THE SIGHT — beautiful beyond words — of Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean holding a bloody piece of raw seal heart in her viceregal mouth has convinced me to abandon my long-held republican beliefs and half-heartedly embrace the monarchy.
[…]
I had already started to think we should move slowly — and politely — away from the Royal Family while maintaining the formal structure of a constitutional monarchy.

Then, on Tuesday, I awoke to read about Ms. Jean, our head of state, and her visit to Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, where she helped butcher a seal with an ulu, the traditional knife of Inuit women, then ate the raw flesh of the creature’s heart.

She pronounced it delicious — which is likely a white lie — and I became a monarchist.

Our head of state eats raw seal meat. Take that, European Union parliamentarians.

On the other hand, it’s obvious that one Chronicle-Herald headline-writer strongly disagrees with Mr Maher.

Animal rights groups outraged by Governor General ‘s seal antics

“Antics”?

PC SENSITIVITIES must not block efforts to protect women from forced marriage and violence, a leading Muslim peer said yesterday.

Sayeeda Warsi believes “white liberalism” – the belief people cannot talk about such matters because there are sensitive religious and minority group issues involved – has stopped politicians from making it clear that it is unacceptable to force women into marriage.
[…]
“It is the worst form of discrimination because it’s saying that brown and black girls who get taken overseas to be subjected to forced marriage can be overlooked. But if this was happening to young white girls we’d be up in arms about it.”

Baroness Warsi maintains that forced marriage is contrary to civilised society and not a legitimate practice of any religion.

The 38-year-old peer was recently named the most powerful Muslim woman in the UK.

h/t: International Campaign Against Honour Killings

The Cinderella Effect is the name given to analysis in Canada, the US and Britain which suggests that children are at far greater risk from stepfathers and non-blood “relatives” than from natural parents. Detailed Canadian research over 20 years has put the risk of being killed by a stepparent at between 50 to 100 times greater than the risk of being killed by a parent. A 1989 study by the University of Iowa found non-biological fathers four times more likely than natural fathers to sexually abuse children in their care.

In Britain, NSPCC research has found that children living with biological parents are between 20 and 33 times safer than those living in any other type of household – despite the NSPCC being inclined to play down family breakdown.

Poverty must surely be a factor. But the American researchers Daly and Wilson, who have done the most detailed work on this subject, say that poverty pales into insignificance compared with “the presence of a step-parent, which is the best epidemiological predictor of child abuse yet discovered”.

Not only are children generally safer with their natural parents, studies show that women living with their husbands are much less likely to be victims of domestic violence than are women living with men to whom they are not married.

h/t: The Christian Institute

The current guidebook for Canadian newcomers includes two pages on environmental stewardship and barely a mention of the Canadian military — and that has Jason Kenney hopping mad.

Kenney, the Conservative minister of citizenship and immigration, has ordered an overhaul of the 12-year-old citizenship test and accompanying educational material.
[…]
As Kenney acerbically characterizes it, the booklet includes two pages “on recycling,” but “not one single sentence on Canadian military history.”

That will infuriate the Greenies.

A young Canadian tourist travelling in New Zealand, Seeka Parsons, says she was appalled by the sale of Eskimo sweets, an iconic marshmallow treat sold widely in corner stores across New Zealand.

The native Canadian said the word ‘Eskimo’ itself was an insult in her country, carrying with it negative racial connotations, and has long since been replaced with ‘Inuit’.

Ms Parsons seems to be unaware that “Inuit” and “Eskimo” are not synonymous. Alaska aboriginals from the Yupik people are not Inuit and generally refer to themselves as “Eskimo”. The Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska at Fairbanks, points out that the belief that “Eskimo” is insulting arises from a mistaken etymology:

Although the name “Eskimo” is commonly used in Alaska to refer to all Inuit and Yupik people of the world, this name is considered derogatory in many other places because it was given by non-Inuit people and was said to mean “eater of raw meat.” Linguists now believe that “Eskimo” is derived from an Ojibwa word meaning “to net snowshoes.” However, the people of Canada and Greenland prefer other names.

Now a New Zealander of Inuit descent tells her to butt out.

Clint Magnus wants his children to honour their heritage. His mother was a full-blooded Inuit and his grandfather was a renowned carver and an Inuit elder. He says he is proud to call himself an Eskimo, even though he has to share the name with popular New Zealand treats.

“It’s definitely not offensive in any way that I can see,” says Mr Magnus. “I think for someone to come over here and complain about the name of a lolly and an ice block is just being petty.”

Fortunately, Cadbury/Pascall, the company that manufactures the candy, has no intention of changing its name or shape.

h/t: Tongue Tied 3

Easter ‘with Taliban blessing’

EASTER DAY passed off without a hitch in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, thanks to the Taliban’s support

To read the rest, you need a subscription.

Fortunately, Andii Bowsher has a subscription and provides some astute analysis. He smells a rat.

The thing may look at first encouraging: “The Taliban, who are very visible and easy to contact, had been contacted in advance, about a week before Easter, by a group representing the churches, and they said: ‘Go ahead with the services. We totally want you to have your services.’” It could be read as a commendable step in the right direction by a hardline Muslim organisation. But, recall, this is in line with Qur’anic and sharia principles: the Christians are regarded as dhimmi -a protected minority. We’re not told whether these Christians are yet being ‘asked’ to pay a jizya (tax on dhimmis)The ominous indicator of what is really going on is here: “Dr Gosling said that the Taliban had told them: “Have your services, and give us a list of anybody who doesn’t attend.” “. In other words, the taliban are quite willing to work at their version of religious apratheid [sic]. The dhimmi status, historically speaking erodes the ‘protected’ communities because they are prevented from making disciples from outside their own community and the social and marriage rules of dhimmitude tend to attract the less committed to convert to at least nominal Islam. However, once through that religious boundary, the rules make it nigh on impossible for a person, a family, to return. It’s a semi-permeable membrane allowing osmosis in an Islamic direction, but not in reverse. So while it’s nice that Christians have been able to celebrate Easter in this part of Pakistan, the longer term implications are that this is the ‘sweetener’ for the osmotic Islamic religious membrane.

Church Times bills itself as “the world’s leading Anglican weekly newspaper”.

“We want to be as fully representative of all of our students as possible, so what we want to do is go out there and make sure that this is something the students want to see,” Elizabeth McKeown, the student association’s vice-president of student life, told CBC News on Monday.

The association is preparing a questionnaire to ask students about the flag after it received a submission raising the possibility that Canada’s red-and-white standard could be “exclusionary.”

“People may not realize that overt displays of patriotism can also be seen as exclusionary and even sometimes work to undermine democratic ideals,” the unsigned letter reads.

No details are given regarding exactly how flying the flag of a democratic country can “undermine democratic ideals”.

If the unnamed student feels excluded by the sight of a Canadian flag, he needs to consider going to college in some other country.

h/t: Wolfville Watch

[S]ome anthropologists say the decision is based on politics, not science.

“This is scandalous,” says Robert Bettinger, an anthropologist at the University of California, Davis, who is on the panel that oversees how archaeological remains are handled at all ten University of California campuses. The panel was not consulted on this transfer proposal.

Paleoanthropologist blogger John Hawks points out the absurdity:

So let me get this straight. The University of California has an expert panel to consult on matters of exactly this kind, matters in which University facilities and collections may intersect with federal agencies or laws regarding archaeological remains.
[…]
And the president and chancellor just decided, “What the heck? Who needs experts? Time to rebury these bones!”

Chancellor Fox offers a pathetically bogus defence of her anti-science decision:

Fox declined an interview, but said in a statement that the transfer “seems an appropriate balance between the interests of science and [those] of the Native American community”.

What nonsense! If the skeletons are handed over, they will quickly be buried at an undisclosed site. Remains of great scientific value will be lost forever. Any “balance” exists only in Fox’s mind. Political correctness trumps science.

h/t: Faith-Science News

And I thought public health officials are interested in helping people to avoid getting sick.

The United Nations AIDS agency (UNAIDS) in a 2003 study indicated that condoms are ineffective in protecting against HIV an estimated 10 per cent of the time. Other studies have suggested that failure rates might be as high as 50 per cent.

In Thailand, Dr Somchai Pinyopornpanich, deputy head of the Disease Control Department in Bangkok, said that 46.9 per cent of men and 39.1 per cent of women who use condom are infected by HIV-AIDS.

When the Pope said “we risk worsening the problem,” statistics bear that out. Countries like South Africa, which have embraced safe sex and condom use with support from the United Nations, the European Union and non-governmental organisations have seen AIDS explode. Countries that have promoted abstinence and fidelity have cut infection rates.

One study is a case in point. In his research, Edward Green of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies looked at Uganda’s ABC method (ABC as in Abstinence; Be faithful; Condom), which was introduced in 1986. His findings indicated that infection rates in that country dropped from 21 per cent to 6 per cent since 1991. Green, who once was a supporter of safe sex and condom use, is now in favour of abstinence and fidelity within couples.

See also further comments from Edward Green posted at National Review Online.

The claim that the Catholic church is encouraging the spread of AIDS by opposing use of condoms is a canard, but one that keeps coming back.

In a study published recently in the Journal of Neuroscience, UCLA neurology professor Paul Thompson and colleagues used a new type of brain-imaging scanner to show that intelligence is strongly influenced by the quality of the brain’s axons, or wiring that sends signals throughout the brain. The faster the signaling, the faster the brain processes information. And since the integrity of the brain’s wiring is influenced by genes, the genes we inherit play a far greater role in intelligence than was previously thought.

I.e., socio-economic status and other environmental factors play a far smaller role in intelligence than was previously thought.

Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray would not be surprised by this discovery.

They wanted to post information about abortion and distribute fliers with anti-abortion viewpoints.

School officials said they would need to display abortion-rights information as well, the lawsuit said.

According to the suit, the school has allowed other groups to hold events without presenting opposing viewpoints, including one with a clergyman on why faith communities should be allies with the gay and lesbian community.

University officials also maintained that the event would be (you’ll never guess) “discriminatory” and “offensive”—cardinal sins in academia today.

John Jansen at Generations For Life makes fun of the college’s lame-brained directive.

Which of the following actually happened at a community college in Washington State?

(a) A human rights student group wanted to post materials around campus encouraging people to work to stop the genocide in Darfur, but was told by the school that they would also have to post materials encouraging people to work to continue the genocide in Darfur.

Read the other possibilities here.

A speech by conservative writer Don Feder was disrupted by loud-mouthed “anti-hate” activists at the University of Massachusetts. His scheduled topic was hate crime legislation (he’s against it); but when obstreperous protestors entered the room, he took ‘em on.

Feder sternly redressed the crowd in his opening statement.

“You don’t stop someone from speaking who you disagree with,” he said, banging his hand on the lectern, “there’s something god-damn fascistic about people coming into a speech and deliberately trying to disrupt it.”

Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, was recently the scene of a similar fascistic tactic.

After repeated interruptions and increasing tension, the speech was cut short. As Feder pointed out, that could only happen at a post-modern institution of “higher” learning.

“These people know there’s no consequences, the only place this can happen is on a college campus, anywhere else these people would be arrested for disorderly conduct,” he said.

A clueless pair of collegians defended the shout-down.

“There’s absolutely no room for hate speech on this campus,” said winter 2008 graduate Natalia Tylim. Her friend, senior Katie Perry, concurred, adding “I think campuses are places for open-mindedness, and this is the opposite of that.”

Proving, once again, that irony is lost to liberals.

See also Tommy Devine’s eyewitness account.

h/t: Michelle Malkin

His ordeal is finally over. Mr Kempling has resigned from the College, and the College has withdrawn the misconduct citation. He is presently teaching at an independent Catholic school.

Kempling, a former public school teacher with impeccable credentials, was suspended by the province’s College of Teachers and disciplined by the Quesnel School District following a series of letters to the editor of a local newspaper critical of the way homosexuality was being presented within the local school board’s curriculum. The case ushered in a flurry of appeals and court challenges, graduating to the Supreme Court of British Columbia and British Columbia Court of Appeal. An attempt to appeal the provincial Court of Appeal ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada was denied in January 2006. Kempling resigned from the College of Teachers in December 2008 in protest of his unfair treatment, leading to the current withdrawal of the citation of misconduct by the College.

In a letter posted at No Apologies, Kempling says, “I am done with the public school system”.

“Often, in cases of domestic disputes, both parties share the blame but, according to the Criminal Code, the person who gets physical is charged, even though the other party initiated the conflict,” Tapardjuk wrote.

“Often, the male is charged even though the conflict may have been initiated by the female partner.”

The Canadian Press report quoted above at least includes Mr Tapardjuk’s allegedly controversial words. Neither of the two CBC reports that I have seen could bring themselves to repeat what he actually said.

Premier Aarviak found those words “offensive” but did not dispute the claim that women sometimes initiated domestic violence.

“The comments that he made about violence or the cause of violence were offensive,” Aariak told reporters.

Political correctness trumps truth in Canada’s frozen North. Many studies have shown that domestic violence is frequently initiated by women. What Tapardjuk wrote is “offensive” only because it contradicts feminist dogma.

Barbara Kay writes a scathing column on this nonsense.

Aiiiieeee! Heresy! Poor Mr Tapardchuk apparently forgot or may even be ignorant of the fact that no public figure is allowed to suggest that women are ever, ever the initiators of domestic violence. Women are always, always the victims. Of course this credo, that domestic violence is a one-way-street wherein all violence against women is unprovoked, and all violence against men self-defensive, is a complete myth, a myth that has been busted over and over again, most credibly – one would imagine – by our own Statistics Canada, whose findings in their official reports on domestic violence dovetail with all other peer-reviewed studies: Domestic violence is about one-quarter male-initiated, one quarter female-initiated and half reciprocal.

Unfortunately, Tapardjuk has apologized for his “gaffe”. He should have stood by his original statement.

Employees were told it was injecting religion into the workplace.

“When do you draw the line when one person’s human rights infringe on another person’s human rights?” asked veteran carrier Orvel Murphy.

He and another carrier were recently disciplined by management for using the departure blessing after being instructed not to.

If any of the carriers thank the Lord again, Murphy said, they’ll face suspension.

Canada Post area manager Cavelle Lane admitted that the ban was in place but refused to give further information, claiming that would breach unspecified policies.

If someone sneezes, Ms Lane better not say “God bless you” or she could find herself suspended and hauled before a human rights commission.

h/t: Stand Your Ground

Ezra Levant has read the court’s “eye-scratchingly stupid” ruling. Here are a few snippets from his lengthy post on“Holland’s national suicide note”.

[T]he prosecutors — whose job it is, as in Canada, to determine which prosecutions have merit and which don’t — were overruled by the court… because there were “a number of complaints”. Is that all it took? Bitch enough and you can coax the cowardly Dutch courts to prosecute a political enemy?
[…]
You’ll notice, never does the court claim that Wilders’ facts are wrong; never do they claim that his opinions are unfair. They only claim that he is radical and opinionated.
[…]
Here you have it again: Wilders isn’t wrong. He’s just “insulting”. He harms the “esteem” of radical Muslims — who, apparently, are looking to Wilders for their religious validation. (Do these judges have even a simpleton’s grasp of Islam? Is any Muslim’s “religious esteem” hanging on what a Dutch MP says?)

Ezra’s complete analysis is well worth reading.

Wall Street Journal editorialists also oppose the court decision.

Silencing Islam’s Critics
A Dutch court imports Saudi blasphemy norms to Europe
[…]
There are of course limits to free speech, such as calls for violence. But one doesn’t need to agree with Mr. Wilders to acknowledge that he hasn’t crossed that line. Some Muslims say they are outraged by his statements. But if freedom of speech means anything, it means the freedom of controversial speech. Consensus views need no protection.

Archbishop Cranmer has a fittingly sarcastic and outraged blog post:

Cranmer thought the age of Inquisition was long gone. But it seems that one uncompromising pursuit of God’s will for Europe has simply been supplanted by another.

A Dutch court has ordered the prosecution of Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders for ‘inciting hatred and discrimination’ against Muslims. The charges relate to Fitna, a film (censored in the UK) he made last year in which he compared the Qur’an to Hitler’s Mein Kampf and drew a direct link between Islam and violence. The film juxtaposed images of the September 11th attacks with quotations from the Qur’an. This, apparently, is not acceptable, notwithstanding that the perpetrators of this evil were professing Muslims and justified their atrocity with appeals to the Qur’an, and flew into the Twin Towers with ‘Allahu Akhbar’ on their lips.

May one not state this as a matter of historical fact?

Not according to some Dutch judges.

A petition in support of Geert Wilders can be signed here.

Rev Masih maintains that he and his guest were merely defending biblical teaching.  He plans to take legal action, accusing the radio station of religious discrimination against both himself and Asian Christian listeners.

After a lively religious debate, the radio station management took exception to the content of the discussion. The Rev Masih was accused of not being balanced enough on air. However, Awaz FM refuses to detail anything specific he said that might have offended its listeners.

The Rev Masih and his co-presenter Afzal Umeed were discussing the views of a prominent Muslim speaker, Zakir Naik, who the Rev Masih accuses of belittling the Christian faith on Peace TV, a digital channel.

The Rev Masih says that Mr Umeed asked Asif Mall, a Christian on-air guest, about Mr Naik’s remarks. Mr Mall said Mr Naik’s comments showed a lack of knowledge of the Bible and of the Koran.

In particular, Mr Mall disputed a claim by Mr Naik that Jesus Christ was not the only prophet to be “the way, the truth and the life”.

The radio station denies Rev Masih’s claims but refused to answer specific questions.

h/t: The Christian Institute

Predictably, offended feminists didn’t bother trying to prove him wrong, they attacked him personally.

[F]eminists at his university organized telephone ring accusing him of being a misogynist. He was picketed repeatedly. At the University of Massachusetts, a group of shouting and stomping women prevented him from delivering a guest lecture. (Yes, these are the same women who claim to be working for a more peaceful and tolerant society.)

In Canada, Pat Marshall, chairwoman of the Commission on Violence Against Women, made this charge to a reporter about her meeting with the professor’s wife: “I have never met a woman who looked so victimized.” But when the writer called the woman, she said she had never been struck. Marshall was later forced to apologize.

When the professor was elected president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, a group of feminists stood up and walked out as he began his presidential address. And the threats continue to this day — recently one of his PhD students was told she would never find a job if she did her doctoral research with him.

In 2007, he published a paper in the European Journal of Criminal Policy and Research discussing methods used by feminist ideologues to distort and conceal evidence on symmetry in partner violence. The paper can be downloaded here.

Dr Straus’s website has an exhaustive bibliography, research documentation, course reading lists, and links to hundreds of his publications.

A new £4.7million school has opened to controversy after banning the word ‘school’ from its title because it has ‘negative connotations’.

Critics have slammed the decision as bowing to political correctness.

Sheffield’s Watercliffe Meadow, where the 481 primary school pupils are allowed to wear slippers instead of shoes, is instead to be called a ‘place of learning’.

“Learning” what, exactly?

A local MP beings news from planet Earth:

Sheffield Central MP Richard Caborn added: ‘I’m always open to new ideas but the reality is education is about preparing young people to live in the real world.

True, but a place of learning school that encourages pupils to believe that foolish euphemisms can ward off “negative connotations” isn’t living in the “real world”.

h/t: The Pearcey Report