The New Canadian Fashion Statement

This, to borrow the phrase, beggars belief. Mark Steyn is being hauled in front of what amounts to a kangaroo court in Canada (actually two separate courts) for his writings. Specifically, his book America Alone. The New York Post reports:

December 16, 2007 — Celebrated author Mark Steyn has been summoned to appear before two Canadian judicial panels on charges linked to his book “America Alone."

The book, a No. 1 bestseller in Canada, argues that Western nations are succumbing to an Islamist imperialist threat. The fact that charges based on it are proceeding apace proves his point.

Steyn, who won the 2006 Eric Breindel Journalism Award (co-sponsored by The Post and its parent, News Corp), writes for dozens of publications on several continents. After the Canadian general-interest magazine Maclean's reprinted a chapter from the book, five Muslim law-school students, acting through the auspices of the Canadian Islamic Congress, demanded that the magazine be punished for spreading “hatred and contempt" for Muslims.

The plaintiffs allege that Maclean's advocated, among other things, the notion that Islamic culture is incompatible with Canada's liberalized, Western civilization. They insist such a notion is untrue and, in effect, want opinions like that banned from publication.

Two separate panels, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal and the Canadian Human Rights Commission, have agreed to hear the case. These bodies are empowered to hear and rule on cases of purported “hate speech."

Of course, a ban on opinions - even disagreeable ones - is the very antithesis of the Western tradition of free speech and freedom of the press.

Melanie Phillips at The Spectator adds:

The irony, of course, is that by this action Canada is thus demonstrating that if any culture is incompatible with liberalised western civilisation, it is clearly Canada’s. The idea that certain arguments must not be made, and that to do so is to find oneself arraigned before a judicial tribunal, is the very antithesis of a liberal society. It is a symptom of totalitarianism. It is also doubly ironic that it is the Islamic world, through the Canadian Islamic Congress, that is bringing this action — since in seeking to suppress the view that the Islamic world is incompatible with liberalism, it is demonstrating with the starkest possible clarity the truth of that proposition.

It is no accident that it is uber-‘liberal’ Canada, which worships at the shrine of human rights law, where this medieval inquisition is taking place. The fact that the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal and the Canadian Human Rights Commission are to conduct this kangaroo hearing is grotesque but not in the least surprising. The belief fundamental to human wrongs law, that minorities are sacrosanct and that to criticise them is proof of rampant prejudice, is part of the mindset which has turned truth, morality and freedom inside out. If a writer who tells the truth about Islamists spreading hatred and contempt for the west is himself hauled before a court charged with spreading hatred and contempt by telling such a truth, then the Orwellian nightmare has well and truly arrived.

Steyn, as far as I know, remains a Canadian citizen. But a nation, like Canada, which crushes free speech and the expression of opinion is no place for someone like Steyn anymore, apparently. Because they are no longer a liberal democracy. They have already gone over the cliff into totalitarian behavior. Jackboots are not esthetically improved by the addition of maple leaf insignias.

But that appears to be the newest fashion statement in Canada. (Oops, I almost used another word instead of 'fashion'. But I wouldn't want to violate Godwin's Law.)

Inside The Charm Offensive

Ben Smith at The Politico, reports on the internal battle inside camp Hillary over the sudden change in direction for her campaign. She has, as reported earlier today, launched a charm offensive to prove what a swell person she is, deemphasizing the policy issues and turning up the human side. Or something like that.

The shift began, unheralded, when 88-year-old Dorothy Rodham picked her way onto stage at a Des Moines, Iowa, high school on Dec. 7. It continued with an ad in which Rodham, Clinton’s rarely-seen mother, testified that her daughter is a “good person.” And it intensified Monday with the release of a set of videos in which old friends talk about her personality and her foibles under the rubric, “The Hillary I know.”

The shift in emphasis from head to heart is the latest stage in a running argument inside Clinton’s camp that stretches back to her 2000 campaign, one that pits the voters’ need to know their politicians against the comfort zone of a very private woman and the theories of her data-driven pollster.

Clinton’s communications director Howard Wolfson — himself a key player in the dispute over how to run the campaign — portrayed the change of gears as a result of the campaign’s success on policy issues.

“Voters know Sen. Clinton will do the best job reforming health care and getting us out of Iraq. They know she has the most experience,” he told Politico. “Now they want to know what motivates her.”

But in fact the shift is a victory for those around her — like Wolfson — who have been arguing since her 2000 campaign that she must be humanized, and it reflects an acknowledgment even among those aides who prefer to have her talking about policy that her personality is very much in play.

“You have to be responsive to the situation,” said Mark Penn, Clinton’s longtime pollster and chief strategist, who has long argued against emphasizing the personal side, believing that the specific concerns of small groups of voters are more important than emotional ties or media story lines. “It’s about opponents who attacked her and it’s about showing that those attacks are false.”

Yeah, this from Penn, who made sure the smear job by the now departed Billy Shaheen was repeated several times while supposedly saying it was a bad thing. Yeesh. That this new direction pops up when the polls head south just indicates even more internal disarray in the Clinton campaign and smells more than a little panicky on their part. I don't think there is any way the campaign can change the minds of people who see Clinton as cold and calculating - which includes a lot of hardcore Democratic voters. Sending Hillary to a sort of advanced charm school is simply not going to work. The simple fact is that if she wins the nomination, a lot of Democrats will vote for her.

But they won't ever like her.

Intifada On The Mexican Border

This is just lovely. It seems that US Border Patrol agents are coming under increasing numbers of attacks - mostly by rock-throwing Mexicans - at the US border with Mexico. Agents have responded more aggressively in recent months as longer-range, non-lethal weapons have become available. The agents are firing pepper ball weapons and teargas back at the rock-throwers.

The Border Patrol says its agents have been attacked nearly 1,000 times during a one-year period.

The agency's top official in San Diego, Mike Fisher, said agents are taking action because Mexican authorities have been slow to respond. When an attack happens, he said, American authorities often wait hours for them to come, and help usually never arrives.

"We have been taking steps to ensure that our agents are safe," Fisher said.

Mexico's acting consul general in San Diego, Ricardo Pineda, has insisted that U.S. authorities stop firing onto Mexican soil. He met with Border Patrol officials last month after the agency fired tear gas into Mexico. The agency defended that counterattack, saying agents were being hit with a hail of ball bearings from slingshots in Mexico.

U.S. officials say the violence indicates that smugglers are growing more desperate as stepped-up security makes it harder to sneak across the border. The assailants try to distract agents long enough to let people dash in the United States.

The head of a union representing Border Patrol employees said the violence also results from the decision to put agents right up against the border, a departure from the early 1990s when they waited farther back to make arrests.

"When you get that close to the fence, your agents are sitting ducks," said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council.

Border Patrol agents were attacked 987 times along the U.S.-Mexico border during the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30, the agency said. That's up 31 percent from 752 attacks a year earlier, and it's the highest number since the agency began recording attacks in the late 1990s.

About two-thirds of the attacks were with rocks. Many of the rest involved physical assaults, such as illegal immigrants getting into fist fights with guards.

About one of every four attacks occurred in San Diego, and most of those happened along a heavily fortified, 10-mile stretch of the border starting at the Pacific Ocean.

By refusing to deal with this on their side of the border, Mexico is inviting a tragedy. When it comes - and it likely will - it will be their fault, not the fault of the United States.

UPDATE: Same AP report from MSNBC, that link should remain good unlike the Yahoo News one that expires after a short while.

We’ve Got Ewe Surrounded

That's what the homeowners in Whittle Hill in Britain found when they woke up and looked out the windows. They were corralled in their homes by a ruthless gang of sheep.

As the residents of a suburban town pulled open their curtains in the morning, they were shocked to find a flock of sheep making themselves at home on the front lawn.

More than a dozen sheep escaped from a farmer's field and make their way to a housing estate in Greater Manchester.

Local residents of Whittle Hill in Egerton, near Bolton, found the sheep munching on their gardens and had to call police to have them removed.

But fortunately the farmer who owned them was quickly found and came along to collect them. He still doesn't know how they escaped. (Ed. Note: Simple, they picked the lock. Duh.)

Accounts manager Steve Swannell, 62, said: "We couldn't believe it - my wife and I are usually up and out by 6.30 but this particular morning we are going out later so we didn't get downstairs till about 7.45am.

"We opened the curtains in the front room and there were all these sheep in our garden.

It's a good thing they didn't open the doors. The ruminants in Britain are well known for their ghoulish behavior. Think Dawn of the Dead with fleece.

Brits On Ice

The Daily Mail is reporting a "Russian-style" winter is gripping Britain with temperatures dropping to -6° C (around 21° F) under cloudless skies. It does not appear that they will get a white Christmas, however. Just a frozen one.

Christmas shoppers are being warned to wrap up as they brave the freezing temperatures that are set to plunge to a bitterly cold -6C.

As the Russian-style winter sweeps into the UK temperatures will struggle to rise above zero during the week.

And lack of cloud cover means that night-time temperatures will sink to a shiver-inducing -5C or -6C in places.

A Met Office spokesman said: "When there is no cloud overnight then the temperature will get very low.

"People will have to wrap up warm if they're doing their Christmas shopping."

Heck, it's not even up to 20° F where I live yet today, according to the thermometer. But that is very cold for Britain. It can get really cold when there is no cloud cover, as the Brits are discovering.

Giant Rat Of Sumatra Actually Found!

Well, ok, it wasn't actually found in Sumatra, but it was in Indonesia. A gigantic rat, five times the size of a typical city (Norway) rat, the large rodent is also completely unafraid of humans. Which is not really surprising. A rat that big would send most humans screaming!

Scientists from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences and CI discovered dozens of new plants and animals on their first trip to the region, described as a "Lost World," in late 2005.

The giant rat is about five times the size of a typical city rat, Kristofer Helgen, a scientist with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, said in the statement.

"With no fear of humans, it apparently came into the camp several times during the trip," he said.

Which probably emptied out the camp rather quickly. I'm not exactly sure if this is a new species, however. There have been other sightings of ginormous rats, after all. Florida has its share, too. Let's not even get started on Washington, DC.

UPDATE: The Daily Mail has (shudder) pictures. That's a lot of rat.

Nicky’s Got A Girlfriend!

Why does the press remind me of a gaggle of school kids standing around chanting some 'brilliant' witticism like, "Nicky's got a girlfriend," when I read something like this? Oh, that's right, because that is exactly how they are behaving. French President Nicolas Sarkozy apparently went to Disneyland Paris with a very beautiful woman and the press is doing a happy dance.

The respected news weekly L'Express posted a photo of the duo on its Internet site, and at least two other magazines said they would run the images.

The president's office would not comment on their status. But the daily Le Figaro, seen as close to the conservative, newly divorced president, ran a front-page image of the Italian-French Bruni on Monday with the headline: "Carla Bruni: The President's Girlfriend."

Christophe Barbier, the editor of L'Express, said he called Bruni, whom he described as a friend, before going public with the story.

"She confirmed the relationship," he said.

Sarkozy and Bruni visited Disneyland on Saturday when the park was thronged with visitors, L'Express reported. Several photographers reportedly were on hand and openly snapped photos of the pair, who seemed at ease with the attention.

Colombe Pringle, editor of Point de Vue magazine, said she believed Sarkozy and Bruni made themselves available to photographers deliberately.

"Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni wanted people to know," she told France-Info radio. "Otherwise, I don't know why they would have gone to Euro Disney to look at the Mickey (Mouse) parade."

Hey, he's newly single and over 21. She has a lot of talent, too. More power to them both.

Serf’s Up, Dude

serf (sûrf)  n.  

1. A member of the lowest feudal class, attached to the land owned by a lord and required to perform labor in return for certain legal or customary rights.

2. An agricultural laborer under various similar systems, especially in 18th- and 19th-century Russia and eastern Europe.

3. A person in bondage or servitude.
 
(American Heritage Dictionary)

The essential element in serfdom was, of course, that one was bound to the land itself. In many cases, the lord of the manor actually held property rights over the serfs themselves. In fact, the lord held those rights even upon the serf's offspring, the serf class was hereditary. Keep that definition in mind as you read this little gem. (Yes, this is the same item linked yesterday through Mark Steyn via Kate at Small Dead Animals.)

Transport policy-makers should start preparing now for a dramatic reduction in motorised travel that will be brought about by carbon rationing, one of the country's leading environmental thinkers told LTT this week.

"Just start reading the runes because what's going to happen is the demand for road, rail and air travel is going to start falling away just as soon as we have rationing," says Mayer Hillman in an interview with the magazine.

Hillman, senior fellow emeritus at the Policy Studies Institute, says carbon rationing is the only way to ensure that the world avoids the worst effects of climate change. And he says that the problems caused by burning fossil fuels are so serious that governments might have to implement rationing against the will of the people.

"When the chips are down I think democracy is a less important goal than is the protection of the planet from the death of life, the end of life on it," he says. "This has got to be imposed on people whether they like it or not."

But I'm linking this again to provide a little background on Hillman. Like this article from the Guardian.

According to Hillman, our carbon emissions will need to be cut by 10% each and every year for a 25-year period to bring convergence between rich and poor nations. Hillman believes that no sector will feel the impact more than transport. This is how it would work. Each of us will be allocated an annual fuel allowance, and every time you buy a product or service with a significant energy component - whether paying a gas bill or buying an airline ticket - it will be deducted from your annual account.

There will be trading, of course. If you're clever or frugal, you'll be able sell your surplus fuel coupons on the open market to those willing to buy them. And there'll be takers, since a return flight from London to Florida will consume double the annual fossil fuel ration that each person presently living on the planet can be allowed. Says Hillman, a delightful blend of the libertarian and the interventionist, "You want to fly to America? Fly to America, but you'll be bloody cold for the next couple of years because you'll have run out of coupons."

You'll be tied to the land and will exist at the mercy of the new lords of the carbon manor.

Northeast Staggers Under Massive Storm

The powerful winter storm system(s) that raged across the midsection of the country last week moved on to the northeast over the weekend and pummeled that section rather badly. Some ares got hit with as much as 18 inches of snow. Widespread ice and sleet was also reported. All this, and it still is not officially winter.

DETROIT - A pre-winter blend of snow, sleet and freezing rain cut visibility and iced over highways from the Great Lakes to New England, dumping up to a foot-and-a-half of snow, stranding air and road travelers and causing an airliner to skid off a runway.

School districts across the region — including Michigan's largest, in Detroit — canceled Monday classes.

Slippery roads were blamed for four weekend deaths in Indiana, two in Michigan and one each in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

The northern New York state community of Peru had 18 inches of snow, and high wind Monday morning whipped up fallen snow across the state, the National Weather Service said. In Michigan, Ann Arbor measured 10.5 inches and parts of Indiana had 14 inches.

Just out of curiosity, I looked up weather data from Watertown, up in the old stomping grounds of upstate New York.

…THE WATERTOWN CLIMATE SUMMARY FOR DECEMBER 16 2007…

CLIMATE NORMAL PERIOD 1971 TO 2000
CLIMATE RECORD PERIOD 1949 TO 2007

 WEATHER ITEM   OBSERVED TIME   RECORD YEAR NORMAL DEPARTURE LAST
                VALUE   (LST)  VALUE       VALUE  FROM      YEAR
                                                  NORMAL
…………………………………………………………
TEMPERATURE (F)
 YESTERDAY
  MAXIMUM         20    658 AM  54    1971  35    -15       43
  MINIMUM         12   1032 PM -20    1963  15     -3       32
  AVERAGE         16                        25     -9       38

PRECIPITATION (IN)
  YESTERDAY        0.32          1.00 1974   0.09   0.23     0.01
  MONTH TO DATE    1.89                      1.51   0.38     2.46
  SINCE DEC 1      1.89                      1.51   0.38     2.46
  SINCE JAN 1     29.46                     33.43  -3.97    36.30

SNOWFALL (IN)
  YESTERDAY       MM             7.6  1985

DEGREE DAYS
 HEATING
  YESTERDAY       49                        40      9       27
  MONTH TO DATE  701                       594    107      461
  SINCE DEC 1    701                       594    107      461
  SINCE JUL 1   2063                      2228   -165     1935

The layout is a bit hosed up, but you can get the general picture. It is cold up there, 15 degrees below the norm during the day. And heating degree days are well above average for this month. There are going to be some big heating bills up in that area. 

A Kinder, Gentler… Hillary?

Hillary Clinton's campaign is launching what can only be described as a full frontal assault to showcase her 'warmth.' No, really, she is. One gets the mental image of a battalion of blow-dryer wielding political operatives trying to melt an ice sculpture.

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, trying to warm up an image some voters perceive as cold, starts a drive Monday to showcase her personal side with testimonials from friends, associates and constituents she has helped.

The online and in-person campaign, complete with a website called TheHillaryIKnow.com, comes a day after Clinton won a key endorsement from The Des Moines Register and her chief rival in the Democratic nomination race, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, was endorsed by The Boston Globe……

…..Clinton had an unfavorable rating of 50% in a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll this month, compared with mid-30s for Obama and former North Carolina senator John Edwards. She was rated least friendly of the three in a recent Pew Research Center poll.

Taking steps to fix the problem, Clinton has brought her mother and daughter to Iowa and featured them in TV ads. One of Clinton's constituents, Shannon Mallozzi of East Northport, N.Y., was on her way there Sunday as part of the new campaign. Mallozzi has a 6-year-old daughter with an incurable brain disease called hydrocephalus. As she waited to catch a plane to Des Moines for two days of campaigning, she said she spent a half-hour with Clinton several years ago to describe the disease and ask how to encourage federal research.

"She made me feel like it was just two mothers" talking in her car, Mallozzi said, then worked with her to get action on the disease and checked up on her daughter's health. Mallozzi said she once viewed Clinton as aloof and remote, but "she's anything but that."

This should be amusing. "Bring up the charm catapults at once!" Somehow, I think this one is bound to backfire, yet again. Voters - even strong Democratic ones - are already uncomfortable with Hillary's political shape-shifting and non-stop pandering. This is unlikely to change anyone's mind - at least in the direct Hillary wants those minds changed.