Sunday, August 31, 2008

Palin selection cont.

The discussion over Sarah Palin's selection continues in a number of interesting entries over at VFR, the latest of which Auster titled Viagra veep, a title derived from Carol Iannone's comment to another entry on the same subject.

When I first read Carol I.'s post in the earlier entry it gave me a chuckle considering the dire warnings that always attend these commercials, i.e., "if the effect lasts for more than four hours seek medical attention immediately!"; "don't take this drug if you have a heart condition," and so forth.

But Carol's remarks were not meant as a joke, and I understand that. And there is a serious discussion that ensues under the thread. Doug E. writes the following disagreeable comment to the consensus view:

With an election in 60 days, I disagree. You either get on board a train leaving the station taking you to perhaps smaller government town or you don't. Voting Marxist is the other option.

I don't think I could disagree with Doug more. First of all, what makes Doug think that voting Marxist is the only other option? He's of course referring to voting Obama-Biden. What makes Doug think that we have to vote either way in the presidential election? Second, is Doug serious when he says 'you get on board a train perhaps taking you to smaller government town?' Hasn't it already been well established that as V.P. Sarah Palin will have virtually no influence on John McCain? Is Doug anticipating McCain's dying while in office or what?

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Aliens leaving U.S. in "droves"?

Here's another story I picked up over at Outraged Patriots which claims that 1.3 million illegal aliens -- or eleven percent of the illegal population -- have voluntarily returned home over the past year.

Recently the Center for Immigration Studies released a study revealing that, since August 2007, the illegal immigrant population has dropped 11 percent -- the equivalent of 1.3 million illegal aliens returning home. Fox News recently reported that the Mexican consulate office in Dallas is seeing increasing numbers of Mexican nationals requesting paperwork to go home for good.

Of course we can't be sure that the study's numbers are accurate, but obviously significant numbers of Mexican illegals are seeing the handwriting on the wall and fleeing the United States. This is very good news.

Ron De Jong, spokesman for Grassfire.org credits the "crackdown on enforcement," and the "building of the border fence" as mainly responsible for the exodus. I'd say that the former is probably the main reason these people are fleeing, particularly the crackdown at the state and local levels of government with the introduction of state laws prohibiting illegal immigration and denying social benefits to illegals.

But we have to remain steadfast and resolved. 1.3 million is a good start, but it's only a start. And if the federal government will get the hell out of the way, we'll settle this issue at the state level once and for all. As has been said before, "lead, follow, or get out of the way."

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Sanctuary State Utah seeking assistance from Oklahoma lawmaker

According to this Tulsa World story, (Hat tip: Outraged Patriots) the Utah state legislature is seeking the assistance of Oklahoma's Randy Terrill, primary author of Oklahoma's H.B. 1804.:

Utah lawmakers are using legislation drafted by Republican state Rep. Randy Terrill of Moore as a model for their own efforts to fight illegal immigration.

Even the sanctuary state of Utah is feeling the devastating effect of the Mexican invasion, in part, no doubt, because states like Oklahoma and Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, Colorado and Missouri have created their own laws sending illegals packing in large numbers to other states.

Meanwhile sections seven and nine of H.B. 1804 are still under federal suspension pending a hearing of the issue in the tenth circuit I believe. Believe me when I say that these two provisions are vital to the full and intended success of H.B. 1804. But the provisions themselves, just like the other provisions in 1804, closely adhere to federal immigration law. The quicker this issue is resolved in favor of their being "constitutional", the better for Oklahomans and the people of other states who are using Oklahoma's law as a model for their own.

And for all of you who are not yet onboard, as they say, better late than never.

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Another exception to the rule

Normally I wouldn't post an entry like this, but I'll make another exception in this case.

Someone calling himself "Whitetrash" who posts regularly over at Yeagley's Journal, and who incessantly refers to the Republican party as the "Repukes", defends Democrat crimes on the basis that "at least they don't thump the Bible at ya while they're committing their crimes", and goofy stuff like that, has asked whether I'm "one of those "sensitive" types" in response to my calling him out on his incessant use of the aforementioned descriptive "Repukes," which, call me crazy, has no potential to change anyone's mind, and makes Whitetrash sound like a complete and deranged idiot.

Like I said to Whitetrash, I don't want to derail Yeagley's post with the personal differences between me and WT. So I invited him to speak his mind here at my blog. (Whitetrash: this is just common courtesy among bloggers.) But instead Whitetrash, while remaining true to his moniker, ignores these common courtesies and continues to address me over at Yeagley's, saying stupid things like President Bush is "my boy", that I (by extension I presume) support the importation of foreigners to this country, and so forth and so on. And challenging me to defend what he assumes are my positions. Idiotic!

Whitetrash, you didn't spend enough time here to find out what I'm truly about. If you had you'd know that there's no love lost between me and the GOP. If you're too lazy to do so, then fine. But you shouldn't be assuming anything -- I'm sure you know what they say about that...

What is it about these people? Is it that if I refuse to use terms like "Repuke" to describe the Republicans, and I call someone out on their obsessive usage of such illegitimate terms, that they assume automatically that I toe the party line? I don't use the derogatory term "Democraps" either, and it offends me, does this mean I'm a dyed-in-the-wool leftist Democrat?

Update: After everything had pretty well died down in the BadEagle thread in question, I tried to post a lengthy comment directed at Whitetrash in which I gave him a bit of a thrashing for his lack of good blogging etiquette, among other things. But the comment didn't make the cut. Nonetheless Whitetrash is still welcome to come here and challenge me on any point he wishes if this is his desire. I'm looking forward to it, Whitetrash.

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More on Palin and the "Glass Ceiling"

Don't miss Auster's discussion of Sarah Palin's favorable remarks in Dayton on women such as Hillary putting huge cracks in the "glass ceiling." Strange that she as a "conservative" would use Hillary as her example, speaking so favorably of her, when there are many comparatively conservative women out there in American politics who have done the same thing. Indeed, that these comparatively conservative women more or less paved the way for Hillary.

As I implied in a comment to the post, there's nothing "conservative" I can see about Mrs. Palin's looking at women in American politics as a force to be reckoned with in and of themselves. And LA answers me.

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Saturday, August 30, 2008

Quote of the day; maybe of the year:

And it comes from none other than Lawrence Auster of VFR. (Ladies: Before you get all fired up and in a tizzy, please consider the truth of what he's saying.)

LA:

Of course this also has a lot to do with feminism. When, in the name of equality, you introduce women into institutions and areas of life that have always been male dominated, you inevitably alter the character of those institutions.

And no; I'm not planning a "quote of the day" for Webster's. So I've made an exception in this case.

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Where were you when Sarah Palin was (officially) selected?

I just happened to be doing some business at a local bank as Mrs. Palin was introduced at the McCain rally. There was a tv in the lobby tuned to Fox News as they were covering Palin's selection and I watched a few seconds of her speech. My initial reaction -- just being honest -- was along the lines of "just what we need, an unknown inexperienced female running mate to tag along with the thoroughly non-conservative John McCain. In terms of her experience (or the lack thereof), Palin's selection was probably well thought out and well calculated given that she doesn't have a record to speak of that can be used against her. But it's interesting, don't ya think, that of all the candidates in the race Palin has more executive experience apparently than the rest combined? But as I've said many many times before, "if you ain't messin' up, you ain't tryin' very hard." When did lack of executive experience become a positive quality in a presidential or Vice Presidential candidate?

As a conservative I have to strongly protest this farce of a presidential election. We're supposed to be electing someone qualified to sit in the highest executive seat in America, and his second in command. Yet the best we can come up with are three legislators and a female governor of a state that, as someone said over at VFR, is barely a state. And by the way, Alaska is most definately not a conservative state. Any state in which a parent lives in perpetual fear of losing his children for mildly spanking them in public is by definition a liberal state, period. To Alaskans, ever vigilant and watchful to find and report any such behavior, or apparent evidence of such behavior, this is unqualified abuse. I'd personally like to know how the conservative Mrs. Palin feels about that.

The excitement among "conservatives" over McCain's selection, though, is ... amazing.

Update: I was too lazy this morning to do the research necessary to get the exact numbers and figures, but happily Mr. Auster has done it for me. Here's what I wrote to Auster followed by his replies to me in the initial VFR article on Governor Palin's selection:

TM writes to LA:

In terms of executive experience Sarah Palin apparently has more than all the other candidates combined.

LA replies:

Good point. We've got a 35 year senator; a four-year congressman and 21 year senator; and a ten year state senator and three year U.S. senator.

TM replies to LA:

Precisely. When exactly was it that lack of executive experience became a positive quality in presidential and Vice Presidential candidates, particularly with "conservatives"?

LA replies:

In fact, over our history, and especially since 1976, most presidents have been governors or have had other significant executive experience rather than being senators, while the number of incumbent U.S. senators who have unsuccessfully run for president in recent decades must number in the scores. It's a striking and surprising fact that only two incumbent U.S. senators have been elected president: Harding in 1920 and Kennedy in 1960. This year is the first time in our history that the presidential nominees of both major parties are sitting U.S. senators--plus one of the vice presidential nominees as well. In this sense, Gov. Palin is more in line with historic presidential qualifications than the other three candidates.

Which of course doesn't change the fact that her high-level experience--a year and half as governor of a low-population, oddball state that is geographically and culturally removed from the rest of the country (her accent even sounds a bit Canadian)--is very limited for a vice presidential nominee. Will her supporters be able plausibly to argue that she is prepared to step into the president's shoes on a moment's notice? Now, it's true that a year and a half as a governor is more significant experience than five and half years as a member of Congress from Queens, as was the case of Geraldine Ferraro in 1984. But the Ferraro nomination was an embarrassment driven by feminists, and Republicans should not be making that their standard.

I highly recommend the very active VFR article linked above, which continues in a new entry on the same subject. There are a lot of interesting takes there on the Palin choice.

Update #2: My last comment to the entry has been edited. Here's what I said ... in full:

You wrote:

It's not true that she does not have a political record to speak of, and that nobody really knows anything of substance about her. The issue is whether she has the background to be president, not whether she has a political record to speak of.

Okay, she has a political record that consists of her time as governor of Alaska, and as Mayor of the city of Wasilla (population: less than ten thousand).

You're right about what the issue is. And in my opinion she definately does not have the background to be president, but who does in this race? Nonetheless, her political record (what little of it there is) establishes her qualifications for serving as president ... in the event that she has to. And how many Americans, before yesterday, ever heard the name Sarah Palin?

In other words, I stand behind what I said. Palin doesn't have a political record to speak of, and nobody really knows anything of substance about her, though we're now beginning to learn more about her.

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Monday, August 25, 2008

Dr. Yeagley: "A new perspective on Islam"?

Here's a BadEagle discussion that you might find interesting. I've offered my own thoughts there in several posts to the entry.

And then there was the Noonanesque follow-up on President Bush's "greatness":

There are moments when I see George W. Bush as the greatest American Christian president since his name's sake, George Washington. Sometimes I feel like he is so vastly greater a man than anyone else that not only do most people not see it, but I'm sure he doesn't see it, or think it, himself.

[...]

In the end, I think Bush will finally be recognized for what he is, the greatest Christian American president since George Washington. The scope of his vision is beyond what most are capable of comprehending. Petty media minds, immature commentators, political riff-raff, these are but obscuring agents, feeding on themselves. It will take a generation or more for the truth to distill, for the cultural "collective conscious" to apprehend the significance of George W. Bush. We won't be around then, nor will he. His grandchildren may be.

Whoa!

I wrote in a comment to the article (not yet posted at the time of this writing) that I thought Dr. Yeagley's comparison of Bush to Washington was ... "way out there." Having now taken the time to re-read the entry, I suppose I was wrong to say that he is comparing Bush to George Washington. He just said that Bush is the greatest Christian president since George Washington, which means he's putting Bush on the same plane as Washington. Washington is the greatest Christian president, Bush comes in a close second, I guess. It brings to mind a favorite John Quincy Adams quote:

Socrates and Jesus [compared]?!, a farthing candle and the Sun!

That about sums it up on both counts as far as I'm concerned.

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Flurry of activity over at WMH

WMH = Wise Man's Heart where Hermes has recently been "gettin' down with his bad self." I think it was VA who recently complained about the lack of activity around the traditionalist blogosphere. Well, here's an exception to the rule in the inverse. And a delightful one at that. Y'all check it out.

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Sunday, August 17, 2008

Hypothetical:

Let's say that you were informed by a reliable source that a threat had been made against a friend (not a close friend, but a friend nonetheless) and fellow countryman's life by someone who is not a friend, nor a countryman, but a supposedly "documented" alien over a matter of a couple of thousand dollars -- a detail which to me is only relevant in that it establishes motive. And let's say, after having contemplated the implications of such threat which you learned of second-hand, you further asked of the person who informed you how serious, having heard and seen it with his own ears and eyes, the threat actually was. And he replied initially: "Very serious!...", but later in the conversation when he realized he had given out way too much information and implicated himself as a moral ingrate (among other things), began to recant his initial statement saying in effect "well, I don't really think he'll ever go through with it."

What actions would you take?

Obviously you inform the person (friend or not) whose life has been threatened. Do you leave it at that, or do you take it further, notifying some local, state, or national law enforcement or immigration agency? Let's say that the person whose life has been threatened has expressed a fearfulness that to go to the authorities himself might provoke the threatening individual to actually act out on his threat. How would you handle such a situation, all of this considered?

Additionally, let me say this: People like the threatening individual in question have a tendency to create a "to be feared" intimidating image of themselves by going about "talking it up" to their friends and associates until one day they've painted themselves into a corner, feeling forced to act on their threats, or else be labeled a "blowhard". It's hard to determine what that point is, but it's a real phenomenon, and always a danger with people who make these kinds of "idle" threats...

Update: This issue seems to have been temporarily resolved in a meeting between the principals in which I've been told that a partial payment was made on the debt owed and a promise to pay the balance within a reasonable timeframe. In the meantime I'm keeping my eyes and ears open for any more threats of murder from the individual in question. Nothing could do my heart more good and serve to ease my mind than to have this person (along with his supposed accomplices) deported from this state and nation. That in itself (which I make no bones about) is probably enough for him to consider me his enemy numero uno.

Will yours truly be the next on his list of enemies which he wishes to kill? It would be a grave mistake on his part, I can assure you!

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Sunday, August 10, 2008

Anti-Americanism


I've been meaning to post an entry dealing with the image you see to the left for several weeks now. I first saw the image while visiting Dad's little shop in my hometown several months back. Dad had, prominently displayed on a wall of his shop, a T-shirt with this image on it. Does this image elicit in you the same level of anti-anti-American sentiment that it does me? And why?

BTW, my dad is one of the most "American" people I know. Indeed, it would take a book's worth of illustrations to account for all the pro-American principles I was taught as a child. So the question is, why would Dad display such an image proudly as he does? (Dad: you're free to answer the question yourself.)

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America for Americans

Dr. Yeagley has a nice Journal entry up entitled "Russia for Russians" in which he declares the importance of race consciousness, as opposed to race denial, in any well functioning society. Hence the title of this post.

Dr. Yeagley writes:

Letting anyone in the world come and live here--especially illegally, is essentially giving away what others have earned. This is criminal on the part of our government. While it is a good thing to care for the poor, one cannot eliminate poverty. Poor people might take some responsibility and stop multiplying irresponsibly and self-destructively. Poor people can exercise a little discipline, can they not? It is arrogant and self-righteous to think otherwise. After all, charity is for the poor, not for the conscience of the rich.

In a comment to the article (not yet posted at the time of this writing) I wrote, as I've written numerous times before, that wealth is often squandered away by those who acquire it via inheritance rather than earning it through their own industry and labor, independent of anyone else. It seems to me that the old adage "easy come, easy go" is particularly applicable in this case of inherited wealth. But I want to speak to the idea that the poor are capable of exercising discipline in this entry...

Yeagley says it is "arrogant and self-righteous" to think that poor people are incapable of exercising discipline and self-restraint. I definately agree with this, but not only is it arrogant to think otherwise, it is, in my humble opinion, uncharitable to give the poor reasons to not exercise self-restraint, which is to say that what many Americans deem to be "charitable" is in reality "uncharitable." Indeed, what we've come to call "humanitarianism" is very often, perhaps more often than not, it seems to me, its very opposite.

On that note, I was involved in a discussion a few years ago in another forum in which one individual was arguing that homosexuals, being wired as they are, cannot control their impulses to engage in sexually deviant acts. In other words, according to this individual, homosexuals are less human than the rest of us in that they, unlike the rest of us, simply cannot exercise self-restraint when it comes to their abberant sexual desires and behaviorisms. And as I wrote in response to this individual, "you're claiming that homosexuals are less human than you and me, what gives you the right, and upon what basis do you deny that homosexuals are less human than other humans?" As I recall, this individual responded by citing some scientific study conducted on fruit flies or some such. Again, homosexuals are not fruit flies, they're human beings like the rest of us human beings, which is to say that like the rest of us, homosexuals are moral beings, endowed with minds capable of reasoning and with free will. Because homosexuals choose to act on their perverse impulses is no indication that they're biologically incapable of restraining themselves or of even completely abstaining from sexual acts of any kind when necessary.

This is different than saying that a given race of people is not particularly inclined to be self-governing and independent, and so on and so forth. I've written before that I don't believe the Iraqis, for instance, are capable of self-government in the American sense of the term. What I mean by that is this: you can't take a person (or a nation) which is accustomed to living in bondage, self-inflicted or otherwise, and expect him to all of a sudden and immediately, once set free, begin to exercise all those qualities which mark self-governing, independent peoples and nations.

I've used the analogy of a prison inmate before to illustrate the point. Irrespective of whether he is guilty or innocent, a prison inmate who has spent a considerable amount of time in prison has, by necessity, learned certain survival techniques -- techniques which are generally unnecessary in a normal free society -- during his confinement. Turning such a person loose after thirty years of incarceration with the expectation that he'll immediately, or within a few years, be able to adjust to life outside the confines of his former prison environment and live a normal self-governing, independent lifestyle is unreasonable. Indeed, most of us don't expect this from former prisoners anyhow, which is the reason we don't give them complete freedom immediately upon their release from prison.

So why would we believe it about Iraqis or Mexicans?

Is it because we consider former prisoners to be criminals and guilty and therefore less trustworthy, as opposed to the Iraqis and Mexicans who were held in bondage in their native lands due to no fault or guilt of their own? I don't know, but as I said in the case of the prison inmate, whether he's actually guilty of a crime or not is irrelevant to the point. You can't expect him, after thirty years of incarceration, to just walk out of prison a "free man," free of all those tendencies and characteristics he learned merely to survive in prison, most of which are probably less than laudable to say the least. Does this make him "incapable" of exercising self-restraint? No; it simply means that he, like someone who engages in homosexual acts, has grown accustomed to indulging his baser instincts, which makes it all the more difficult to reform him.

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Friday, August 8, 2008

Liberals bicker over who's the purest leftist

But it's all liberalism at bottom. As I said, liberals bickering over which one of them is the purest unadulterated leftist. Thus when liberal commenters Isaac Parker and Tony G., very careful to emphasize the word "illegal" in their initial posts so as to preemptively establish themselves as legitimate multicultists and liberals, state a few negative facts concerning that form of immigration, leftier-than-thou commenters "a" and Laura respond in typical leftier-than-thou knee-jerk fashion accusing the former of being racists and haters and bigots for daring to speak any negative about immigrant groups, legal or not. Tony G., in a grand display of multicultist "oneupmanship", responds strongly by announcing his strong support for LEGAL immigration, and the thread just continues down the same pathway with liberals of various ranks trying to outflank their comrades, staking their personal claim to the liberal highground. Rank-and-file liberals trying to outflank themselves. Funny.

It's all in relation to this Tulsa World story published yesterday, August 7, in which we find this explanation for the growth of the Hispanic population in Tulsa from July 2006 to July 2007:

Marvin Lizama runs voter registration drives through the American Dream Coalition. He said some people left because of 1804, but many others are attracted to Tulsa's quality of life.

"Hispanics are coming here because they see that there's great opportunity," Lizama said. "This is a great city if you want to raise your kids, get a great education for your kids."

I should like as well to turn Mr. Lizama's attention to the comment section of the Tulsa World article in question. If the commenters there are any indication of the quality of education in the Tulsa public school system, then Mr. Lizama may want to rethink his position on that. As far as Tulsa being a "great city", I would simply ask: as compared to what, Mexico City?

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Monday, August 4, 2008

History: Given enough time all immigrant groups can and will assimilate!

Zippy Catholic argues forcefully and reasonably over at 4-W (or W-4) that the success of Ellis Island immigrant assimilation to this country is no indicator that Mexican immigrants as one example, or Muslim immigrants as another, or any combination of those and other groups immigrating to this country currently will result in the same level of success as the Ellis Island immigrants. Zippy's basic (and reasonable) argument is this, success in one instance and under a given set of circumstances does not necessarily equal success in another instance under a different set of circumstances, which makes sense. To argue to the contrary is, as Zippy notes, a complete nonsequitur.

Now, personally I think it's completely legitimate to question the current orthodoxy which says that the Ellis Island example is unquestionably a shining example of successful immigrant assimilation, not to mention what that, granting the premise for the sake of argument, has to do with the ability or the desire of today's immigrant groups to assimilate in America, and America's determination to force them to assimilate.

Here's the way one commenter to the thread, "Blackadder", challenges Zippy:

The reason people tend to bring up previous waves of immigration is that many of the predictions of the dire consequences that will result from current waves of immigration were also made about previous immigration. If the supposed nasty consequences of immigration failed to materialize in the past, this should give us reason to be skeptical about whether they will happen this time around.

This is like the old argument against American involvement in the Vietnam conflict which states the following -- "everyone said that if America didn't involve itself in that conflict, that communism would overtake the world. That didn't happen, therefore American involvement in Vietnam was ill-founded, stupid, a waste of time and effort, and too expensive in terms of lives lost, American and otherwise." Yes, people actually make this argument. Now, I'm not defending America's involvement in the Vietnam conflict here, but you can see the similarities in thinking right? What is never considered by these people, and what we cannot know since America did get into the Vietnam conflict, is what might have happened had America not gone to Vietnam. The fact that we did enter that war materially changes everything. Likewise, making the simplistic observation that "the supposed nasty consequences of immigration failed to materialize in the past," without taking into account that the Ellis Island wave of immigration did not continue unabated, among other things equally important, is, well, simplistic at best, and disingenuous at worst.

The clear fact of the matter is this, America cannot remain America under current levels of immigration; that those "nasty consequences" that we immigration restrictionists warn about, most definately will materialize if the current wave of immigration to America from third-world countries is not drastically reduced, and soon.

I have also left a comment in the thread that you might want to check out.

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Sunday, August 3, 2008

If Li is a Muslim will we ever know it?

Auster has been keeping a close watch on this situation at VFR and I appreciate his coverage. Here's what I wrote to Mr. Auster under the VFR thread "Why we will never learn the truth, cont.":

TM writes to LA:

I personally think it's a lot more likely that we will learn the truth about Li's religious history than it is that the Canadian government will be able to successfully hide that information from public knowledge, particularly as time goes on. I also think that the Canadian public is likely to dismiss Li's act as having any direct connection to the Muslim religion; that they will look upon it as simply coincidental that Li is a professing Muslim, and that Li's act, the product of a "disturbed", perhaps even "psychotic", mind has nothing in reality to do with his faith; that Mr. Li is simply an extreme exception to the rule and that it's completely unfair to Muslims and to their religion, "religion of peace" that it is, to make such an association.

I really doubt that the Canadian government believes that the Canadian People, reeling from the shock of what just happened in their country, will, based on that single occurrence, make demands on their government to place tighter restrictions on Muslim immigration to Canada. Indeed, I'd lay down good money that the government of Canada knows good and well that Canadians are an excessively "tolerant" and "fair" people, which is to say that the Canadian government knows that its society is thoroughly liberalized.

And LA replies to me under the thread.

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Saturday, August 2, 2008

Webster's experiencing technical difficulties

There was about a sxteen hour span beginning yesterday evening in which Webster's was unaccessible from my computer as well as some others who notified me of their inability to access the site via email. My apologies to everyone for that, an occurance for which I currently have no explanation.

Even though the site is back up, at least to the extent that I'm able to put up new entries, I'm still experiencing some anomalies with certain aspects of the site. If you are having any difficulties with aspects of the site that you normally use, posting comments, using my permanent links and so forth, and if you're so inclined, please report them to me in a comment to this post, which might be helpful in discovering the cause of the issue, and of eventually solving it. Thanks.

Update: CTO found this article explaining the situation. Thanks again to Mild Colonial Boy for his help.

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