(Click graphic for details.)
For my part, I’m focusing efforts on winning in the highly-coveted Best Feminist Blog category. It’s the same thing, really.

Binks;

During the event, Professor John Miller of Ryerson slagged Mark Steyn as a mere ‘polemicist’ and not a responsible journalist. As an example, he used Mark’s quoting of Ayatollah Khomeini from (he said) the now infamous Macleans article. Looks like he’s been trusting the citations of the SockPuppets, because as Steyn himself notes, it’s actually from the Maclean’s article ‘Celebrate tolerance, or you’re dead‘.
Miller asserted that after a thorough Internet search, he found the Khomeini quote only in one comment on one [echh, ptui] blog.
Meanwhile, Ezra was surfing online, and interrupted a minute later to point out he’d just then Googled 100+ references to the quote in question, including one from the eminently liberal Harper’s Magazine, 1985. Public pantsing accomplished.
The point isn’t the fact that Ezra scored a point, but that the new media mindset is different. “Fact? Fact-check. Don’t take old media or other political speech as taken for granted. Dig around; check the sources.” In leading up to this presentation– for which Dr. Miller and others presumably had week and weeks to prepare, why didn’t a journalism professor know how to Google and fact-check on the internet?

(Because everything he knows about journalism, he lurned by reading the New York Times.)
Lots more freespeechy goodness today there and at FFoF, where, if you search the fine print, you’ll discover she has a new book out.

Kill The Christian.
You are the one we despise
Day in day out your words compromise lies
I will love watching you die
Soon it will be and by your own demise
Buried in hypocrisy
Lacerate your faith in God
Morally diseased
On the cross of Calvary your body bashed defeated stabbed
Blessing as you hate
Loyal to your enemies
Monetary faith
As him you will pay for the lies of your prophecy
Satan wants you dead
Kill the Christian, kill the Christian
Kill the Christian, kill the Christian
Kill the Christian, kill the Christian, kill the Christian
Armies of darkness unite
Destroy their temples and churches with fire
Where in this world will you hide
Sentenced to death, the anointment of Christ
In due time your path leads to me
Put you out of your misery
The death of prediction
Kill the Christian
Kill the Christian, dead!
Feel free to republish this at will, because, as we all know, no Christian has ever been attacked, killed, or prosecuted on the basis of their faith.
h/t

“… they have added another day to September.”

Like that was likely to work.

“I am a Canadian,
a free Canadian,
free to speak without fear,
free to worship God in my own way,
free to stand for what I think right,
free to oppose what I believe wrong,
free to choose those who shall govern my country.
This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold
for myself and for all mankind.”
Flea – “He never added the caveat, ‘so long as nobody might be offended'”.
Join the election day blogburst!

Their Marsupial Majesties at the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal have dismissed El-Mo’s complaint against Maclean’s and voted unanimously to acquit the hatemongers.

Andrew Coyne – “Aw nuts, we won.”
Related!

Will B’nai Brith offices be raided and computers seized?

Will their hard drives be forwarded on the CHRC and the complainant? Will their emails be hacked and portions posted on the net?

Indeed. An embarrassing Globe and Mail piece in which the readers know more about the topic than the writer.
Update – BCF tries to keep up with the G&M comments dance. Perhaps someone threatened to sue?

Was the Canadian Muslim community suckered by the CHRC?

Stageleft comments on Joesph Brean’s article on the HRC’s definition of their purview.

There are a lot of unpopular thoughts out there folks, a lot of narrow mindedness, a lot of bigotry, and a lot of racism, and it needs to be confronted head-on using facts, reality, mockery, and ridicule – not by authoritarian commissions that are already allowing themselves to be willingly misused telling us what we can and cannot say, and decided what is, or is not, in or out of bounds.

Cheers,
lance

I hope this leads to actual reform, though I’ll miss the redirected CPC donations.
Related – Backing themselves into a closet, the CHRC moves closing arguments on the Lemire case to a smaller venue. Like that’s going to save them.

Complete this form, and without even breaking a sweat, you’ll have communicated or caused to be so communicated, repeatedly, in whole or in part by means of the facilities of a telecommunication undertaking within the legislative authority of Parliament, a matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.

Or, join the team at CHRC, and get paid for it!
h/t

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
August 10, 2008
Dear Mr. Lemire:
This letter is to report the results of our investigation of your Privacy Act complaint against the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC). You stated in a letter received in our office on July 8, 2008, that the CHRC failed to grant you access to personal information you sought to obtain under the Act.
Our investigation confirmed that the CHRC received your request for access to your personal information on April 18, 2008. … On May 15, 2008, the CHRC refused you access to the requested information …
… The investigation confirmed that the transcribed transcripts of this hearing was under the control of the CHRC at the time of your request and, as such, the CHRC was required to process it and provide you with your personal information where it exists, subject to exemptions.
Under the circumstances, I am of the view that your complaint that the CHRC denied you access to personal information is well-founded and the CHRC has been so informed….
Section 41 of the Privacy Act provides a right to apply to the Federal Court of Canada for review of the decision of a government institution to refuse to provide access to personal information. (goes on to describe the Federal Court Appeal process, etc)
Yours sincerely,
(signed)
Joyce McLean
Acting Director General
Investigations and Inquiries Branch

BCF explains;

This is the same trial transcript the Canadian Human Rights Commission claimed didn’t exist but then “doctored” and shopped around to journalists in an attempt to cover their lies.

Forwarded via email;

The Ontario College of Physicians and surgeons has posted a draft policy that has the potential to have a serious adverse impact on the exercise of freedom of conscience by physicians. It appears that this policy was posted on 26 June, 2008, without a news release to announce it. The deadline for responses is 15 August, 2008. I learned of this today as a result of a call from a concerned physician.
I will be e-mailing and faxing the College to ask that the deadline be extended, as most of the people most likely to be affected are probably unaware of this. It is unreasonable to post such an important document at the beginning of summer, without an announcement, and allow only six weeks for responses. The College could not have been unaware that groups like Canadian Physicians for Life would want to review and comment on the document.

From the news release;

The document responds to legislative changes, which, according to the Chair of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, will see a twenty-fold increase in hearings before the Tribunal – from 150 to 3,000 cases per year.
According to the College, the Tribunal may take action against a physician who refuses to provide or refer for procedures that he finds morally objectionable. The College strongly suggests that the physician’s freedom of conscience and religion will be ignored because “there is no defence for refusing to provide a service” in such circumstances.
In addition to the possibility of prosecution by the Human Rights Tribunal, the College states that it will consider the Human Rights Code in adjudicating complaints of professional misconduct, even though the College admits that it lacks the expertise and authority in human rights.

Key Sections of draft policy.

Free Dominion;

A year ago, this August 7, 2008 letter from Paul Fromm (which better explains what I have written above) would probably have had no significant impact on a CHRT hearing, but today it is causing amazing reactions.
As a start, for the first time in its history, the CHRC is backing off a Section 13 that they have taken all the way to a scheduled hearing. The CHRC responded to the Paul Fromm letter with two letters of their own to the CHRT informing the tribunal that it (the CHRC) would no longer be prosecuting this case and that they would not be attending the August 18 hearing in Hamilton.
But the hearing chairman, Athanasios Hajis, is not going to let them off the hook so easily. In a reply letter Mr. Hajis told the CHRC that he expects them to appear at the hearing and he expects them to explain exactly why they are backing out at this last possible hour.

[see pdf’s at the link]

I now realize that I was in Canada, where only politically correct speech is protected.
I was in Canada, the land of cultural relativism, where the most important value is tolerance. Criticizing any other country or culture is a breach of the now distorted policy of multiculturalism. Now, I would pay the price.
If I had only known how big a price.
A young man came in and sat in the second row. He picked up a copy of my book from the table, took a perfunctory look at it, and started interrupting me.
“You think all Muslims are terrorists,” he asserted.
“I do not,” I replied, as categorically as possible.
“Well, that’s what your book says,” he retorted.
It looked to me as if he had just taken a few glances at it, so I replied: “Have you read my book?” He paused and then said, “Part.”
I decided not to take him seriously and I continued. Another mistake.
Suddenly a man appeared, standing off to my left, and started into a rant. It was something about how the Americans and the Israelis are the real terrorists, and that democracy is really fascist. He was scary.
University of Waterloo Professor Dennis Stoutenburg was there and tried to calm the man.
“Sir, this is a lecture. Why don’t you sit down and listen?”
Another mistake.

Read the rest.
(h/t soup)