A Voice for Freedom

This story is a week old at this point, but better late than never. The Telegraph reported last Saturday that sixteen-year-old Lydia Playfoot of West Sussex has taken her secondary school to court over its refusal to allow her to wear a "purity ring". (There's also a video report available here.) These rings, inscribed with the name of a biblical verse, are a symbol of chastity, and a response to what Playfoot calls an "ethical and moral crisis among young people who are not given any direction".

Her school claims that the ring violated the uniform code, but according to Lydia, other students have been allowed to wear nose rings, earrings, and tongue studs. She says the uniform policy is not consistently enforced, and is also angered by the accommodations made for students of other faiths. Her school's headmaster responded that a Muslim student had been allowed to wear a headscarf "as it was understood this was considered to be a requirement of her faith". It seems to have escaped his attention that headscarves are not a requirement of the Islamic faith, but of particular groups of Muslims. The Qur'an's directive to women is actually simply that they should "draw their cloaks over all their bodies". Whether this includes the face and head would seem to be a matter of translation to me, and as I can't read Arabic, I've no way of knowing the connotations of the original language; however, taking this passage literally as it's translated into English, veils are not required by the basic tenets of Islam. Certain Muslim groups have at least fought the idea that women should cover their faces, as I discussed a few months ago.

In any case, Lydia's ring (a photo of which can be seen in the above-linked article) is very simple, and not particularly noticeable. It would be difficult, in my opinion, for anyone to take offense at it, as its text is simply the name of a verse in the Bible. One would actually have to have read the Bible to know what that verse said, and most people who have read the Bible aren't offended by the Christian faith. Unfortunately, Millais School does not agree.

And so, Lydia has decided to take her school to the High Court, claiming that it has violated her right to "freedom of thought, conscience and religion" as guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, which the UK has accepted. I'm impressed with her conviction, to say the least. But what makes it even more impressive is that she's just finished her GCSEs and is leaving school. She's challenging the school not because a decision in her favor will allow her to wear the ring, but because of the principle and because it will help future students. Whether you agree with her or not, you have to admit that's a noble sentiment. If there were more "children" like this in the world, perhaps it wouldn't be in such sorry shape.

A lot of very silly people here in the US think TV and video games are "desensitizing" kids to violence and creating a new generation that will grow up to commit assault and murder wherever they go. If they want to see what that would really look like, they have no further to look than Palestinian television.

Do people like Jimmy Carter simply have no comprehension of the concept of irony? Case in point: he recently spoke at Ireland's annual Forum on Human Rights, and chose to make Hamas the heroes of his speech. He said that the US, Israel and the European Union had no right to offer aid to Mahmoud Abbas' new West Bank government, but not to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, and then said that refusing to recognize Hamas' government was "criminal". Yes, that's right, opposing a terrorist regime is criminal Carter's eyes. Carter also praised Hamas' "superior skills and discipline" in their recent engagements with Abbas' "corrupt" regime.

I don't know anything about Abbas, I'll admit. But I do know something about Hamas, and what I know is that their hobbies are rather limited: shooting people, blowing things up, and ducking behind civilians to avoid retaliatory fire.

Would someone who was alive in 1976 please explain this man's ascension to the White House for me? Was he this crazy back then?

By the way, I also happened to learn an interesting fact while doing a spot of research for this post. Democrats who attack Bush because he didn't have an a majority of the popular vote in 2000 probably don't want you to know this, but only four Democratic presidents have won more than 50% of the popular vote since the Civil War. I'm looking forward to throwing that in someone's face!

I saw this at Let Freedom Reign (check out that link for a video). CTV was interviewing a young man named Wayne Chiang who's been attacked because he happens to match the description of the Virginia Tech shooting. He is a former VT student who is a gun collector, and instead of talking about the fact that he was being treated so unfairly, the CTV anchor badgered him like a lawyer going after a hostile witness. The words "DANGEROUS LOOKALIKE" were printed under his face the whole time he was on the air, and he was asked questions like "Is there a reason that you have so many [guns]?" She continually tried to get him to admit that his hobby was "unusual" and "frightening". Wayne, in turn, was excessively civil and, while he managed to get off a few subtle digs at media misrepresentation, did not make the obvious comment that he had not agreed to be interviewed so that he could be further maligned.

However, the worst blow to CTV's credibility comes not from what was said while Wayne was on the air, but from what was said immediately afterwards. When they went to commercial break, the cameras were switched off, but the microphones were left on. The video linked above also contains the audio recording of what was said after Wayne went off the air - specifically, the anchor referring to him as "too freakish", saying she "couldn't believe this", and then insulting him in conversation with another guest who was about to go on the air! CTV tried to stop the distribution of this audio clip under claims of "copyright infringement".

And check this out; within days of his interview, CTV was doing a story on Cho Seung-Hui (the real VT shooter), and placed two photos of Wayne Chiang in a series of photos of Cho!

Wayne has responded by saying "this is absolutely unbelievable. To be misidentified once as a homicidal shooter was hell. To be labeled again within three days? That is unacceptable. CTV will have you to believe that Asians with guns all look the same [...] No apology or notice of clarification has been issued."

Actually, Wayne, I don't think it has much to do with being Asian. CTV just thinks all people with guns are crazed lunatics. Ironically, it makes me want to shoot someone.

You may have noticed the "Condi for president" button I've been displaying on this blog recently. I still believe Dr Rice would be a great president, but she's now denied any such aspiration so many times I've decided it's time for me to move on and begin supporting a candidate who has announced an intention to run.

I've researched all the Republican candidates, and found I cannot in good conscience support any of those currently thought of as the "top tier". In particular, Giuliani's pro-abortion and anti-gun positions make me wonder why he's even thought of as a conservative. I don't have too many problems with McCain, but I still couldn't bring myself to call him my first choice, mostly because of his support of certain alarmist environmental legislation and a few strange stances on minor issues in education and immigration. So I went to the "second tier", and lo and behold, found myself a candidate to support. A Voice for Freedom now officially supports...

Tommy Thompson.

And here's why...

Anti-abortion, but pro-stem cell research; recognizes that stem cells can now be obtained without harming embryos. Also supports adoption as a specific alternative to abortions.

Pro-school choice; believes "local accountability" is vital in education.

Demands that international environmental legislation makes the same demands of all nations.

Believes the US needs to help build a stronger Iraq, and American troops should remain in Iraq until the new democratic regime is secure enough to stand on its own.

Says Medicare and Medicaid should be strengthened; does not support nationalization of healthcare.

Is anti-amnesty, and believes legal immigrants must take precedence over illegals; supports easing Canadian-US border crossing rules.

Opposes gun control.

As Governor of Wisconsin, cut taxes 91 times in four years and vetoed over 1900 bills that would have increased taxes.

Supports replacing Welfare with employment programs: "Handing out a Welfare check and expecting nothing in return is not public assistance, it is public apathy."

Is a supporter of states' rights, including on important issues such as gay marriage.

Maintains a strong stance on government and bureaucratic waste: "For 50 years we have seen a federal government who thought it could do a better job when it came to running our states, to running our schools, to running our businesses, and to running our personal lives. What has happened in those 50 years? We have seen crime go up, respect for authority go down, more families breaking up, and a government that does not pay its bills. [...] It is time to start moving away from government sense back to common sense."

In other words, Thompson is a real conservative, a man who believes that expansion of the federal government is something we need like a hole in the head, and that acting morally at home and in the world still matters. I don't support everything he's ever said - if I did, he'd be me - but I still consider his stated stances on the issues and his voting record better than those of the other candidates (you can take a look for yourself at the nonpartisan website On The Issues).

I will also at this point state publicly that I strongly support my friend "ElephantMan"'s campaign to draft Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, for Vice-President. Interestingly, one of Thompson's stated positions on Iraq is that the Iraqi federal government should begin sharing oil revenues with regional governments and private citizens, in a way modelled on the Alaska state government's revenue-sharing program.

I believe a midwestern conservative Republican and an Alaskan libertarian-leaning Republican could be a perfect duo to send to the White House in 2008. And though Tommy Thompson-Sarah Palin may not be the most popular or well-known ticket at the moment, I think it would be the best for the United States.

"Ask a Canadian if they would trade their healthcare card for your HMO card," asylum escapee...oops, I mean, "film director" Michael Moore said to Congress recently.

Personally, I'd give up my Canadian healthcare card for half a bagel, and it would not only be more satisfying but better for my health than a lifetime under the Canadian medical system, which thinks a 3-month wait for an MRI is reasonable.

I hope Moore moves to Toronto, contracts some life-threatening condition, and gets stuck in line for treatment long enough that Methuselah will applaud his longevity if he survives long enough to see the inside of a surgical suite.

American liberals who laud the Canadian health system's "equity" and desire the US to move in the same direction have almost never had any experience with its inefficiency on a personal level. Some simply refuse to believe me when I tell them about the quality of care received by Canadian patients - and I don't blame them, because to tell you the truth, if I hadn't lived through it, I'd never believe it myself. But it's true: not only is the grass not greener on the other side of the fence, it's dead and paved over. The only thing the Canadian healthcare system can teach anyone is how to design a zero-output perpetual-motion bureaucracy.

Yep, it's true, at least according to Roger Wilkins, publisher of the NAACP journal "Crises". Obama is indeed "black enough". Well, that's put some minds at ease, anyway. Mind you, how difficult is it for an empty mind to be at ease?

If you ask paint experts (of the artistic, automotive, or interior persuasion) how many shades of black there are, you'll probably hear answers that range into the hundreds or even thousands. What I think we need to do to solve this Obama question once and for all is find a paint sample we can all agree is "black enough" (the radar-absorbing stuff they use on F-117s, for example), hold it up to his face at one of his speeches, and call for an audience vote. And with that issue settled, we can proceed to the much less important ones, like Iraq, abortion, tax policy, and of course, the question of whether Hillary Clinton is "female enough" to be president.

What if I decided John McCain wasn't "white enough" to be our next president? How long do you think it would be before the New York Times and Jesse Jackson and a lot of other crazy people showed up demanding that I be suspended from a telephone pole by my Achilles tendon until I recanted? And they'd be right, because saying someone is or isn't "white enough" is ridiculous. Exactly what constitutes "white"? Do I have to have a certain albedo, a certain RGB value? If I don't fall quite into the "white" category, am I "eggshell" or "ecru" instead?

Or is it, perhaps, that sufficient blackness or whiteness is determined by non-physical attributes? Could it be that Obama isn't black enough just because he's rich? Wait, that's it! It's ingenious, isn't it? I mean, if we say that blacks as an ethnic group are defined not by skin color but by a low standard of living, then no matter how many successful dark-skinned people there are in the United States, the black community can always be considered downtrodden because as soon as you make yourself a good life, you're out of the group!

Meanwhile, we can adjust ourselves to the possibility that a man whose campaign consists of this sort of argument could be given the codes to all our strategic weapons in under two years. God help us.

"Scientific consensus" is an interesting term. It's usually ascribed by people who aren't scientists to groups they don't know the size nor the composition of concerning theories they don't understand based on data they haven't seen. The "clear consensus" that Al Gore thinks exists on climate change is a stellar example.

Is the planet warming? From all the data I've seen, the answer is "yes" - when one looks at the data covering the past four centuries or so. What everyone seems to forget, mostly because the UN doesn't bother to tell them, is that before that, there was a huge global cooling problem, which crippled agriculture in some areas of Europe when, around the beginning of the fifteenth century, northern France suddenly went from a tropical to a moderate climate. This was the so-called "Little Ice Age", which was preceded by a warm period, which was preceded by a cool period, which was preceded by a warm period, which...well, you get the idea. Just in case, here's a graph (from here):



There is a natural climatic cycle on Earth, a fact not disputed by most reputable scientists - that is, people who are actually climatologists.

The Fraser Institute's Independent Summary for Policymakers of this year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, discussed here, shows that even this UN panel has been reserved when making judgements. "There is no significant warming in the tropical troposphere," the summary explains, "despite model predictions that warming should be amplified there." There is also "no globally-consistent pattern in long-term precipitation trends", and global sea levels, if the current trend continues (which is by no means a certainty), are expected to rise "between two and three millimeters per year" - hardly a doomsday scenario. The most damning (to eco-alarmists, that is) parts of the summary are the ones that make the following statements:

Attributing an observed climate change to a specific cause like greenhouse gas emissions is not formally possible

There is no compelling evidence that dangerous or unprecedented changes are underway. Perceptions of increased extreme weather events are potentially due to increased reporting. There is too little data to reliably confirm these perceptions.

The US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works put out a press release last year discussing a leading climatologist's "defection" from the alarmist side to the skeptic side, and drew attention to a number of other skeptics who have done newsworthy (but not particularly reported) things recently. A group of sixty scientists, for example, wrote a letter to Stephen Harper recently saying that "the science is deteriorating from underneath global warming alarmists"; their opinion was that

Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future [...] Significant advances have been made since the [Kyoto] protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.

The committee noted Russian astronomer Khabibullo Abdusamatov's warning that a projected drop in solar output could cause a global cooling effect in the near future. Also quoted was Australian paleoclimatologist Bob Carter's humorous observation that

According to official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK, the global average temperature did not increase between 1998-2005. [...] this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere

Also presented are statistics that show Alaska, the oceans, and the Southern Hemisphere have thus far shown almost no signs of so-called "global" warming, which essentially cuts the portion of the Earth which is supposedly in danger down to about 35%. Also, the frequency of droughts is decreasing, rather than increasing; Greenland's ice sheet is thickening, not thinning; and the feature of global warming which could supposedly cause the next ice age does not, in fact, exist at all.

We must remember, as well, that volcanic eruptions often put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in amounts it takes the whole of Humanity years to match, and a single eruption of a supervolcano like the one under Yellowstone National Park - remember that alarmist rumbling, by the way? - would contribute to the greenhouse effect in an incredible amount, but unfortunately, not enough to make up for the dust cloud which would simultaneously be blocking most of our sunlight.

All in all, the conclusion seems to me to be this: we can be sure that the Earth did, in fact, see a warming trend roughly between 1700 and 2000, but there is no way to tell reliably whether the human contribution - anthropogenic global warming, to use the technical term - accounts for 50% of it, 5%, or none at all.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education calls this the "most ridiculous case" of censorship they've seen all year, and I'm inclined to agree.

Last fall, Marquette University Ph.D. student Stuart Ditsler discovered that campus hallways were "not free-speech zones" when a quote he had posted on his door was unceremoniously removed by the head of the philosophy department. The author of the quote in question? Humorist Dave Barry.

The quote (which now appears in the A Voice for Freedom quotes list) was: "As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government."

People are now telling us we can't insult our government (or government in general). Luckily, it's only an academic doing this, and not the government itself - but this is far closer to the criminalization of dissent (and good old fashioned humor) than could possibly be considered safe.

I started my first statistics course yesterday (and last, god willing), and when we were discussing the claimed "reliability" of surveys, this came to mind. It's a clip from one of my favorite TV series, Yes Prime Minister, a political comedy that aired in Britain in the mid-'80s. So I decided to upload it to YouTube and post it here. Enjoy....

Civitas, an independent think tank based in the UK, has released a "damning report" on the state of the British education system, described in today's Telegraph. The article reports that Civitas claims "political meddling" is corrupting public education and destroying academic content.

Passages in the Civitas report that should terrify both Brits and colonials - given the similar direction our education system here is taking - include the following:

teachers are expected to help to achieve the Government's social goals instead of imparting a body of academic knowledge to their students

History has become so divorced from facts and chronology that pupils might learn the new "skills and perspectives" through a work of fiction, such as Lord of the Rings

Teenagers studying for GCSEs are being asked to write about the September 11 atrocities using Arab media reports and speeches from Osama bin Laden as sources without balancing material from America

the drive for gender and race equality has led an exam board to produce a list of modern poems from around the world without a single poet from England or Wales being represented

The new 21st-century science curriculum introduced last September substitutes debates on abortion, genetic engineering and the use of nuclear power for lab work and scientific inquiry

To make matters worse, the Independent General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE), independent school alternative to the public school GCSE, is not recognized by the government, and as such, a top grade on the IGCSE counts as a failure in the eyes of the public education system - despite the fact that a large majority of educators in the public sector said in a recent poll that they would consider using the IGCSE if it were recognized.

The new science curriculum isn't just academically inferior; it has caused a reduction in the popularity of science among students in public schools, and a corresponding reduction in the number of students who register to take A-levels (the equivalent of American senior-level and Canadian grade 12) in science.

So the promotion of multiculturalism at the expense of education is hardly new, but it's nice to see someone acknowledging it and finally documenting just how far the damage has gone. I wonder how far we'll have to go down the same road here before we realize what we've done.

University requirements are strange things. They occasionally, for example, force a fifth-year social studies education student to do something like take an entry-level political science class online from a community college in order to fulfill some esoteric prerequisite with as little input of time and money as possible. So that's where I've found myself this summer, taking online courses whose material I could fly through but whose assignments I am forced to wade through like waist-deep molasses.

But not to fret, 'cause at least I'm improving my metaphors.

Anyway, when I found out one of my textbooks was co-written by a Cornell University professor, having attended that illustrious school of communism myself for two semesters, I realized I was probably going to take issue with the occasional passage. Like when it described the forces behind the American Revolution as "radicals, led by individuals like Samuel Adams" who fought against "modest" taxes like the Stamp Act. Or when it described the paternalist nature of the strong federalists at the Philadelphia Convention in positive terms. Or when it used the term "American mythology", which liberals love so much. But what really got me was this:

...the Burger Court significantly expanded (and nationalized) an important area of civil liberties with its 1973 decision in Roe v Wade...

"Important area of civil liberties", huh? Not for babies, it isn't! And another interesting passage:

Following its initial decisions making 'equal protection' a civil rights clause, the Supreme Court turned conservative, no more ready to enforce the civil rights aspects of the Fourteenth Amendment than it was to enforce the civil liberties provisions.

Amazing, isn't it, how "conservative" continues to be a catch-all term for anything considered racist, sexist, or in any way morally dubious?

Imagine you're on a crew laying a gas pipeline in the Ukraine; you start digging, all you expect to find is dirt, but instead you find a human body. And another, and another. It happened to someone recently, and eventually, the site was identified as a mass grave of Jews killed in the Holocaust - an estimated 5000 people.

We're still finding the evidence of the Nazis' atrocities, sixty years after the end of the Second World War. It's unimaginable, but there it is. Sometimes, I just have to stop and give thanks to fate or the blind forces of chance or whatever that I am where I am, safe and free in a country I'm lucky to call home. So I thought I would share that thought with all of you.

As scary as directives like this one can be, sometimes they're so outlandish you just have to laugh.

Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania defines "sexual interaction" as "brushing, touching, grabbing, pinching, patting, hugging and kissing", and states that any of these actions require "verbal", "continuing", and "active" consent. FIRE points out in the above-linked article that "under the policy, hugging your friend without permission is as serious an offense as rape".

So, if you happen to attend Gettysburg College, if you return to school at the end of the summer and see an old friend for the first time in several months, you must take the following actions:
1) approach your friend and ask "excuse me, may I hug you?"
2) if they respond in the affirmative, embrace them.
3) if the hug is going to last longer than a few seconds, ask "may I continue to hug you?"
4) if they respond in the affirmative, continue.
5) repeat steps 3 and 4 as needed.

Note that "brushing" is also included in the list, and you must therefore have a stranger's permission before touching them in the process of moving through a crowded hallway.

I know some people are uncomfortable with public displays of affection, but since when did we decide to outlaw public displays of humanity?