that she is attacking free speech and then makes a case for doing exactly that.

So how well-founded are the arguments of this enemy of free speech? As usual, we find that abuse and attack is being used to cover up a weak argument. Let me give just one example of her intellectual feebleness and ignorance: She says of Ellis: "He also blames Africans for getting AIDS". Who does SHE think is to blame? Does she think there is a huge worldwide army of whites holding blacks down and forcibly injecting them with AIDS? I will say without fear of reasonable contradiction that Africans who get AIDS are indeed themselves responsible for getting AIDS. They get it as a result of their own behaviour, not anyone else's -- just as I would be responsible for getting it if indeed I did have it (which I don't). So if Ellis blames Africans for getting AIDS, so do I.

Note that there have been large academic books and hosts of academic articles written on both sides of the racial IQ argument. To characterize one side as "lies" is then just the usual Leftist attempt to substitute abuse for a willingness to look at and discuss complex facts.

For those who really are interested in the facts, the latest (2006) book on the subject has just been reviewed in Personality & Individual Differences, a major British academic journal. You can find a copy of the review here




An Anti-Christian Cartoon in Canada

We read:

"A newspaper cartoon targeting religion has once again sprung into the spotlight -- this time in a two-frame jab at Christianity in the University of Saskatchewan student newspaper, the Sheaf. The newspaper is issuing a mea culpa after a cartoon depicting Jesus performing a sex act on a capitalist pig was published in Thursday's edition of the Sheaf."

Source

In my view they would have been able to defend themselves if they had printed the Mohammed cartoons but they had already refused to do that. The arrant hypocrisy got a reaction this time. All involved with publishing the offending cartoon now seem to to have been forced to resign.

England Supports Germany's Ban on Satire



In a great day for tolerance, we read:

"England supporters who give Nazi salutes during this summer's World Cup in Germany will be prosecuted and banned from domestic and international football matches, the home secretary, Charles Clarke, said yesterday... Invoking the Nazi era - including giving a Nazi salute, denying the Holocaust and wearing Nazi symbols - is illegal under German law, and Mr Clarke said he would support the German authorities in prosecuting fans for such offences."

Source

Not much freedom of expression there. Satire and mockery have always been potent forms of political expression but bans on political expression are what we have come to expect from Europe. The satire in this case might be crude but satire often is. And is it not a good thing to keep alive memory of past follies? I forget who it was who said: "He who does not remember the past is bound to repeat it".

And the ban is in a way self-mocking. It shows that the German conception of individual liberties and human rights still has not completely emerged from Hitler's intolerant shadow. The Muslims protesting against the Mohammed cartoons would understand and agree with the ban.

The pic above is of course of John Cleese -- a great English comedian -- doing HIS famous Nazi "impersonation". I wonder will future screenings of "Fawlty Towers" (the series concerned) be banned in England now?




Insulting Muslims and Homosexuals bad: Insulting Christians OK

Another ruling from the notorious 9th Circuit. No prizes for guessing what they would have decided if it was Mohammed being referred to rather than Jesus:

"An Alaska high school violated a student's free speech rights by suspending him after he unfurled a banner reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" across the street from the school, a federal court ruled on Friday. Joseph Frederick, a student at Juneau-Douglas High School in Alaska, displayed the banner -- which refers to smoking marijuana -- in January 2002 to try to get on television as the Olympic torch relay was passing the school.

Source

The court also ruled that the kid could sue the teacher who reined him in.






Spam Vigilantes

This article is a bit disturbing. Spam blocking is something we all want but it seems that there is a volunteer organization called www.Spamhaus.org that claims to be providing a spam blocking service but which blocks whatever it likes with little or no notification or redress for legitimate emailers whom they decide to block. Reading between the lines, it seems that any conservative sending out a lot of emails could well get categorized as a spammer and be unfairly blocked. There seems to be nothing to prevent it. You could be missing out on emails you would want to be receiving because of their activities. And some of the people behind www.Spamhaus.org seem to be pretty unsavory characters. Probably the only way to make them more accountable would be for someone else to start spamblocking all their emails.

An Inadvertent Joke?

There is a site here designed to propagandize schoolchildren about the wonderful inventions and discoveries Muslims have made: Things like motor cars, aeroplanes, light bulbs, telephones, televisions etc (Whoops! I think I got that wrong). The inventions are described in 7 convenient categories: "home, school, market, hospital, town, world and universe". But if you click on any one of those categories, you get at the time I am writing this the response: "File not found". I believe them!

If you REALLY want to find out about the Muslim contribution to science etc., see this classic article.




Wrong to Mention Bible Teachings

A teacher who mentioned Bible teachings about homosexuality as part of a broadcast at Miami Sunset Senior High has come under fire:

"On the first day, a few students talked about supporting gay rights, and no one paid much attention. On the second day, a school counselor talked about respecting each other, and no one paid much attention. On the third day, a few students spoke against homosexuality and a teacher said it is ''wrong according to the Bible'' -- and people noticed very much".

Source

No free exchange of ideas in Florida public schools apparently. School administrators are searching frantically to find some "rule" that was broken so they can penalize the Christians. You can praise homosexuality to the skies with impunity but don't you DARE mention any reservations about it. It seems that homosexuality has become the established church in much of America's educational system.




A Welcome Backdown

We read:

"The University of Wisconsin announced a plan Wednesday that would allow resident assistants to hold Bible study meetings in their dormitory rooms. The plan was immediately praised by critics of the old policies in place on some Wisconsin campuses, which barred such meetings as an infringement on the separation of church and state, since the R.A.'s are state employees.... The issue gained prominence in the fall, when an R.A. at the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire complained that he was barred from organizing religious meetings in his dormitory room".

Source

"R.A.s" are apparently senior students who are given some authority over the dormitory they live in and are paid something in return. The Leftists argued that as State employees they could not support any religion. There may be something in that argument except that the RA concerned was holding Bible studies in his own time in his own room. Apparently, to Leftists, Christians are not entitled to any private life.

A "Green Desert"?

Yep! Just as cooling can be proof of global warming, trees can be a sign of a desert to Greenies. Happening at the moment in Porto Alegre, Brazil, is a United Nations "conference" on agrarian reform. And to get their rocks off, there has just been a "coincidental" activity:

"About 2,000 protesters on Wednesday invaded a plantation in southern Brazil owned by Aracruz, the world's biggest producer of bleached eucalyptus pulp, and caused what the company said was millions of dollars of damage and losses. The demonstrators, most of them women, said they opposed the mass cultivation of eucalyptus trees near one of Aracruz's four main factories in Brazil. The pulp is used to produce cellulose, the main ingredient of paper. "We don't want the green desert of the cellulose firms. We want a country that produces food," said Irma Ostroski, coordinator for the Via Campesina peasants' organization which staged the raid on the Barba Negra farm in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil's southernmost state.

Source

The result: Aracruz is suspending a projected billion dollar investment in Porto Allegre, which pleases the Porto Allegrans no end. Who wants jobs? Brazil already has huge unemployment. Why not a little more? To the wreckers of the Green/Left, unemployment is fine and dandy. It just generates more discontent for them to feed on. More here




Official British Prudery

In an age where all sorts of "obscene" language is now to be heard everywhere, the British government has banned the word "bloody" from British TVs. Which should make something of a laughing stock of them.

But it gets better: The ban has been applied to an advertisement being run by a government department -- the Australian government's tourism promotion arm. The Australian bureaucracy is like any bureaucracy -- pretty prim and proper. But it is obviously not prim and proper enough for the Brits. The actual sentence (from a tourism promo) that upset the Brits was "Where the bloody hell are you?". You can view the advertisement here. It's a very professional production.

The Australian Tourism authorities are of course delighted by the ban:

"But Tourism Australia was unfazed by the British TV ban, welcoming it as unexpected publicity for the campaign. "It's a bit of a PR dream," Tourism Australia managing director Scott Morrison told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. "This is a great opportunity to really promote the campaign. We'll be driving people to the Internet like there's no tomorrow," he said

Source

Incidentally, the title of the woman who imposed the ban is: "Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport". That sounds like something out of the old Soviet or Nazi regimes to me. I am sure that culture and sport could get along perfectly well without government getting its sticky fingers into either. And I won't comment on government censorship of the media!

Christian Cross is an "advertisement"

A church in the city of Dudley in England has been told that it needs council planning permission to put up a cross outside its church because a cross is an "advertisement". But it's not the local council that is at fault. Apparently Britain has a law applicable nationwide saying that crosses are advertisements! See here. But the council IS responsible for its decision to charge 75 pounds (roughly $150.00) for the needed peremission.

I wonder when minarets on Mosques will be treated as advertisements? They are there to call people to Muslim prayers so they are more like advertisements than crosses are, it seems to me. But since when was ANY religious symbol an "advertisement"? In the USA the whole thing would be a violation of constitutionally protected freedom of religion, I imagine. But Britain has no constitution so once you get the Leftist nutjobs in power they can pass any nutty law they like. And they do.




Two Short Notes:

1). I mentioned recently that American newspaper headlines seem much more politically correct than Australian ones. An American reader has just pointed out to me an Australian headline that would be most unlikely to appear in a mainstream American newspaper but which appeared in Australia's "Herald Sun" -- the major newspaper of Melbourne. The headline is: "Sex fiend escapes offenders register". America does not have any sex fiends any more apparently.

But in this age of the internet, Australian newspapers are only a click away so you do have some choice of where you get your news now. I have always been a bit surprised to note Australian newspapers quoted rather a lot on the internet so I think I now know why.


2). Another disgusted American reader emailed me as follows:

"I work in Information Technology for a large health care system. Recently we had a power outage on one of our campuses. In a meeting the next week our team performance was summarized and it was made clear to us that from that point on our process will no longer be referred to as "Disaster Recovery" but will now be called "IT Service Continuity Management".

The reader ended his email with: "AAARRRGHGHGHGH!!!!!"

"Black and white issue"

If black sheep are incorrect, surely it is at least as incorrect to speak of "black and white issues". Surely such talk could offend minorities! Yet in the selfsame wacky Britain where mentions of black sheep are banned we find a government minister using such "offensive" language. Energy minister Malcolm Wicks, in discussing nuclear power, said: "As the commission itself finds, this is not a black and white issue".

Surely he should have said "This is a rainbow issue"? Here's betting I am starting something here!

"Rainbow sheep"?

The latest from the Unhinged Kingdom:

"Traditional nursery rhymes are being rewritten at nursery schools to avoid causing offence to children. Instead of singing "Baa baa, black sheep" as generations of children have learnt to do, toddlers in Oxfordshire are being taught to sing "Baa baa, rainbow sheep".

Source

So what is a rainbow sheep? And how could a child conceivably be "offended" by the color of a black sheep? It seems that even the color of animals can now be incorrect. I thought it was just a joke when people say: "It's a case of the pot calling the kettle Afro-American" but it seems that Britain is serious about such things.

Incorrect to Say you Speak English!



We read:

"Arapahoe County is threatening to fire a veteran Public Works employee for promoting the fact that he is an English speaking American..... The problems began last spring. Gray, 50, owns a lawn service business on the side. He was routinely driving to work in his pickup truck towing a trailer that he uses to carry lawn mowing equipment for his business. On the side of his trailer, the married father of two affixed a sign that reads "Lawn Services Done With Pride!! By An English Speaking American."... "There are a lot of people in the lawn service that are non-English speaking," Gray said. "Customers and different people were telling me that they have a hard time trying to communicate with them about the work they want done on their yards. I just want to let people know they at least can communicate with me when I do work on their property."

Source

County officials accused Mr Gray of "harassment" and "discrimination". But if he had said in Spanish that he spoke Spanish that would have been fine of course. The only one being discriminated against here is Mr Gray, as far as I can see. But being white and English-speaking is pretty offensive these days it seems. It is one of those nasty things you don't mention.