Best-selling author and commentator Mark Steyn talks about the state of today's media landscape, freedom of speech and an intrepid blogger who's getting sued merely for linking to one of Steyn's articles. It's a fine commentary on the Bizarro world we live in.
Listen, Blazing Catfur is breaking the stories that too many of Canada's brain-dead mono-dailies don't want to go anywhere near. It's tough work. It's very serious work. It's a very funny thing that's happening in the world right now, when wacky websites with screwy names, little stories turn up on them and then eventually one or two of the newspapers pick them up and then eventually, some government minister in Ottawa will react and take action to it. But it starts with the nothing little websites with the funny names which is why we need to keep them going. Blazing Catfur is being sued for half a million dollars because he linked to my website. You should be supporting Blazing Catfur and you should be telling (CENSORED! CENSORED! CENSORED!)... lawsuits all week long.
A shadowy 100-year old organization - let's call it Foundation X - reportedly obsessed with their own security approaches a British Lord and offers a $5 billion loan to the government of the United Kingdom. No interest, no payment schedule, no strings attached. The weird and wealthy cabal is just doing its bit to help the UK get through tough times and help ensure the international security situation doesn't get any worse.
I'm almost tempted to suggest this is some sort of attempt at a viral social media campaign to get attention for an upcoming thriller starring Clive Owen or Matt Damon. Best conspiracy theory left as a comment for this article wins the contest for, er, "Best Conspiracy Theory Left As A Comment".
Lord James of Blackheath: For the past 20 weeks I have been engaged in a very strange dialogue with the two noble Lords, in the course of which I have been trying to bring to their attention...More >>
As noted in an earlier article, the prosecution of Dutch politician Geert Wilders for group insult and incitement of hatred and discrimination went off the rails earlier this month. Not only did the Dutch Public Prosecutor advise that all charges against Wilders be dropped, but the judges handling his case were all dismissed after one of them – Tom Schalken - attended the same dinner party as a trial witness and apparently attempted to engage him in a conversation about the trial – a big potential for conflict of interest. Schalken is now facing proceedings launched by Wilders for influencing a witness.
The trial is expected to start over from scratch, but in the interim there has been some rather interesting fall-out in The Netherlands.
First, it looks like Geert Wilders is trying to limit the reach of Holland's law against group insult. As Radio Netherlands Worldwide reports:
“VVD leader Mark Rutte, the current PM, and Mr Wilders wanted to give politicians immunity for insulting remarks made as part of the national debate.
No, we're not talking about the serial human-rights abusers and autocrats who get equal treatment to democracies at the wold's most famous talking shop. The United Nations building has bedbugs.
We hope the delegates from the totalitarian regimes bring some of these specimens back to their politburos in their luggage.More >>
In Pakistan, the senate has passed a bill providing protection to women from sexual harassment. From my personal experience in Pakistan, this is a much needed law. In no other country in the world, have I felt so many hostile, penetrating male eyes on me in streets that, in some cities, are often utterly devoid of women. It's no wonder. Men routinely sneer sexually soliciting comments in the same breath that they call you an infidel and a prostitute. A confusion between what they loathe and what they like is all mixed up in a fog of aggressive sexuality mixed with hatred and anger. Many Afghan women I know who grew up in refugee camps in Pakistan told me stories of being regularly groped on buses or grabbed in the bazaar. It’s a place where the deepening of conservative Islam has not meant that women are protected from becoming sex objects, but rather, they have become even more vulnerable to exploitation.
Yet the story of how the anti-sexual harassment law made its way through the legislative process in Pakistan is simultaneously telling and sad, and provides further...More >>
"A ban on the burka, and other full-face veils will take effect in France from next spring after an unexpected ruling by the country's highest legal authority last night.
In a decision that will divide the country, and may spark fears of Islamic fundamentalist reprisals, the Conseil Constitutionnel removed the final legal obstacle to the ban, by ruling that a so-called "anti-burka" law passed by both houses of the French parliament did not infringe fundamental liberties."
As I've argued before, such blanket bans have a tendency to skip around the real problem. In this case, the real problem is fundamentalist Islam. But the French parliament can't be seen actively targeting one religion or group of people in particular with such legislation - although they'll apparently make an exception for the Roma - so it has to be everyone. France's new law, making it a criminal act to "conceal...More >>
A national newspaper with a politically liberal editorial line replaces an old white man, Rick Salutin, with a non-white lesbian Muslim who advocates for human rights, women's rights and religious moderation: Irshad Manji.
The "progressive" rags that have hitherto done everything they can to promote "identity politics" and "affirmative action" go apeshit.
Why, precisely? Because opposition to a the only multicultural democracy in the Middle East governed by a liberal Western tradition and the rule of law has become a litmus test for ideological purity in the New Left.
Demos, a public policy think tank, recently published a revealing pamphlet on conspiracy theories, and the power they have over political movements on the left and the right. The paper makes an argument that needs further consideration when discussing the current political debate in the West, specifically the United States.
Demos' paper states that “what distinguishes conspiracy theories from genuine efforts to uncover actual conspiracies is that a conspiracy theory is not the most plausible account of events based on the available evidence”. “The acceptance of conspiracy theories in contexts of extremism often serves as a ‘radicalizing multiplier’, which feeds back into the ideologies, internal dynamics and psychological processes of the group.” This influences how extremist organizations build their ideology. It also applies to our public debate.
A number of prominent commentators have argued that Obama is now experiencing a fit of irrationality, making it impossible to govern effectively. George Packer argues that Obama is simply too sane for the era he finds himself, with Andrew Sullivan adding that the public’s emotions have taken a “pathological turn”...More >>
A shadowy 100-year old organization - let's call it Foundation X - reportedly obsessed with their own security approaches a British Lord and offers a $5 billion loan to the government of the United Kingdom. No interest, no payment schedule, no strings attached. The weird and wealthy cabal is just doing its bit to help the UK get through tough times and help ensure the international security situation doesn't get any worse.
As noted in an earlier article, the prosecution of Dutch politician Geert Wilders for group insult and incitement of hatred and discrimination 
No, we're not talking about the serial human-rights abusers and autocrats who get equal treatment to democracies at the wold's most famous talking shop. 
needed law. In no other country in the world, have I felt so many hostile, penetrating male eyes on me in streets that, in some cities, are often utterly devoid of women. It's no wonder. Men routinely sneer sexually soliciting comments in the same breath that they call you an infidel and a prostitute. A confusion between what they loathe and what they like is all mixed up in a fog of aggressive sexuality mixed with hatred and anger. Many Afghan women I know who grew up in refugee camps in Pakistan told me stories of being regularly groped on buses or grabbed in the bazaar. It’s a place where the deepening of conservative Islam has not meant that women are protected from becoming sex objects, but rather, they have become even more vulnerable to exploitation.
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Is Europe finally growing tired of multiculturalism and lax immigration laws?
A national newspaper with a politically liberal editorial line replaces an old white man, Rick Salutin, with a non-white lesbian Muslim who advocates for human rights, women's rights and religious moderation: Irshad Manji.
Demos, a public policy think tank, recently published 
