The "preening silliness" of the left's obsession with "cultural appropriation"

George Will:

... The hysteria du jour, on campuses and elsewhere, against “appropriation” illustrates progressivism’s descent into authoritarianism leavened by philistinism. This “preening silliness” — the phrase is from the Federalist’s David Marcus — is by people oblivious to the fact that, as Marcus says, “culture blending is central to the development of, well, everything.”

... Listening to Radio Luxembourg late one night, teenaged Keith Richards heard “Heartbreak Hotel,” and “when I woke up the next day I was a different guy.” Bob Dylan, a freewheeling cultural appropriator himself, said, “Hearing Elvis for the first time was like busting out of jail.” Those who would wall off cultures from “outsiders” are would-be wardens. 

'No Borders' hypocrisy

Victor Davis Hanson, Imagine No Border:

... Among elites, borderlessness has taken its place among the politically correct positions of our age

... the Left continues to cherish the vision of a borderless world as morally superior, a triumph over artificially imposed difference.

... Yet the truth is that borders do not create difference—they reflect it. Elites’ continued attempts to erase borders are both futile and destructive.

Few escape petty hypocrisy when preaching the universal gospel of borderlessness: 

Barack Obama has caricatured the building of a wall on the U.S. southern border as nonsensical, as if borders are discriminatory and walls never work. ... the [well armed] Secret Service is currently adding five feet to the White House fence—presumably on the retrograde logic that what is inside the White House grounds is different from what is outside. 

In 2011, open-borders advocate Antonio Villaraigosa became the first mayor in Los Angeles history to build a wall around the official mayoral residence. 

“You’re about to graduate into a complex and borderless world,” Secretary of State John Kerry recently enthused to the graduating class at Northeastern University ... moved his 76-foot luxury yacht from Boston Harbor across the state border to Rhode Island in order to avoid $500,000 in sales taxes and assorted state and local taxes. 

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg offers another case study. The multibillionaire advocates for a fluid southern border and lax immigration enforcement, but he has also stealthily spent $30 million to buy up four homes surrounding his Palo Alto estate. They form a sort of no-man’s-land defense outside his own Maginot Line fence

The new campus religion of Safe Spaces

Greg Gutfeld:

Why capitalism is great

And why the anti-capitalist left are clueless morons.  Trouble is, there are so many of them.  Why else would Bernie Sanders be so high in the polls?

How our anti-Canadian-oil politicians and activists are screwing our country

They claim to be doing it to save the planet but it won't alter the climate an iota.  Their actions only hamper Canadian production and all the benefits that derive from it.  Global oil production won't decrease, it is steadily increasing; Canada's share of that production (which is already small) will just get even smaller and so will our entire economy. In the name of phony global salvation, Canadians are being screwed, by our own know-nothing "leaders" and activists:

"Nothing to do with Islam"

As Barack Hussein Obama, the idiot mayor of Philadelphia this week and other useful idiots on the lib/left repeat ad-nauseam whenever terrorists strike, obviously motivated by Islam, that it had "nothing to do with Islam (religion of peace)".

Not that it is needed, but more strong evidence of Islam's culpability came with a recently published study of suicide attacks worldwide in 2015 which documented 452 attacks worldwide of which 450 were committed by Muslims:

... Of course, we cannot avoid mentioning the religious element as the most significant factor that motivates the suicide terrorists throughout the world. Here’s the most dramatic statistic: 450 of 452 suicide terror attacks in 2015 were perpetrated by Muslim extremists. One of the remaining two attacks was carried out by the Kurdish underground. The other was perpetrated by a woman supporter of a leftist group in Turkey.

Note that the Israeli researcher team was very careful about defining what constituted a suicide attack and how attacks were counted, noting, for example, "we consider the terror attack that took place in Paris two months ago as a single attack, even though there were seven suicide terrorists.”

[Via]

The low moral and intellectual state of the left

Dennis Prager recently wrote a column in the Jewish Journal expressing his concerns:

"... about the Torah and the current unprecedented attempt to blur male-female distinction in biology and society."

It ignited a firestorm of hatemail from the Jewish left.

To which Prager responded "The hate is all in one direction":

... Virtually every one of them is shameful. If you care about the moral nature and intellectual viability of American Jewish life, they are actually frightening.

... I am accused of cruelty, intolerance, bigotry, hate, publicly humiliating someone, ignorance and more.  Yet, there is not a hint of any one of these things in my column.

... Other letters and comments accuse me of intolerance, bigotry, ignorance, transphobia, maligning, defamation, slander, xenophobia, foolishness, mean-spiritedness, inflicting “spiritual violence,” lacking compassion, anti-knowledge and more — all without providing a single example.

... It is these letters and comments that are filled with hate; it is these writers who intend to humiliate; it is these people who are intolerant of any view but their own.

And, yesterday he followed up with: "The moral and intellectual state of the Jewish left."

First, the low intellectual state. ... Bret Stephens ... succinctly put it recently in his Wall Street Journal column, “American academia is, by and large, idiotic.”

... characteristic No. 2: Instead of intellectual discourse, what we have is the dismissal of the decency of the left’s opponents. If you oppose the left, you are rarely debated. Instead you are dismissed as sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted and spewing hatred.

Third, and finally, there is a willingness to make up falsehoods in the service of progressive ideals.

Of course this isn't a problem just with the American Jewish left on the issue of male-female blurring, but with the left throughout the entire West over a wide range of issues.


[Via Blazing Cat Fur]

Harper Derangement Syndrome on dislay at CPC rally in Surrey, BC

As the election draws closer, Harper Derangement Syndrome seems to be intensifying.  On the way into the CPC campaign rally in Surrey last night, a guy walked back and forth on the sidewalk across the street shouting vile insults at rally-goers lining up outside the venue.  It was funny, weird and at the same time disturbing because he seemed genuinely nuts.

And inside the venue, during Stephen Harper's speech, three more "protesters" managed to infiltrate the rally.  One unfurled a banner calling for "climate justice" (don't we all know Harper is a climate criminal?), another rushed towards Harper (aiming to do what wasn't clear) getting within a foot of him before being tackled by security guards, and shortly after a third started shouting at Harper from the audience before being grabbed and hustled out.

All in all, it was described by reporters as "the worst security breach of the campaign". The security people really started looking worried after the fracas (for their jobs, maybe?)

The left's "dog-whistles"

Father Raymond de Souza: "Who, exactly, are the dogs in Mayor Nenshi’s imagination?"

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi doesn’t like the dog whistles in the federal election campaign. Who is whistling and who are the dogs?

“Dog-whistle politics” is what they call it, and it is not a lovely term. It comes from the world of campaign consultants, and that is not a lovely world. ...

... I object to the characterization of those who do not see the world in the same way as Nenshi cast in the role of the dogs.  ...

Nenshi and his ilk don't seem to realize that the term "dog-whistle" (likely an MSNBC host's brain-f*rt) is itself the left's dog-whistle signal to its bigoted dog-packs to attack their opponents with accusations of racism.

Climate alarmist outrage of the week

Scientists demand Obama use the RICO Act to silence climate skeptics:

... Twenty alarmist climate scientists – including UN IPCC lead author Kevin ‘Travesty’ Trenberth – have written a letter to President Obama urging him to use RICO laws to crush dissent by climate skeptics. Their hypocrisy and dishonesty, especially that of the main signatory, almost defies belief.....

Liberal fascism at work. More from Jo Nova.and WUWT.

Lefty-loons-a-leaping

Peter Foster: Naomi Klein’s Great Leap Backwards

The “Leap Manifesto” issued on Tuesday by an asylum full of celebrity victims of Harper Derangement Syndrome – led by Naomi Klein and David Suzuki – is certainly a thought-provoking platform. The main thoughts it provokes are: Does achieving celebrity cause a sharp drop in IQ and increase in hypocrisy, or does all-consuming artistic ego and/or power-hungry socialist inclination prevent all logical thought?...

... You’d think that somebody among the Deep Thinkers might have reflected that “leaping” doesn’t have the best of historical connotations. Specifically, it conjures up Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward, a lurch to socialized modernization that led to tens of millions of deaths.

... Klein is a great promoter of the notion that the dark forces of capitalism deliberately manufacture “crises” as an excuse for dictatorial control. She is quite impervious to any suggestion that the “climate crisis” might come into the same category.

...The manifesto’s main points were also promoted in a piece in the Globe and Mail on Tuesday by Klein, Suzuki, and three other well known policy experts, Leonard Cohen, Donald Sutherland and Ellen Page.

... The majority of the manifesto is taken up with peddling the fantasy of a total switch to alternative energy within a couple of decades, and demanding an end to fossil fuel activity. ... “We call,” note the Gang of Five, “for town hall meetings across the country where residents can gather to democratically define what a genuine leap to the next economy means in their communities.”

... The manifesto confirms that one of the things going for Stephen Harper in this election is his enemies. 

If these leaping freaks ever got their way we'd soon find ourselves in a totalitarian nightmare forced to  quote from Chairperson Naomi's Little Green Book. Their rabid nonsense also has hints of the French Revolution and its Reign of Terror.

Kathleen Wynne's bizarre assault on Stephen Harper

Kathleen Wynne has been feuding with Stephen Harper, in part because he refuses to have the feds  collect the mandatory deductions for her new Ontario pension plan.  And why would he?  He is against expanding CPP mandatory deductions, favoring instead voluntary contributions, the  approach preferred by, for example, the employers of 2/3 of the private sector workforce.

Kelly McParland on Wynne's latest bizarro outburst:

Wynne’s latest effort is the suggestion that, had Harper been prime minister instead of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s national railway would never have been built.

... This is an odd statement, considering the considerable efforts Ottawa has put into convincing Ontario to get behind Energy East, the transcontinental pipeline that would move crude from Alberta and Saskatchewan to Saint John. It’s a truly national project, it would work to the benefit of the country as a whole, would create jobs and expand domestic refining activity ...

... Wynne and Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard have issued a list of conditions they want met before they will deign to support the project.

... If Sir John A. had faced similar efforts to derail the railway over patently partisan provincial antics, the great project might indeed never have been completed. But it wouldn’t have been Ottawa’s fault, it would have been that of petty, narrow-minded premiers protecting their flanks at the expense of the country as a whole.

This an example of how the "loony left" earns its name.

More evidence that Alberta is screwed (and Canada with it)

Alberta NDP appoints "crackpot" global warming "cult member" Dave Mowat to lead royalty review:



Ezra references this Globe and Mail article when Mowat was CEO of Vancity Credit Union which has a reputation for eco-nuttery on a variety of fronts.

How long will it take for Albertans to begin howling about (or at least acknowledging) their gross error in judgement?

Why the left hates Bibi Netanyahu

Lawrence Solomon tells us why:

Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s triumph in Israel’s election this week, so shocking and appalling to the Western press, is many other things, too. ...

... recognition by Israelis of Netanyahu as the Churchill of our times
... stands apart from virtually all other Western leaders
... a repudiation by Israelis of those same Western leaders
... Netanyahu’s march to freer markets.
... Under Netanyahu’s influence ... Israel systematically began dismantling the welfare state
... sold off Israel’s interests in state enterprises, 
... abolished foreign exchange controls and otherwise liberalized the economy,
... turning Israel into an entrepreneurial marvel 
... The Western press, operating as it does from its echo chamber, likes to describe Israel as increasingly isolated in the world due to its supposed failure to make peace 
... Israel, once the darling of the Socialist Internationale, is fast becoming the darling of all but Socialist-leaning Europe, Iran and the ISIS wannabe set. 
... Two years from now, Obama will be gone, to be remembered as the worst American president in memory. Prime Minister Netanyahu will remain in power and on the world stage

That's why.

Divestment - the UN's latest climate enthusiasm

UN backs fossil fuel divestment campaign

The UN organisation in charge of global climate change negotiations is backing the fast-growing campaign persuading investors to sell off their fossil fuel assets.  

Of course the UN is backing an overtly activist political climate campaign.  It had already politicized climate "science" through its corrupt UNIPCC.  This was an inevitable next step.

If this were to take hold in any serious way, the world economy would indeed be in deep ka-ka.

Brigitte Gabriel: "... throw political correctness in the garbage where it belongs!"

Frank Gaffney and Brigitte Gabriel respond to questions from a young Muslim woman in the audience of a Heritage Foundation panel on the Benghazi attack:



Predictably the left was 'outraged' on behalf of the Muslim woman and Islam.  Dana Milbank at the WaPo characterized the Heritage panel session as an "assault" that devolved into "...the ugly taunting of a woman in the room who wore an Islamic head covering".  Here's Politico's response to Milbank's column.

Gabriel's rant was certainly strongly voiced but it had the benefit of being true.  And the Muslim woman's comments at the end of the video show no hint that she felt intimidated or "assaulted".

[Via sda]

Robocall "scandal" officially over - Elections Canada declares "nothing to see here"

Ezra sums up three years of anti-Harper derangement:







Update [via a link from the comments]: Here's Greg Renouf's (GenuiNEWitty) very detailed account of the who was behind the fraudulent promotion of the Robocall affair as a "scandal".  Some teasers:

... I saw an event posted on Facebook by a man named Jon Allan, a meeting to plan a protest. 

... Walking into the meeting, one would never had expected it was anything but grassroots.

... as time passed and the first protest came to fruition, it quickly became obvious I was observing an AstroTurf fraud.

... When Libby Davies warned us about “American style dirty politics”, she wasn’t kidding us- only, the tricks she was referring to were coming from her own side!  Just like their smaller sibling LeadNow, MoveOn.org has been conducting the same type of anti-robocall campaigns in the US.

Now the Green Gestapo are coming after your meatballs

James Delingpole:

IKEA ... are considering changing the recipe of their most popular food line - meatballs - in order to help save the world from global warming:

... "On methane...we are aware of the meat issue with greenhouse gases. We are looking at all our food products from a sustainability perspective but specifically meatballs. They are very popular and they are also our most carbon-intensive food item on our menu."

... IKEA actually admits to allowing the kind of food it serves in its restaurants to be dictated not by the needs of its customers - who order 150 million plates of meatballs every year - but by activists from a hard-left environmental NGO like the World Wildlife Fund. That's not capitalism. That's not customer service. That's eco fascism.

... As Donna Laframboise has often noted, WWF activism is rife at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) too.

As evidence of warming wanes, the climate nuttery worsens.

a mockery of a mock trial

Once again Peter Foster does the heavy lifting and attends an event so that we don't have to.  This time it's the nutty left/lib fake "trial" of David Suzuki put on by and for Suzuki fans at the Royal Ontario Museum:

... The event was a cross between a mock trial and a bizzaro Soviet show trial. In show trials the victim had already been condemned. In the Suzuki version, the environmental celebrity’s innocence was never in doubt.

... The audience was treated before the show to sounds of chain saws, and giant projections of open pit oil sands mining and refineries. I think that’s called “priming.”

... Then came the vote. Would it be a nail biter? No, it was a Suzuki super landslide from the audience, and an acquittal from the jury. There were whoops of victory over, er, nobody except that tiny handful of brave masochists who had suffered through this charade then dared to put up their hands for “Guilty.”

.. the fact that a real judge and real lawyers took part brings discredit on the legal system.  The real lesson of this mockery of a mock trial was what it said about the objectivity and openness of Suzuki nation.  They reach consensus by having conversations in echo chambers. They try themselves, certain of acquittal. They claim persecution while suggesting their opponents should be silenced. If you want to know what’s wrong with the IPCC, and why there is still no real debate over climate, the trial of David Suzuki exposed it in microcosm.

Great column! Suzuki and his nit-wit followers will hate it.

Update: The Aussies take note.

Leftist, anti-Zimmerman hate mobs strike fear into family

Family rescued by George Zimmerman after a rollover crash in Florida ...

... are terrified they will become targets for hate mobs who have made death threats to the neighborhood vigilante.

Mark and Dana Michelle Gerstle told friends they do not want to talk publicly about Zimmerman for fear they will be accused of portraying him as a hero - and face a backlash from those who consider he got away with murder.

'They are very grateful to Zimmerman for what he did, but they do not want to get involved,' said a friend, who asked not to be named.

... The heroic rescue took place less than a mile from where Zimmerman shot 17 year old Martin in February 2012. ...

This insanity is thanks:

1) to vile leftists who favor mob "justice"
2) to a vile leftist media and race-baiters for misrepresenting the Zimmerman case, and
3) Barack Obama for stirring up racial resentment to satisfy his certifiably nuts, far-left base.

Assuming this story is accurate, good for Zimmerman - obviously he's a stand-up guy.

As for Mark and Dana Gerstle, I have mixed feelings.  Given the leftist mob-justice mentality on display they're justifiably fearful for their family's safety.  On the other hand, it would be better if they showed some courage.  Maybe they'll step up soon.

[via]