Friday Freakout

So much has happened in such a short space of time.


Geert Wilders has been acquitted, Rob Ford still refuses to forsake his vacation for a bunch of Nazis rather vocal special-interest group, feminists can rejoice as the glass ceiling of genocide has finally been breached, and the NDP show why people have had it up to their eyebrows with politics and overfed unions.


First, Geert Wilders:

Dutch populist politician Geert Wilders was acquitted of inciting hatred of Muslims in a court ruling on Thursday that may strengthen his political influence and exacerbate tensions over immigration policy.


The case was seen by some as a test of free speech in a country which has a long tradition of tolerance and blunt talk, but where opposition to immigration, particularly from Muslim or predominantly Muslim countries, is on the rise....

The presiding judge said Wilders's remarks were sometimes "hurtful," "shocking" or "offensive," but that they were made in the context of a public debate about Muslim integration and multi-culturalism, and therefore not a criminal act.

"I am extremely pleased and happy," Wilders told reporters after the ruling. "This is not so much a win for myself, but a victory for freedom of speech. Fortunately you can criticize Islam and not be gagged in public debate."

The fact that you can not only take this man to court for what should be obvious to the Dutch and then attempt to hang him with it is beyond insanity.


Mark Steyn says it better:

Nevertheless, as in all these cases, the process is the punishment. The intent is to make it more and more difficult for apostates of the multiculti state to broaden the terms of political discourse. Very few Europeans would have had the stomach to go through what Wilders did — and the British Government’s refusal to permit a Dutch Member of Parliament to land at Heathrow testifies to how easily the craven squishes of the broader political culture fall into line.

And at the end the awkward fact remains: Geert Wilders lives under 24-hour armed guard because of explicit death threats made against him by the killer of Theo van Gogh and by other Muslims. Yet he’s the one who gets puts on trial.

Barbara Kay on Rob Ford:

The knives that are out for Mr. Ford have nothing to do with this particular decision, though. The exaltation of homosexuality is second only to the reverence paid to unfettered abortion as a litmus test for political correctness amongst our cognitive and cultural elites. Rob Ford’s sin is that he does not believe in mixing politics with sexuality pride. Rob Ford is not a homophobe, but nor on the other hand does he think it is any particular honour to be homosexual. Many Canadians not schooled in the catechism of gender correctness agree with him.

It's ridiculous enough that the homosexual subculture has been so elevated to the status of an endangered species or the Dalai Lama that they deserve an entire week before Canada Day (or else!) but that they can demand your attendance to their simulated sex-fest parade. It isn't tolerance they want; it's acceptance at a choke hold.


A Rwandan woman becomes the first woman convicted of genocide:

The U.N. war crimes tribunal for Rwanda sentenced former minister Pauline Nyiramasuhuko to life in prison on Friday, the first time a woman has been found guilty of genocide by an international court.


The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) found Pauline Nyiramasuhuko and her son, Arsene Shalom Ntahobali, who was also jailed for life, guilty of atrocities committed in Rwanda's southern Butare region during the 1994 massacre.

"The chamber convicts Pauline Nyiramasuhuko of conspiracy to commit genocide, crimes against humanity, extermination, rape, persecution and ... and violence to life and outrages upon personal dignity," read the ruling by the trial's three judges.

"She is sentenced to life imprisonment."

Nyiramasuhuko, 65, and a former families minister, was found guilty of seven out of 11 charges. The trial lasted 10 years.

Ethnic Hutu militia and soldiers butchered 800,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus over 100 days between April and June 1994.

In its verdict, the court said Nyiramasuhuko was guilty of genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity for ordering the killing of scores of Tutsis taking refuge from the slaughter at a local government office in Butare.

I'm sure there is a white liberal feminist out there to find this a perverse milestone. I guess not all women are "maternal" or "caring", are they?



The NDP's pointless filibuster:

At any given time there are less than 50 MPs taking part in the debate and few have been present the whole time. But there were signs that the much ballyhooed outbreak of civility is wearing thin.....

A bit of light relief ensued around hour 18 when Ruth Ellen Brosseau, who spent much of the election in Las Vegas, made her maiden speech and proved she can at least read French. It turned out that her facility with the language was less dexterous when she didn’t have a text in front of her and she reverted to English to answer questions. Her solution to the knotty problem of collective bargaining was simple — “Let’s work together. Let’s just do it,” she said — en anglais.

Bob Rae summed up the whole ludicrous situation quite nicely when he called the NDP’s stance “shambolism,” defined as a symbolic act that is a sham. He dismissed the filibuster as two ideological parties locking horns, which is about right. Unfortunately for Mr. Rae, he comes across like the medieval knight in the Far Side cartoon, who rises above the melee of swords and maces to shout: “Stop this or someone’s going to get hurt.” The someone is probably Mr. Rae...

But while the filibuster is a sham and merely symbolic, symbolism matters. Jack Layton’s party has shown that it is prepared to speak up for its supporters and offer an alternative vision of how the country should be run.

For those that feel the government has violated the postal union’s collective bargaining rights, the NDP’s stand is a virtuous one.

For the (one suspects) far greater number of Canadians who see no reason why the taxpayer should continue to subsidize the banking of sick days by lavish union benefit plans, the prospect of the pro-big labour NDP running the country one day is a scary prospect indeed.

Harper inadvertently sums up what the nation thinks about all of this:

Opposition parties kept debate going all Thursday night in Parliament on a bill to force an end to a postal-service work stoppage, while Prime Minister Stephen Harper slept on his office couch and a legislator serenaded colleagues in the lobby with a guitar .

Remember, the cheap shoes just aren't worth it:

An activist for democracy who was released from prison and deported to the United States is vowing to continue her campaign for human rights in Vietnam.

Tran Khai Thanh Thuy arrived in San Francisco with her teenage daughter on Thursday, a day after Vietnam released the dissident writer on humanitarian grounds after she spent more than a year in prison.

Thuy is among a small circle of dissidents in Vietnam who have promoted a multiparty system, which is not tolerated by the Communist government.

Last year, Thuy was convicted of assaulting two people in a traffic dispute outside her Hanoi home and sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison.

In an interview Friday, she accused the authorities of fabricating the charges to punish her for her political activities.

No, China, the head of operations for the Catholic Church is in Rome, not in Beijing:

The Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), the government controlled church in the PRC, announced that it wants to ordain more than 40 bishops to fill vacancies in dioceses.

The Vatican has deemed the ordinations "illicit," and Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said this represents "a grave violation of freedom of religion and freedom of conscience." 

(hat tip)



Cool:

A small, remote-controlled camera lowered into an early Mayan tomb in southern Mexico has revealed an apparently intact funeral chamber with offerings and red-painted wall murals, researchers said Thursday.

Footage of the approximately 1,500-year-old tomb at the Palenque archaeological site showed a series of nine figures depicted in black on a vivid, blood-red background. Archaeologists say the images from one of the earliest ruler's tombs found at Palenque will shed new light on the early years of the once-great city state.

Just one more thing....