My latest piece at Redstate.

National Post:

Sumo suits, the plastic novelties that can transform a skinny sports fan into a comically unstable sphere for the delight of a stadium audience, are racist and dehumanizing instruments of oppression, according to the student government of Queen’s University.
They “appropriate an aspect of Japanese culture,” turn a racial identity into a “costume,” and “devalue an ancient and respected Japanese sport, which is rich in history and cultural tradition.” They also “fail to capture the deeply embedded histories of violent and subversive oppression that a group has faced.”

Yes, who does not condemn the “violent and subversive [sic] oppression” that sumo wrestlers have struggled against?

You guys are just making stuff up as you go along, right? Right?

[ . . . ]

“We would never want to host an event that would offend some members,” Mr. [student union communications officer Brendan] Sloan said.

Last year, in a story that made national headlines, the Queen’s administration appointed six “dialogue facilitators” to promote discussion of social justice, partly by intervening in conversations when they overhear offensive speech. The resulting scandal led to the appointment of an expert panel, including a former head of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which cancelled the program as “incompatible with the atmosphere required for free speech.”

The student government was to meet last night to discuss another fun activity as a replacement for the sumo suits, Mr. Sloan said.

Might I suggest a torchlit parade, followed by a jolly book-barbeque and a few rousing choruses of the “Horst-Wessel-Lied”?

March 29, 2010

Nothing “Christian” about the Christian militia groups

By Bryan Fischer

You will have read by now about the arrests of nine members of a militia group calling itself the Hutaree, a group which claims to be a Christian group and liberally sprinkles Bible verses around its website.

Unfortunately, it is Christian only in name but not in fact.

The Hutaree regard local, state and federal law enforcement as their enemy, and were apparently preparing to ambush one innocent law enforcement officer and then used improvised explosive devices to blow up the vehicles of the law enforcement officials who attended the funeral of the first victim.

Nothing about this is Christian. In fact, we are explicitly forbidden, in Romans 12:19, from taking matters of justice into our own hands as the Hutaree were prepared to do. “Never,” says the apostle, “avenge yourselves.”

According to the next paragraph in Paul’s flow of thought, God has delegated his authority to civil magistrates to carry out justice on our behalf. The public servant “is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the evildoer (Romans 13:4).”

This is the obvious biblical antidote to civil chaos and total anarchy. If men take matters of justice into their own hands, violence and bloodshed are the inevitable result. But if government uses its God-ordained power, including lethal power when necessary (”he does not bear the sword in vain” according to Romans 13:4), to punish those who infringe on the life, liberty or property of their fellow citizens, justice will be done and order and peace can be maintained in society.

The bottom line here is that as flawed as our law enforcement officials and judges may be, they and they alone have been entrusted by God with his authority to punish evil and criminal behavior. He has never entrusted that power to the Hutaree. Thus their efforts are not Christian in the least, but rather the efforts of anarchists. Their actions are utterly without divine sanction, and the Scriptures could hardly be clearer on the subject.

As Paul says, “whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment (Romans 13:2).” The Hutaree have resisted, and now must face judgment. And they have only themselves to blame for ignoring the plain teaching of Scripture.

© Bryan Fischer

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/fischer/100329

Is it me or does it read just like “a distancing” from a Muslim terrorist group. Just slap in a few Koran quotes instead of biblical ones and you are done. Lets face it, these nuts in the woods were Christians who were preparing for Armageddon. They were inspired by the Bible to do what they do. Coming up with weasel ways of saying “they weren’t actually Christians” comes across as a bit bizarre to the rest of us.

More over at Stratfor on this lot.

The plane slowed and leveled out about a mile aboveground. Up ahead, the Viennese castle glowed like a fairy tale palace. When the pilot gave the thumbs-up, Gerald Blanchard looked down, checked his parachute straps, and jumped into the darkness. He plummeted for a second, then pulled his cord, slowing to a nice descent toward the tiled roof. It was early June 1998, and the evening wind was warm. If it kept cooperating, Blanchard would touch down directly above the room that held the Koechert Diamond Pearl. He steered his parachute toward his target.

Wired magazine has a long and fascinating piece on a (now-retired) Canadian conman and cat-burglar (does anyone still use that term?). You get the feeling that people are shopping screenplays around as we speak.

I bought my first drum machine a Panasonic something-or-other. It was pretty basic, with only three instruments — the snare, bass drum and cymbal and four or six preset rhythms. You could also play it manually by tapping on three tiny buttons. If you would guess that playing the “drums” with such a setup would be difficult, you would be correct. By way of comparison, my present drum machine has some 400 preset sampled drum patterns, and another 400 slots you can add new ones to; 16 full drum kits; room to store up to 99 complete songs; and 7 large switchable force-sensitive keypads. I still wouldn’t want to attempt playing real-time drums, though I imagine I could make an unholy — if erratic — racket with it.

I kind of liked this song — so much so, that I restarted it a couple of minutes in, when I decided that my posture — probably on the couch, flat on my back — wasn’t consonant with best performance standards. The verses aren’t anything special, but the chorus had a nice melody.

Book Review: The Caliphate by Andre Le Gallo

The male Tory activist’s… election night might be hard (or rather not) for them.

For reasons I am not quite sure of, I never posted by review of this CD on the blog, merely popping it on Gronk’s page on Facebook. He has a new solo release in the form of Long Way Round. Its a rather varied release which takes into focus his rather wide-ranging song-writing style. There is something for everyone, despite the fact the CD runs on the mellow side. There is no whiney angst on show here, but a more introspective solo style. Not a party CD, but a mellow evening with a bottle of wine type of release. Even better would be see him play it live in some smokey venue across the land.

Of particular faves are “Wanderlust”, “Good Morning Carolina” and the title track. I have said it before and I meant it. Why the hell do some of those droning dreary singer-songwriter types have deals and this guy is yet unsigned? On a limited budget he produces better results than many a major-label release. Gronk’s songwriting would fit in anywhere, New York, London, Nashville or anywhere else good music is appreciated. If are a major label artist and need a co-songwriter seek the guy out.

While it might not be my normal column’s fare, it certainly rates with me.

We’re hearing a good deal of noise from the GOP about repealing this healthcare monster recently inflicted on us. Certainly, there are number of those in the GOP who think to use calls for such a repeal to reestablish their credibility amongst conservatives. Indeed, it looks from here that the ones screaming the loudest about it are the very ones who feel their seats most threatened by the right. You can understand why… it’s quite popular just now with Rasmussen saying around 55% of Americans want the thing repealed.

There are fourteen different Attorneys General leveling lawsuits against the Federal government (including, interestingly, Buddy Caldwell a Louisiana Democrat.) It’s interesting to note that the majority of these people are running for governor of their respective states. There are several Senators who feel their seats threatened also. John McCain is one of the more glaring examples. That’s interesting given the role he’s had in enabling the Democrats in their pursuits.

For all those noises, though and regardless of the source of the calls for repeal, the reality is that we likely will never see this thing repealed. There’s a couple reasons for that.

First….

In my admittedly fast and dirty search of history, I can find no instance at all of Republicans ever mounting a successful legislative effort to eliminate an entitlement. None.

OK, I admit that the courts have been of some use to that end. Thing is, the Supreme Court rulings, particularly, tend to be scalpels, and not the machetes that legislation tends to be. The likelihood is that the Supreme Court will never overturn the whole of Obamacare, either. So all that’s left to get the thing off the books is the GOP in Congress. Even assuming they regain both houses this November, on what basis do we assume the GOP legislators will run afoul of that 70 years of history?

Second….

Consider the Obama agenda which next will focus on what we laughingly call immigration reform, otherwise known as ‘Amnesty”. A lot of folks have remarked that the Democrats seemingly ignored the will of the people to ram this thing through. Why would they do that, after decades of governing by means of the ’finger in the pollster wind”?

The reason’s a simple one: They’re not legislating for the current electorate, but the one that will be in place following Amnesty being signed into law.

Estimates are that there will be between 15 and 30 million new Democrat voters following ‘immigration reform”. The logical assumption is that such people will become lifelong Democrat voters. Those kind of numbers will effectively wipe out any backlash against the Democrats for the Healthcare monster Obama’s created.

So, even assuming that Republicans currently in power were going to break with their own history and had the will to remove this Healthcare monster from the books, such efforts would be overwhelmed by the huge number of freshly created Democrat party voters, by way of amnesty.

Bottom line: The chances of such a repeal happening are very slight indeed… which explains the smiles all around the left side of the house floor the other day.

Kevin Jackson kicks some arse and takes names. I wonder if he can spare a bit of his spine to lend to Steele over at the RNC.

Kevin Jackson is the author of Big Black Lie.

Cantor, who is Jewish, had a press conference to call for a stop to the baiting from the Democratic leadership.

I ask that over at PJM. Can the tea party movement stand the failure that was their last battle against Obamacare?

The Globe and Mail:

Liberal attempts to ignite muffled anti-abortion sentiment on Conservative benches and foster doubts about the social policies of Prime Minister Stephen Harper have been foiled from within.

A motion by Liberal MP Bob Rae demanding that the government’s maternal and child health initiative for the world’s poorest regions include “the full range of reproductive health options”� was defeated by a vote of 144-138 yesterday when three Liberal MPs - all long-time opponents of abortion - voted against it.

The Tories immediately pounced on the result, saying it shows Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff does not have control of his own caucus.

There was much talk during the day about the wording of the motion, which did not specifically reference abortion. The New Democrats said that was a capitulation to the dissent within Liberal ranks.

Liberal MP Paul Szabo, who voted against the motion, told LifeSiteNews.com that he was caught off-guard by the topic of the motion, which, he said, was not raised at the party caucus meeting.

“I am a pro-life MP,”� said Mr. Szabo, “and there are many of my colleagues in the Liberal caucus who will protect the unborn in their decisions as parliamentarians, and should matters come before the House, they will continue to act accordingly.”

Mr. Rae said the party understands that it is not up to Canada to dictate the reproductive policies of other countries.

But, he told reporters, the Conservative government must make clear whether it intends to cut off funding to those international development groups that fund and facilitate abortion and other forms of contraception.

No, you don’t seem to understand how the world works. As I’ve mentioned before, I lived in Mali, West Africa for two years back in the ’70s. At the time it wasn’t even considered part of the Third World - it, along with other basketcases like Bangladesh and North Korea were consigned to Fourth World status. Per capita annual income was a
pitiful sub-$100 (U.S.). It’s since risen to around $1500, largely because in the ’90s they ditched the ruinous socialist policies so beloved of Mr. Rae and his comrades.

Mali is also an Islamic country (albeit a very tolerant one) and doubtlessly forbids abortion on that basis alone; but let us leave religious arguments out of this altogether.

The simple fact is this: In a country so disastrously poor, children are the only wealth available to ordinary people. They work on the farm or in the family business and typically stay in the household even after marriage, contributing to the family. They alone will care for aging parents — there are no pensions nor retirement villages. So Rae’s proposal is the equivalent of ripping up pensioners’ old age cheques.

Somehow the subject never came up; but had I suggested it, I suspect the Malians would have regarded me with incomprehension and fear, as though I had suddenly sprouted goat horns and a rotating third eye on my forehead. Then they would have kicked my ass around the block.

So I think that it’s important that Bob Rae immediately embarks on a foreign tour to sell his wonderful scheme. And take Hedy Fry with you.

A new libertarian carnival is up. There is a Britblog carnival up as well. Here is the new Haveil Havalim.

Music Reviews: Cypher 16, Savatage, Raven, Jonny Lang, Axel Rudi Pell

A woman goes to her doctor’s office, to discuss a strange development. She has discovered a green spot on the inside of each thigh. They won’t wash off, they won’t scrape off, and they seem to be getting worse.

The doctor assures her he’ll get to the bottom of the problem, and tells her not to worry until he gets the tests back.

A few days later, the woman’s phone rings. Much to her relief, it’s the doctor. She immediately begs to know what’s causing the spots.

The doctor says, “You’re perfectly healthy–there’s no problem. But I’m wondering, was your boyfriend that Harley guy in the waiting room?”

The woman stammers, “Why, yes, but how did you know?”

“Tell him his earrings aren’t real gold.”

Via Miss Cellania

Over at Amazon.

Book Review: The Luck Factor by Max Gunther

He is a fucking treasure isn’t he?

If the link does not work head here.

I gave my cousin his first guitar. At least I hope I didn’t charge any money for it. When he was fourteen or fifteen or thereabouts his mother asked me if I’d sell her one of my old guitars, to give to my cousin for a birthday present.

As a bonus, I decided to refinish it. after attacking it for a couple of days with everything in my arsenal including a power sander, I was forced to conclude that the original finish was made of material intended for the heat tiles on the space shuttle. I had it about half-sanded off when I gave up. I painted the remainder with ordinary deck stain. My God, this surely would have qualified as a war crime, if anyone cared about cheap guitars, that is. Like I said, I hope she didn’t give me any money for it.

Fast forward a couple of years, and my cousin has now found himself an electric guitar. We were living on opposite ends of the city, so didn’t see each other that often; but the first time I was over he treated me to a screaming heavy-metal version of the “Hockey Night In Canada” theme. That was impressive enough; but he also seemed to have mastered every guitar lick that AC/DC and Rush had ever recorded, and a few that they probably had rejected as “too difficult.”

A few years later, one day I asked my cousin what had become of the guitar. “That old thing? I got into an argument with (his younger brother) Marty and smashed it over his head.”

This was recorded, as best as I can place, around the beginning of 1980 (these early tapes are somewhat mixed up chronologically). I know it rekindled my interest in songwriting, because there was suddenly someone in the picture with far more musical chops than me. This song was largely improvised (ya think?) and got its title from the fact that I was, indeed, singing into a silver bowl. (Actually, a large — about two feet in diameter — aluminum salad bowl). I figured it’d add some resonance to my vocal (it didn’t) and more importantly, it disguised the fact that I was — so to speak — singing in public, which kind of weirded me out at the time.

Oh, that strange young fellow at the beginning, shouting lame jokes, incomprehensible ravings and manical laughter? That would be Marty, trying to do my job before I could wrest the mike away. So you can see why he was getting occasionally clonked in the head with guitars. You never ever steal the frontman’s spotlight (even if he’s hiding behind a salad bowl at the time).

And here is the latest Haveil Havalim. There is a Libertarian Round-up.

And there is finally a new Shire News Network.

Alas, they don’t seem to realise that the tea parties are videos just in case the socialists and their media chums try to peddle this rubbish. Brutally Honest examines this as well.

Needless to say, Big Hollywood, in one the case.

He is against it rather strongly in fact. He admits to voting Obama and comes very close to saying he regrets it. As per normal talks sense and makes things interesting for the host.

I come up in conversation twice thanks to an interview I did with host Stephen Green. Its an amusing discussion of the so-called Coffee Party and just how genuine it is.

NB: For the record I am not an atheist, I am a deist like Jefferson and his ilk.