Mid-Week Post

Note to self: dig out from under snow.


Because liberals assume adults are children and can be easily confused and coddled, Sarah Palin takes the high road and, instead of wildly accusing people or pretending to be a savior of all because his presidency is failing (who could that be, I wonder?), she says this:

Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions.  And after the election, we shake hands and get back to work, and often both sides find common ground back in D.C. and elsewhere. If you don’t like a person’s vision for the country, you’re free to debate that vision. If you don’t like their ideas, you’re free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

There are those who claim political rhetoric is to blame for the despicable act of this deranged, apparently apolitical criminal. And they claim political debate has somehow gotten more heated just recently. But when was it less heated? Back in those “calm days” when political figures literally settled their differences with dueling pistols? In an ideal world all discourse would be civil and all disagreements cordial. But our Founding Fathers knew they weren’t designing a system for perfect men and women. If men and women were angels, there would be no need for government. Our Founders’ genius was to design a system that helped settle the inevitable conflicts caused by our imperfect passions in civil ways. So, we must condemn violence if our Republic is to endure.

As I said while campaigning for others last March in Arizona during a very heated primary race, “We know violence isn’t the answer. When we ‘take up our arms’, we’re talking about our vote.” Yes, our debates are full of passion, but we settle our political differences respectfully at the ballot box – as we did just two months ago, and as our Republic enables us to do again in the next election, and the next. That’s who we are as Americans and how we were meant to be. Public discourse and debate isn’t a sign of crisis, but of our enduring strength. It is part of why America is exceptional. 

No one should be deterred from speaking up and speaking out in peaceful dissent, and we certainly must not be deterred by those who embrace evil and call it good. And we will not be stopped from celebrating the greatness of our country and our foundational freedoms by those who mock its greatness by being intolerant of differing opinion and seeking to muzzle dissent with shrill cries of imagined insults.

Class under fire. Please note the obvious violent imagery in the previous statement.


Related: Charles Krauthammer weighs in.


In other news, one Quebec chef will not stuff it- with truffles:

When the folks at the National Capital Commission signed up chef Martin Picard to host a gala dinner in Ottawa next month, they knew exactly what they were getting. This was the self-described wild chef who gleefully demonstrated the preferred preparation of moose testicles on his TV cooking show and made foie gras poutine the signature dish at his Montreal restaurant, Au Pied de Cochon. 

"With Martin Picard, I'm sure foie gras will be on the menu," the NCC's Andree-Anne Bonin told the Ottawa Citizen when the event was announced in December. "We can't do Martin Picard without foie gras." 

Well, not unless a handful of animal-rights activists unhappy with the treatment of ducks in foie-gras production kick up a stink, in which case you inform Mr. Picard to leave the delicacy in Montreal. 

On Monday, the federal commission announced that Mr. Picard had withdrawn from the Taste of Winterlude event rather than be told what he was allowed to serve.

I don't care one way or another about foie gras. I do care that even the food one may or may not eat is subject to the thin-skinned scrutiny of animal fetishists and the people who are afraid of them. Something fortifies Mr. Picard, something iron (or with iron).

Make it so, other Picard.

Are Chinese mothers meaner? My experience has taught me that Asian mothers drive their children to the brink of near-breakdown in pursuit of excellence. Children should be children. They should also be taught valuable life skills, trades, manners, values and even how to dress, something Western parents have largely forgotten to do. Before decrying those "Asian hordes" and their terrible parenting skills, ask why little Brady/Cady/Hayley/Bailey/Montana/Madison still has trouble spelling their trend name at age ten. Is this your future astronaut?


I'm sure he didn't mean to do that:

A Muslim policeman shot dead an Egyptian Christian on a train on Tuesday and wounded five others, sources said, less than two weeks after a church was bombed in Egypt's deadliest attack on Christians in years. The shooting is likely to stoke tensions in the Muslim majority country, where Christians protested for several days after the Jan. 1 bombing of a church in Alexandria that killed up to 23 people. Christians make up a tenth of Egypt's 79 million people and have long complained of unfair treatment. They have accused the government of not doing enough to protect them. A security source confirmed one Christian had been shot dead and said the attacker was a Muslim police officer. An Interior Ministry statement named the attacker as officer Amer Ashour Abdel-Zaher.

I'm sure there was some violent rhetoric involved but it was never related to an imam.

 

Some people have no shame:

 

In commenting on the the Halton District Catholic School Board's ban on the gay rights groups, Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association president James Ryan is wrong when he says: "Catholic schools are every bit opposed to homophobia as non-Catholic schools are." 

He certainly speaks for his own group, whose relative gay-friendliness is frequently slammed by hard-core Catholic groups like Life- SiteNews.com.I suspect he also speaks for the majority of Catholic families and students, who share mainstream Canada's well known gay tolerance. He clearly does not, however, speak for those running the Catholic schools or for the Catholic religious Magisterium pulling their strings behind the scenes. They consider homosexual inclination "objectively disordered," as stipulated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. They believe in the Catechism's call to chastity for homosexual persons. For them, tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality must be shown no quarter in the publicly funded Catholic school system -- even though most members of that paying public are tolerant of homosexuality. 

Ontario should ends its support for the discriminatory Catholic school system and move toward one school system equally accessible to all.

I'm sure he wouldn't be saying that if taxpayers happily funded his crap. This selfish individual wants to push his politics on students who should be studying, not marching to his tune. He can deal with students hu typ lyk dis 4evah. Apparently, special interests take precedence over moulding kids into productive human beings.