Ezra Levant is a Canadian neo-con, and certainly no friend of liberty. The man simply hates muslims. He harshed on the muslims by publishing the infamous Danish cartoon of the prophet Mohammed (Wikipedia Entry).
For that, the Canadian government dragged Mr. Levant before an investigator who sought to determine his intent in publishing the cartoon. Ass hat or not, Mr. Levant masterfully handled the interview.
From what I’ve been able to find out about him, I don’t like Mr. Levant’s politics. But I can’t help but feel for him in this matter. It seems pretty clear from the circumstances that if Mr. Levant had answered “I published those cartoons to incite the genocide of those of Arab and Persian descent and achieve the dominance of the white race”, he pretty likely would have been brought up on charges (assuming the investigator believed him).
For those reading this blog who don’t know, I work in a law office where a number of our clients file claims of gender/race/disability/other forms of discrimination against their employers. One of the problems with the process that we go through in Massachusetts, which is largely copied from Federal law, is that since Massachusetts is a state that presumes at-will employment, the burden of proof is on the terminated employee to show that some specially recognized illegal rationale is behind the firing, like for reporting illegal activity in the workplace to the authority or trying to eliminate all the non-Christians in the office.
The problem with this process is that it lets some pretty bizarre situations fall through the cracks. A person could be fired because their boss genuinely believes that the fired employee left a cupcake with a birthday candle in it on the boss’ desk for them. A person could be fired because they completed a 30-day task in 14 days instead of the 12 days the boss required. A person could be fired because they couldn’t get along with an office bully who used all their political clout to make the workplace as unpleasant as possible (sexual harassment excluded). In addition, it leaves the enforcement of real discrimination spotty at best and based on which protected classes have more political clout at the moment.
A better way to handle these discrimination problems is to undo the backwards way these rules for terminating employment is set up. Employers in many states are already obligated under the law to act fairly and in good faith towards their employees. By requiring mildly credible reasons for the termination of an employee, not only can we eliminate illegitimate reasons for firing like discrimination and retaliation for whistleblowing, but we can also eliminate other less politically viable discriminations like obesity and plain ordinary unfair practices like the cupcake example mentioned above.
Hate crimes face the same problem. If the hate crime is serious enough, the underlying crime should be serious enough to charge them for without any sort of ‘enhancement’ based on an unpopular opinion the criminal might hold. If they aren’t, then the penalties for committing the underlying crimes need to be stiffened generally, not just for one politically unpopular group, even if they are rightfully unpopular. Narrow, politically-tailored exceptions to these sorts of general rules, especially when the goal is social engineering, have too many unintended consequences.
A few days ago, Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) noted, much to his dismay, that most great pop songs are, in fact, nothing more than random words and phrases stuck together. Being an entrepreneurial fella, Adams decided to co-opt his readers into writing random lines that would then be strung into a song. He then found a band to play the song.
She had runaway eyes and marshmallow kittens.
My heart heard a dream like ten thousand mittens.
A tear in her hand
She spread deja-vu all across the land.
br:
She spinned round and round with a frog in her ear
Whispering fountains and rocks she couldn’t hear
ch:
Oh, she amazed me!
With her love, she tazed me.
Oh, she amazed me!
And it escapes me
how she outer spaced me.
Too many times I have seen the thunder
Flashes of sound, soul-rending sunder
A letter colored blue…
Now the nine bells are ringin’ and singin’ it too
br:
She spinned round and round with a frog in her ear
Whispering fountains and rocks she couldn’t hear
ch:
Oh, she amazed me!
With her love, she tazed me.
Oh, she amazed me!
And it escapes me
how she outer spaced me.
br:
Little did she know they were coming too soon,
Both those kittens ran off to the moon
ch:
Oh, she amazed me!
With her love, she tazed me.
Oh, she amazed me!
And it escapes me
how she outer spaced me.
Oh, she amazed me!
With her love, she tazed me.
Oh, she amazed me!
With splendid reprisal, she took to the sky.
My tear drops asunder. No shadow. No cry.
Apple core ostriches dancing like fairies.
And it escapes me
how she outer spaced me.
That’s good stuff right there. I smell Grammy. And a slew of copyright lawsuits if the thing makes any money.
As every member of Generation X knows, the greatest Nintendo game ever made was Capcom’s Bionic Commando. A game that, sadly, never had a sequel nor any next generation sequels. However, Capcom announced a few months ago that it was creating a 3-D, Next Gen version of the game, and you can find info about that here. However, even better news than the awesome 3-D version is the fact that Capcom is also remaking the original—Bionic Commando Rearmed:
Man, I hope a Wii version for this comes out, or else I’m going to have to find a friend with an XBox…
“While the internet has made connecting with people easier, it has also made us lazier at establishing meaningful relationships. If you’re over 18 and you’re still using Facebook applications to let someone know you’re interested in them, you need to be punched in the face.”
– Brett McKay, on dating
One of the more frustrating things about living in Kansas is that when it comes to Presidential politics, my vote matters pretty much not at all. Granted, in the past elections I’ve voted in, I’ve either voted for the Libertarian or not at all, but one of the reasons for that is that Kansas pretty much reliably votes for the Republican, and during primary season, we had such a late primary that it wasn’t worth changing my Party registration to vote.
So imagine my surprise to learn that this year, Kansas is actually holding its Presidential caucuses on Super Tuesday. I had originally planned on going so that I could throw out a protest vote for Ron Paul. However, the recent revelation about Ron Paul’s racist newsletters, coupled with my vehement disagreements with him over abortion, immigration, and international institutions pretty much precluded that from happening.
So, on Feburary 5, I will be changing my Party affiliation to Democrat.
And voting for Barack Obama, the first politician in years that I don’t actively despise.
Currently, my bottle of scotch is an excellent find–an 18 year cask aged single malt from Talisker, which was a groomsman gift from my good friend (and former Heretic) Ben Carl on the occasion of his wedding. The scotch itself is coloured between a pale and old gold, and the initial aroma is citric and smoky, with hints of vanilla and honey. The texture of the scotch is smooth and clean in the mouth, and has a nice, sherry taste with hints of leather and tobacco. The finish lingers wonderfully in the mouth, with hints of lime and smoke in the aftertaste. This is one of the best scotches I’ve ever had.
So let me get this straight… Hillary Clinton took third in Iowa AND my beloved Jayhawks won the Orange Bowl? Now that’s what I call the start of a good year!
