Audio, video and transcript highlights from Hugh Hewitt, Mark Steyn, Dennis Prager, Neal Boortz, G. Gordon Liddy and more --
plus the latest on the campaign to censor talk radio...
Can you imagine George Washington demanding free dentures from the government?
Or Ben Franklin wanting a grant to develop his electric kite? Or Dolley Madison getting workers’ compensation
for pricking her finger?
The Founding Fathers didn’t write about “life, liberty and the pursuit of free stuff”!
Tomorrow I want you all to go to one of the thousand tea parties going on across this great nation. Instead of a white
flag of surrender, stick a Depends diaper on a stick as a symbol of your outrage about
where this country is going.
The Peggy Noonan
we love when we love her, writing about popular historian David McCullough, of whom she says, "He is admired by normal
people..." -- a fine phrase.
It's too late to order 1776or
one of McCullough's other excellent books from Amazon, should you be jonesing for a 4th of July fix.
However, if you download the audio book,you get the added bonus of hearing McCullough read it himself in that reassuringly familiar voice.
Mark Steyn is often nice enough to name-check
me in his Maclean's column. This week, it's my husband's turn...
Oh, dear, what’s the country coming to? Defenders of state censorship are too cowed to speak out in favour of not
letting people speak out? You could hardly ask for a better snapshot of the degradation of “human rights” in contemporary
Canada than the chief censor whining to a banqueting suite full of government apparatchiks that the ingrate citizenry are
insufficiently respectful of them. The bureaucrats at the top table control hundreds of millions of public dollars. Jennifer
Lynch represents state power; Ezra and I represent a bunch of impecunious bloggers. Yet the Dominion of Canada has been
reduced to complaining that Blazing Cat Fur is out to get it.
“Human rights” are rights for human, for individuals … and restraints upon government power. Canada has now precisely
inverted the concept to mean enhanced government power and restraints on individuals.
Last week I spoke to Duane at RFC Radio for his show about the ins and outs of
blogging.
At nine years, I'm officially a blogging pioneer, and had fun strolling down memory lane, telling young people today all
about the era of RobotWisdom and PopCultureJunkMail, before comments and WordPress and even Instapundit existed.
Today the show's airing at 5PM EST. Duane said I was a great guest and this was
the only fun interview I've done in a long time. Since I've generally sworn off doing them ever again, here's a rare chance to
hear me talk to another human being.
I've installed the same version on core 10 with no problems, as a matter a fact it was a breeze, but "db2setup" hangs up
with an odd error about the filesystem, which is funny since everything is on a virtual machine. So I'm downgrading to 10 for
now, so I can make some progress. Websphincter 7 also installs very smoothly on core 10, not nearly as many hurdles as 6.1 on
core 8.
So that Al Franken guy finally got himself elected in Minnesota. I still can’t believe it, even though these are the
same people who let a pro wrestler run their state for a while!
(...)
We make fun of all the fruitcakes down in San Francisco, but isn’t Minnesota just as crazy? The only difference is in
Minnesota they don’t walk around wearing bare ass leather pants cuz they’d get frostbite on their behinds!
If Barack Obama would actually look the homos in the eye, treat them like adults, and finally say; “You know what? You’re
between 1 and 10% of the population, depending on Lindsay Lohan’s mood. More people hate you than not, and I need them to
vote for me more than I need you. How many fags do you think there are in Indiana?
I don’t really know what to make of this, but I occasionally trawl Google Search Trends/Insights to see what people are
looking for, and whether they’re changing much over the past few years.
(...)
But how about this one: the rise and fall of the search for “commit suicide painlessly”: things had been pretty flat since
2004 and then suddenly, over a period of three or four months from October 2008 to March 2009, the index goes from about 18
to 100.
The Justice Department is also evaluating a controversial proposal to explicitly write hate motivation into the Criminal
Code as an aggravating factor in any crime, from common mischief to murder.
In the past, this has often worked to the advantage of the accused, notably the Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, who was
investigated under 319(2), but prosecuted under the law against reporting "false news," which was ruled
unconstitutional.
"There's no doubt that a downside of criminal prosecution is it gives all kinds of free publicity to the views of the person
accused of hatemongering," Prof. Ryder said.
"Perhaps its most important roles are symbolic and preventative, to express our condemnation of hate propaganda against
the groups that have most frequently been the targets of hateful speech," he said.
Nice to see our Establishment Betters admitting publicly what they say amongst themselves in private: that they believe we
average Canadians simply need to be taught a lesson once in a while. One of us will occasionally be chosen at random to serve
as an example to the others.
Those of you who complain that these laws are arbitrary are missing the point that they are supposed to be.
That is one reason --besides congenital stupidity -- that our Establishment Betters become so tongue tied when debating an
Ezra Levant or a Mark Steyn. Our Elites know the laws are arbitrary. They want them to be, because the unprincipled Left
changes enemies frequently and their weapons have to remain multi-purpose, like Swiss Army knives.
But the Elites can't actually give the game away in public. So they mumble about Martin Luther King or theatre fires or
whathaveyou, and since MLK's name etc have become a talismanic invocations in some circles, this ploy actually works much of
the time.
Think she's just one idiot? Watch my Conservative
Talk Radio site for the latest news on how the new Hate Crimes Act, "localism" and other schemes are being put in place to
silence talk radio.
The four-year college degree has come to cost too much and prove too little. It's now a bad deal for the average student,
family, employer, professor and taxpayer.
A student who secures a degree is increasingly unlikely to make up its cost, despite higher pay, and the employer who
requires a degree puts faith in a system whose standards are slipping.
(Guess partying with naked drunken left wing self-mutilating neurotics is a bigger priority for him, and just way more fun,
than confronting sinister Muslim fascists who outnumber you 500 to one... And besides, it's so cold out in
January...)
As I was videotaping groups in the parade line-up, no one complained until I reached a keffiyah-wearing,
Palestinian-flag-waving group. I recognized a few members of "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" as well as NION and was
shocked to see a man with his head & face wrapped in a keffiyeh like a terrorist and wearing a bracelet made of bullets.
(...)
They denounced me as a Zionist and told me I was not welcome in the Pride Parade which was being held in my own city of
Toronto, in my own country of Canada, where my ancestors have lived since 1750.
It’s clear that had Hossain’s last name been, say, Keegstra or Ahenakew--or even Boisson--the full weight of the law
would have been brought down to bear on him.
But since he was neither white, nor a Nazi, nor a Christian, but is an Islamic Jew-hater, authorities decided to
drop it lest they incur the acrimony of local Muslims, with whom they are endeavouring so hard to “build
bridges.”
I lived up in Edmonton for a few months, and I would have to say that I noticed a few recurring character flaws in
Candians. Not all people, but some.
1. A tendency to give smarmy lectures about proper behavior, said lectures sounding like "chirp chirp chirp."
2. The desire for a guaranteed outcome, i.e. they are risk-averse.
3. A tendency to fob off Canadian failures on the United States whenever possible. When
this should not be possible, a failure becomes a Thing That Shall Not Be Mentioned.
4. A tendency to petty rackets and small-time frauds. Example: Special deal at electronics store - great price, pay
later. Only, they don't send the bill for months and then claim that they did send it. Penalties and interest exceed up-front
savings.
5. Corollary of 4.: Lack of trust in fellow man.
6. Tendency of employees in stores to stand in a ring and talk, while ignoring
customers.
