Freedom of Speech for the Rich and Influential

In the face of mounting public awareness and anger, the Canadian Human Rights Commission has decided not to prosecute Mark Steyn and Maclean's magazine for publishing an article about Islam.

The downside is that this might remove some of the pressure to abolish the CHRC in its entirety, and those fascists will continue to oppress everyone that can't afford teams of lawyers.

The BC Human Rights Tribunal on the other hand did hold a show trial but has yet to pronounce guilt or innocence. Another bunch of leeches on society, those guys.

Via Ezra Levant.

Undermining Democracy Through Bureaucracy

Canadian "human rights" bureaucracies are being used/abused by Islamic groups to suppress political speech by the press.

Maclean's magazine is being investigated by the Canadian Human Rights Commission for publishing an article by Mark Steyn. The CHRC maintains that Canadians have no freedom of speech.

The editor(?) of the Western Standard, Ezra Levant, is being investigated by the Alberta Human Rights Commission for republishing the completely inoffensive (to anyone who isn't completely deranged) Danish cartoons that caused rioting and calls for beheadings around the world. Levant has posted a very eloquent if poorly formatted response.

It's a shame that we are so far over the bump in the Laffer curve that reducing taxes isn't likely to prevent the government from funding crap like this. Also, it's impressive that all you have to do to get something named after you is present it to Dick Cheney!

The Laffer-curve concept is central to supply side economics, and the term was reportedly coined by Jude Wanniski (a writer for The Wall Street Journal) after a 1974 afternoon meeting between Laffer, Wanniski, Dick Cheney, and his deputy press secretary Grace-Marie Arnett (Wanninski, 2005; Laffer, 2004). In this meeting, Laffer reportedly sketched the curve on a napkin to illustrate the concept, which immediately caught the imaginations of those present. Laffer himself professes no recollection of this napkin, but writes, "I used the so-called Laffer Curve all the time in my classes and with anyone else who would listen to me" (Laffer, 2004). Laffer also does not claim to have invented the concept, attributing it to 14th century Islamic scholar Ibn Khaldun and, more recently, to John Maynard Keynes.