More Leftist racism

Every now and again Leftists let slip out what they really think of their clients. Who said this about America's slave era?

"Plantations were terrible places where people were forced into doing certain jobs. But at least they were doing jobs."

A qualified defence of slavery and an "insensitive" comment on the present-day unemployability of many blacks? Of course. But it was said by Democrat strategist and Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Elaine Kamarck .

More here







Racist police chief



The world's most politically-correct police chief has done it again: Sir Ian Blair wondered out loud why the murder of two little girls by a sex-maniac and his girlfriend became such big news in Britain. Could it be that the sex-murder of two little girls was intrinsically newsworthy or that it took a lot of public assistance before the culprits were tracked down? Could it be the horror of a woman assisting with the crime? No way! It was "racism" according to Blair. So the victims were black? No. They were white. It was the fact that they were white that made it big news, according to Blair. If they were black, people would have ignored it, apparently. So the murder of whites is unusual and blacks get murdered all the time? No. There are nearly five times as many whites as blacks murdered in Britain every year.

In other words, Blair is looking for racism under every bed. He sees it everywhere and uses it to explain things that are more obviously explained in other ways. Just on the law of averages alone, it would have been more likely that the most publicly noted kiling would be of a white, because there are so many more whites killed. And in any case, it is not true that only the killing of whites gets a lot of publicity. The killing of Victoria Climbie by her relatives also got a lot of publicity and that little girl was black. Clearly, it is the police chief himself who is race-obsessed, not ordinary Britons. More details here

Leftism is now badly betraying Jews

The long-entrenched Leftist loyalties of most Jews are badly letting them down now that the Left and the Islamic extremists are cosying up to one-another. Both the Left and the Islamofascists hate America so their alliance is understandable. And the Jew-hatred of the Islamists is increasingly being emulated as "anti-Zionism" among Leftists. But where does that leave mainstream Left-leaning Jews? In denial. They are completely tongue-tied on the matter. As we read:

"Amid pledges from Iran to "wipe Israel off the map" and to hold a conference examining whether the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews is a "myth," America's Holocaust Museum is under fire for its silence about Arab assistance to the Nazis during World War II, and about the intensifying hatred of Jews in the Arab Middle East today. Leading the charge is Holocaust Museum Watch, a national organization formed 18 months ago to spur the museum toward meaningful acknowledgment of Arab anti-Semitism....

But while calls for destroying the Jewish state have been the mainstay of the Arab Middle East for decades, critics say, the Holocaust Museum has not issued any "institutional scream," or even included exhibits or materials about Arab anti-Semitism in the museum's facilities. It has also declined repeated requests to hold conferences or events addressing the issue...

"It's unbelievable," the rabbi of the National Synagogue, Shmuel Herzfeld, told the Sun yesterday. "They won't talk about Egypt, about Syria, about Saudi Arabia - it's like the big elephant in the room."

Source

A lot of German Jews in the 1930s just sat tight and hoped for the best while Hitler rose to power too. When will these kneejerk Leftists ever learn that denial just allows the problem to get worse? But Leftists always have been good at denying reality. They have to be. Reality is so uncomfortable for them. Tyler Cowen explains how painful it is for people to switch sides politically (it means you have admit to being wrong) but when being wrong leads to megadeaths (as it did under Hitler and as it will if Iran gets nukes and attacks Israel) it is gross indeed to persist in your folly. Being modern-day Neville Chamberlains is not clever.

Footnote:

Yes. I DO know that those Jews who DID try to escape Hitler did not have an easy time of it. The failure of the rest of the world to accept Jewish refugees at that time does to a degree make the whole world complicit with the Holocaust. That any modern-day Jews are complicit with the threatened holocaust on Israel staggers me, however.



Free film

"Brainwashing 101" is a provocative look at how universities use tools such as "speech codes" to force political views upon students. The film shines a light on political correctness, academic bias, student censorship--even administrative cover-ups of death threats--at three schools: Bucknell University, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly).

View it here

Anti-Christian fantasies

Of a recently televised Leftist conference we read:

"At one point, a speaker spoke about the need "to save democracy" from the "Christian Right," to which the audience broke out in applause. An associate professor of comparative studies equated the zeal of the "Christian Right" with that of "suicide bombers."

Source

That the historical fountainhead of democracy as we know it today was an intensely Protestant Britain and that the great bulwark of democracy now is the overwhelmingly Christian USA, completely escapes these emptyheads. Such fact-free fantasies are bordering on insanity. And I wonder where all those Christian suicide bombers are? If the speaker had, on the other hand, talked of saving democracy from the atheist Left, he would have had VERY good examples to mention: Soviet Russia, Communist China etc. It must be sad for the Left that they cannot live in the real world.






Offending ordinary people is the Real Aim of Political Correctness

How else can we explain this?

"I moved out of Seattle for many reasons, one being that I was disgusted at how the gay population received enormous preferential treatment... I will give you an example. I worked for the Parks Department for many years. I was told that the City Council has given orders to NOT arrest or charge any of these individuals doing lewd acts, etc., because it would seem like the city were targeting a special group of people. On the other hand, if a straight person or couple was engaged in activities of such nature, they would be fined, arrested, charged".

Source

The old saying, "What's good for the goose is good for the gander" implies that you should be consistent in what you allow. But consistency of principle is a rarity on the Left.

Bratton Tells it Like it is

There is a refreshingly frank interview with L.A. police chief Bratton here. A Canadian journalist is asking how he would fix the spiralling rate of violent crime in Toronto. I am just going to reproduce a few pointed excerpts below:

"Bratton: Tell me, the gang violence that you are experiencing, what is the racial or ethnic background of the gangs?

Journalist: That's a refreshingly blunt question. Some say it may be as high as 80 per cent Jamaican. But no one knows for sure, because people here don't like to talk about that.

Bratton: You need to talk about it. It's all part of the issue. If it's Jamaican gangs that are committing the crimes, well then, go after the Jamaican gangs. And don't be afraid to go after them because they're black. That's the last thing you need to be concerned with.

Journalist: Oh boy, I can see the complaints coming in already. You have to understand the climate here. The major local daily in Toronto, the Toronto Star, says it doesn't believe in "gratuitously" labelling people by ethnic origin.

Bratton: Well, that really helps identify who they are, doesn't it? The next step will be to refuse to allow the police to identify people by their race or ethnic origin. That type of societal consciousness really goes to extremes.

Journalist: I'm sure you heard that Toronto's mayor and our prime minister blame the Boxing Day shooting on you Americans....

Bratton: Mm-hmm, yes. They talked about the problem of guns coming in from the United States. But whose hands are the guns in? You have to look at all sources of the problem. It is a combination of lax gun laws, which certainly contributes to our problem here in the United States, but ultimately the responsibility is on the individual who pulls the trigger....

Journalist: NDP Leader Jack Layton has pointed to "despair" and "poverty" as the root causes of crime.

Bratton: When you put too much emphasis on the idea of poverty being the cause of crime, you're as much as saying that just because you are poor or disadvantaged, you are going to resort to crime to get by. And that's a phenomenally racist and insensitive attitude. The vast majority of people who are poor do not resort to crime".







Germans Ban Wikipedia Site

Access to the German version of Wikipedia has been banned by a German court. But there are of course still ways of gaining access. See here for details. This is of course an intolerable attack on free speech which I am sure all libertarians will do their best to defeat. You can see that the forbidden information which caused the site to be taken down -- the information that the real name of a German/Yugoslav hacker known as "Tron" was in fact Boris Floricic -- cannot be found via a search of the German site but the information IS still freely available on the U.S. site. To do my bit towards spreading the forbidden information, I will repeat the core of it here in my rough German: Hacker Tron heisst im Tatsache Boris Floricic. "Tron" is ein Beiname. Weiter hier. And my comment to the German court concerned: "Heil Hitler"!

Update:

A German reader writes as follows:

The info on your site about Tron and the Wikipedia is incorrect. The full name was never banned from the German site but the German Wikipedia association was forbidden to redirect www.wikipedia.de to de.wikipedia.org for a few days. The name is still mentioned on http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_%28Hacker%29 . The German sentence you have in your entry should be "Hacker Tron hei~t mit b_rgerlichem Namen Boris Floricic. Tron ist nur ein Pseudonym."

And if you want to be taken seriously then you should probably not comment on the whole issue with "Heil Hitler!". The ban was never a permanent thing and the court has still to decide about the whole issue.

Discrimination against Latinos

Below is an excerpt from an article that implies that the U.S. government discriminates against Hispanics in its hiring decisions. It in fact PROVES that the U.S. government discriminates against Hispanics in its hiring decisions.

"Hispanics are underrepresented at all levels of the U.S. government despite the fact that they constitute the nation's largest and most rapidly growing minority, two Latino defense groups said last week. The organizations - the National Puerto Rican Coalition and the Coalition for Fairness for Hispanics in Government - have urged federal authorities to make "great efforts" to hire more Latinos.... Hispanics, who number more than 40 million in the United States - or slightly more than 13 percent of the population - only comprise 7 percent of federal government employees, according to statistics compiled by the two coalitions.... The Post said that several official reports show that the relatively low numbers of Hispanics in federal positions is a longstanding phenomenon, despite presidential directives, job programs and recruitment drives that have sought to do more to incorporate them into the federal workforce.

Source

But WHY does the U.S. government discriminate against Hispanics in its hiring decisions? That is rather glided over in the article. Surely the U.S. government SHOULD discriminate against job applicants who cannot speak English and who have minimal education? Or else why do so many people spend four years getting college degrees? Not all Hispancs are poorly educated and inarticulate in English but many ARE in that category. It seems to me that the above statistics show that the U.S. government is doing exactly what it should be doing in selecting government employees.






Insensitive News Syndicate

Some readers here might find the Insensitive News Syndicate amusing. They are a satirical site so I am not quite sure whose side they are on but they give me a laugh. One excerpt:

Large Black Man Runs By; Thousands of Whites Terrified

"During an away game against the Chicago Bulls, New York Knicks forward Antonio Davis enters the stands, as the thosands of white people in attendance with good seats clutched thier purses and screamed for security...."

We Reach into College English Classes too

I am delighted to report that this site is helping to educate America's young people in a way that the official education system would never do. A college English student has just sent me a copy of an essay that she handed in as part of her coursework. She was inspired by what she read on this blog. It is some evidence that the mind-control attempted by the Left-dominated U.S. educational system will never completely succeed. I have reproduced the essay here

The Double Standard

I want my home town of Brisbane to be a milk-white city again. It's time for us to come together and rebuild Brisbane -- the city that should be an Anglo-Saxon Brisbane. My city will be a majority Anglo-Saxon city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have Brisbane any other way. It wouldn't be Brisbane.

The above sentences would be shrilly condemned from all sides if people thought I meant them seriously. But some silly spin on what was meant by "chocolate" was about all we got from the Left as a response to the following report:

"Nagin promised that New Orleans will be a "chocolate" city again. Many of the city's black neighborhoods were heavily damaged by Katrina. "It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild New Orleans - the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans," the mayor said. "This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way. It wouldn't be New Orleans."

Is anybody going to sanction Nagin for making me feel "uncomfortable" about visiting New Orleans?

The Incorrect Colonel

After I read the following, I decided to eat at KFC tonight:

"Pamela Anderson is leading a charge to remove a bust of KFC founder Colonel Harland Sanders from the state Capitol. The actress called the Kentucky native's likeness "a monument to cruelty" to chickens in a statement issued by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the animal rights group. The statement did little to ruffle feathers in Gov. Ernie Fletcher's office. "Colonel Sanders was one of Kentucky's most distinguished citizens, a great entrepreneur and a fine charitable man of faith"

Source

Human beings are omnivores. We have evolved to eat both meat and plant products. If the PETAnuts want to risk their health with an abnormal diet, that is their privilege -- but trying to force their weird value system on the rest of us is sheer arrogance and insolence.

Scottish Dress Wins!



I reported here On Dec. 24th. that an arrogant school principal had banned a young guy with Scottish origins from wearing the kilt at a school dance. I remarked at the time that Muslim garb would no doubt have been OK. We now read:

"It appears a great kilt debate in southeast Missouri has come to a close. After being told to change out of a kilt at a school dance this fall, Jackson High School senior Nathan Warmack received an apology during a school board meeting Monday night. It came with a promise from the district's superintendent to train staff in properly interpreting the school's dress code".

Source

Now he is going to wear Highland dress to the Prom! He will be the cynosure of all eyes. As a wearer of Highland dress myself on occasions, I know what an unfair advantage it gives one.

This image is offensive?



Yes. It is a type of apple pie. It had to come: Even Mom's apple pies can be offensive. The British blogger who found this out says that he was told to remove the above image from a site because: "it might cause offense/discomfort/upset to people with eating disorders/difficulties/distress/issues"

I will leave comments on such lunacy to readers.

More here





"Emotive" Words Banned for Australian Government Employees

The latest trick seems to be to label plain speech as "emotive" (Shock! Horror!). We read:

"Federal public servants will be told not to use emotive terms such as "eavesdropping", "propaganda" and "racial tensions" on government websites. The Thesaurus of Australian Government Subjects is aimed at providing public servants with a "broader vocabulary" of alternative and emotionless terms. Suggestions in the 175-page document, to be released this month, include:

* Surveillance should be used instead of "eavesdropping".
* Propaganda should instead be "communication" or "advertising".
* Racial tensions should be limited to "race relations".

Source

Perhaps I have an excessively vivid imagination but I can imagine some quite pleasant race relations -- relations that certainly do not equate with racial tensions. And what government would not prefer to have its propaganda viewed as "communication" anyway? And I have always wondered about dropping eaves. They sound rather too heavy to drop.






U.S. Sailors now to become Girl Guides

To "swear like a drunken sailor" is an old simile. Sailors have always sworn and used crude language. I you were cooped up in an iron box for months on end you probably would too. But no more! We read:

"The U.S. Naval Academy has ordered a court-martial for a faculty member who made a "crude" remark in the presence of female midshipmen, even though an investigating officer recommended only administrative action. The three criminal charges against Lt. Bryan D. Black come as the Annapolis school's superintendent, Vice Adm. Rodney P. Rempt, has announced a "zero-tolerance" campaign to rid the campus of sexual harassment. Lt. Black says he is being unfairly prosecuted as a "poster child" for Adm. Rempt's campaign. The academy filed criminal charges days after the school's board of visitors criticized Adm. Rempt after a Defense Department sexual harassment task force scolded the school....

The incident occurred last August during an oceanographic cruise in the Chesapeake Bay. Lt. Black served as safety officer on what is called a yard patrol craft. The charging document states that Lt. Black made "a crude remark" in the presence of a female midshipman, Samantha Foxton, about how a battleship sexually arouses him. He suggested how it might arouse her."

Source

If America wants a navy with Girl Guide types as sailors, I guess it is going to get one. I can think of better selection criteria however -- ones that sought men on the basis of their ability to handle the rigors of war, for instance.

"Coconut" Incorrect

I must confess that this one gave me a bit of a laugh. Apparently "coconut" is now a term of abuse. I live and learn. My enlightenment came from the uproar (see here) about an American black calling a Caribbean black a "dumb coconut who probably don't have a green card." I may have got it wrong and it was not the coconut part that was offensive but who knows for sure about these things? I think it is clear however that we should all be careful not to call ANYBODY a coconut from now on.

I am a bit careless about keeping my hair at any given length so when I suddenly conclude that it is too long and get it cut back to a good old-fashioned "short back and sides", it tends to come as a bit of a shock to people who know me and people who don't like the result not uncommonly tell me that I look like a coconut! That bothers me not the slightest, of course. They are probably right. But from now on I will sadly have to tell them to watch their words.

Update:

Aha! Now I get it: A coconut is brown on the outside and white on the inside

A Harmless Joke Attacked Again

Press excerpt:

"The CEO of MPC Computers apologized to Boston College defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka on Thursday for making fun of his name during a banquet before the Eagles' bowl game against Boise State. At a banquet Monday night before the MPC Computers Bowl between the Eagles and Boise State, Mike Adkins read a list of the top 10 things Boise and Boston have in common, including, "No one in either city can properly pronounce Mathias Kiwanuka." Adkins mispronounced Kiwanuka's name in the punchline and some Boston College players said later they found the joke insulting and disrespectful".

Source

The unpronounceable one was black, of course. People as old as I am sometimes make jokes about my name (it is the same name as that of a famous "crooner" of yesteryear) but I treat that as the harmless banter that it is. But you mustn't say anything jocular about black people of course. You must treat them like children, not as equals -- or so it seems.

OK to Abuse Christianity Still

Even the sight of a Christmas tree is suppposed to upset Muslims, according to Leftists. And they make great efforts to ensure that we don't upset people's religious sensibilities. So they no doubt will be manning (personing?) the barricades over this:

"A punk-rock style, trendy tight fit and affordable price have made Cheap Monday jeans a hot commodity among young Swedes, but what has people talking is the brand's ungodly logo: a skull with a cross turned upside down on its forehead. The jeans' makers say it's more of a joke, but the logo's designer said there's a deeper message. "It is an active statement against Christianity," Bjorn Atldax told The Associated Press. "I'm not a Satanist myself, but I have a great dislike for organized religion."

"One cannot just keep quiet about this," said the Rev. Karl-Erik Nylund, vicar of St. Mary Magdalene Church in Stockholm. "This is a deliberate provocation (against Christians) and I object to that." Nylund complained that Swedish companies don't treat Christianity with the same respect that they afford other religions. "No one wants to provoke Jews or Muslims, but it's totally OK to provoke Christians," he said."

Source

We all know how many Leftist protests there will be about it all don't we? Leftist hypocrisy and double standards never stop. I personally think that people should be free to wear what they want on their clothing but I also (even though I am an atheist) think that people should be free to make whatever reference to Christ and Christmas that they want. That sort of consistency and genuine principle is unknown to most of the Left, however. What it shows is that their only real goal is not to help but to hurt. In the name of tolerance they practice discrimination. They are themselves as intolerant as their Communist heroes.




A Political Quiz

The holiday season is a good time for something fun and lighthearted so I though I might direct readers to: "A Humorous Political Party Quiz to Test If You're an Archconservative, Leftwing Wacko, Antigovernment Libertine or a Commie Sympathizer". It's been around for a while but I am guessing that there will be a lot of readers here who have not seen it yet. You can find it here

Confederate War Hero Bad; Socialist Mexican Good

"Stonewall" Jackson has towns, counties, parks, rivers, creeks, lakes, forests and buildings named for him all across the southern US. But that is now bad. A press excerpt:

"The debate comes down to this: Was Stonewall-Flanders Elementary School named for the legendary Confederate general Stonewall Jackson or for stone fences that adorned front yards in the neighborhood? Harlandale Independent School District trustees will consider the question as they decide whether to grant a former district administrator's request to rename the school after Cesar Chavez, the late social activist.... Calzoncit says Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson was a racist and the school should not bear his name"

Source

Note that NOBODY is defending the naming of the school after Jackson. They are defending the name on the basis that it does NOT refer to Jackson. It seems to be universally accepted that nothing should be named after a racist. But almost everybody was racist before World War 2 (including that great fan of Aryans, Democrat President Woodrow Wilson) so should we celebrate none of our ancestors? Psychologists even tell us that we are ALL racists so should we just stop naming things after people?





Northern Ireland Shows the Way

(This post is outside the normal scope of this blog but I hope that we are all more relaxed over the holiday season and I think lots of readers here will be interested in it)

Northern Ireland: That's where Protestants and Catholics are always shooting one-another, Right? Maybe. But note this:

"A United Nations report has labelled Scotland the most violent country in the developed world, with people three times more likely to be assaulted than in America. England and Wales recorded the second highest number of violent assaults while Northern Ireland recorded the fewest. The study, based on telephone interviews with victims of crime in 21 countries, found that more than 2,000 Scots were attacked every week, almost ten times the official police figures. They include non-sexual crimes of violence and serious assaults. Violent crime has doubled in Scotland over the past 20 years and levels, per head of population, are now comparable with cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg and Tbilisi".

Source

So what's going on? We know that Scotland lives under very draconian gun bans. What about Northern Ireland? Why is its crime-rate so LOW despite the religious tensions? Answer: Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that is generally armed, or at least where you cannot assume that any given person is not armed. So it's that good old deterrent effect at work again. As in the USA, the more guns, the less crime.

A Brutal Asian Fraternity Kills a Member: So Race Card is Played

A press excerpt:

"A Houston lawmaker is urging University of Texas officials to reconsider last week's decision to ban an Asian American-interest fraternity whose members were involved in hazing the night freshman member Phanta "Jack" Phoummarath drank himself to death. Rep. Hubert Vo wrote UT President Larry Faulkner last week that the university should consider alternative punishments such as probation, community service or alcohol abuse training for the members of Lambda Phi Epsilon, rather than canceling the registration of the entire group.

Group punishment, Vo said, is unfair and could send the wrong message to the Asian community by destroying an important social and support network for Asian students, many of whom are children of immigrants and first-generation college students. Vo said Tuesday his concern has nothing to do with race and that he doesn't expect Asians to get special treatment at UT.....

Brett has said members of Lambda Phi Epsilon, which was not affiliated with UT's Greek community, told university investigators that new members were expected to drink large amounts of liquor and were required to shave their heads when they were installed as active members.

But Vo, a Democrat who emigrated from Vietnam about 30 years ago, said UT's decision may discourage Asian students who need all the resources they can get while pursuing their education. "Cutting off a fraternity like this means cutting off the support network for the students," Vo said.

Source

If this typical Democrat support for murderers has nothing to do with race, why mention it?

Christmas Card Update

On December 10th I put up an email from a company manager who sent out NRA Christmas cards to all his business contacts -- cards that actually mentioned Christmas. He has just sent me an update about what happened:

"I also wanted to give you a short update on the item I sent you about the selection of Christmas cards I sent to my clients. These card were the ones I bought from the National Rifle Association. It appears that it was tempest in a teapot. I sent out 300 cards, and got not one single, solitary complaint. I actually did get one complaint, but it turns out that the customer was joking about being offended. As an aside, more people wished me a Merry Christmas that in years past. Possibly, I was just more aware of it this year after listening to Bill O'Reilley and John Gibson discuss the "War on Christmas." I also am an avid listener of some of the programs on National Public Radio, long viewed as a bastion of liberal thought. I heard quite a few Merry Christmases from them, also.

Bigotry Against Southerners

An interesting post from a blogger in the American South. Excerpt:

"In recent online discussions I have been twice accused of being a racist when the person arguing with me found out I live in Houston Texas. There seems to be this bigoted stereotype that those of us in the southern United States are just a bunch of unenlightened inbred racist bastards. It was very unsettling to me to be accused of this living as I do in one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the USA, and one which has a very good record of race relations.

The blogger then presents statistics that show Texas as LESS racist than other places. Ignorance, thy name is Leftism.

Racism at Cornell

Psychologists at Cornell are making an effort to sell their dubious services to minority students there. Nothing wrong with that. Selling your services is very American. But how come you can target race -- which Leftists say does not exist (It's "socially constructed") -- as part of what you do? Note this excerpt:

"Counselors at the Ivy League school hold group talks such as "The Joys and Challenges of Being Other Than Caucasian at Cornell" and have drop-in sessions at the international student center, the engineering school and other spots....

At Cornell, the new outreach includes multilingual sessions and culture-specific marketing. Cornell literature even promotes Frandsen-Pechenik as the school's "very own Latina psychologist."....

"Most psychologists I meet are not understanding of, say, being the first in your family to go to college and having the weight of the family on your shoulders," said Cisneros, a senior from Dallas.

Source

"Anglo" students have problems too. Some "Anglo" students too are the first in their family to go to college. I was myself. So how about a talk on "The Joys and Challenges of Being Caucasian at Cornell"? And will Cornell be promoting its "very own Anglo-Saxon psychologists"? We know it's not going to happen but why not? Shouldn't all students be treated equally?




People like these Accuse Conservatives of Racism

I think I will let these press excerpts speak for themselves:

"While Councilman Michael Ashford was being ushered away from a breakfast table by union boss Bill Lichtenwald, he heard Mr. Lichtenwald say to Councilman Frank Szollosi, "Why are you talking to those people?" Mr. Ashford, who is African-American, said he felt racially offended by the remark, which is further adding to the divide between A team and B-team Democrats".

Source

And:

"A high-ranking official within the Liberal Party of Canada resigned Monday after he made disparaging comments on his blog about NDP Leader Jack Layton and his wife, NDP candidate Olivia Chow. Mike Klander, executive vice-president of the federal Liberal party's Ontario wing, stepped down after photographs of Chow, the NDP candidate for the Toronto riding of Trinity-Spadina, and a chow chow dog were posted on his blog dated Dec. 9 under the heading "Separated at Birth.""

Photo of Ms Chow below:



Source

Can Anyone help?

As I have mentioned before, I get a lot of email from readers of this blog who are in the military. I have just got an email that I think I should share in case anyone reading this can help:

"The army here in Iraq has apparently blocked the whole 72.x.x.x domain, and that is where Townhall.com is located. Can you contact them and tell them they have fans (and financial contributors) in Iraq that cannot access their site? Maybe they can change their IP address, maybe they have an alternative address, or maybe they can contact someone and complain that their site is being blocked. By law, the army cannot block some sites and leave others accessible unless they have a really good reason.

I think it is pretty disgraceful when a mainstream conservative site like Townhall is blocked.

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all who come by here from your TT bloggers

Postings may be a bit light over the festive season




The "Non-existent" Attacks on Christmas

When people point out to Leftists how intolerant their attacks on Christmas are, what do they do? Increasingly they deny that such attacks happen! Denial is an old Freudian defence mechanism and Leftists have never been very comfortable with reality (which is why they are so keen on censoring it) so I cannot say that I am surprised by such a response but it sure must take some huge mental gymnastics to dismiss as unimportant or non-existent such examples as the four below (Taken from Deroy Murdock):

* In Manhasset, N.Y., Town Supervisor Jon Kaiman upbraided a Catholic priest who appeared at a Dec. 2 Christmas festival. "We're here to celebrate the holiday tree lighting," Kaiman said after Father Nick Zientarski offered a blessing. "This is not the place for a religious ceremony." Kaiman apologized after he unleashed a maelstrom.

* Centennial, Colo.'s Heritage Elementary School banned cookies shaped like Christmas symbols, candy canes bearing religious messages, and teacher and student references to seasonal gatherings as "Christmas" parties.

* A Memphis, Tenn., public library allowed a Nativity scene _ provided Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were excluded. (Manger, yes. Messiah, no.) Attorneys persuaded the library to reverse this decision.

* Much as "Uncle Joe" [Stalin] erased his enemies from photos of VIPs taken atop Lenin's Tomb, Stalinists at Ridgeway Elementary School in Dodgeville, Wis., airbrushed the lyrics to "Silent Night." Children in its "Winter Program" instead sang these bastardized words: "Cold in the night, no one in sight/winter winds whirl and bite/How I wish I were happy and warm/safe with my family, out of the storm."

Traditional Dress OK -- but not if it's Scottish

I am sure that Muslim garb would have been OK. And if the guy had accused people in Muslim garb of looking like clowns there would have been hell to pay

As I myself wear full Highland dress on occasions (See here) I was pretty disgusted to read this story. Every person with Scottish connections recognizes the kilt as a formal and dignified form of dress. Excerpt:

"Nathan Warmack wanted to honor his heritage by wearing a Scottish kilt to his high school dance. Then a principal told him to change into a pair of pants. What began with a few yards of tartan has sparked an international debate about freedom, symbols and cultural dress. More than 1,600 people have signed an Internet petition seeking an apology for the high school senior....

And while they weren't trying to dress in kilts, a few boys were allowed to wear skirts to class at Franklin Community High School in Indiana in 1997, when a superintendent said different people express themselves in different ways....

After Nathan Warmack and his date posed for pictures, principal Rick McClard, who had not previously seen the kilt, told the student he had to go change. Warmack refused a few times and said the outfit was recognizing his heritage. Warmack alleges McClard told him: "Well, this is my dance, and I'm not going to have students coming into it looking like clowns."...

Several Scottish heritage organizations are angry, saying the kilt is a symbol of Scottish pride and considered formal dress. "To say the traditional Scottish dress makes you look like a clown is a direct insult to people of Scottish heritage and those who live in Scotland," said Tom Wilson, a Texas commissioner for the Clan Gunn Society of North America, a Scottish heritage organization.

Sinterklaas

We mentioned here yesterday the heartburn being caused in some quarters over the Dutch Santa Claus (Sinterklaas) -- the trouble being that Sinterklaas has a helper called "Black Pete". Black Pete carries a large bag with him into which he puts naughty children to teach them a lesson. This centuries-old joke is now of course seen as "offensive" among those who make a profession out of being offended. Anyway, I thought readers might like to see a picture of Sinterklaas and "Zwarte Piet" with his bag. The picture was taken in Australia on Sydney's most famous city beach -- Bondi. Santa Claus gets around, you know.