Darwinism and popular culture: Darwinists resort to whining when they are not popular (Also, this just in, water runs downhill)

Clearing out the Inbox, I find this item, "Charles Darwin film 'too controversial for religious America'"

A British film about Darwin recently failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial for American audiences, according to its producer (Anita Singh,The Daily Telegraph, 11 Sep 2009).

Utter rubbish.

Most likely, the film was rejected because it is a bore. No one here cares about Charles and Emma Darwin. A tell-all about Bill and Hillary Clinton or Barack and Michelle Obama, now ....

This whole fake uproar reminds me of a recent occasion when some pundit from the States claimed that Canadians have a growing fear of science.

Canadians have a growing fear of losing their jobs, being unable to pay their mortgage or rent or heat bills, and not having health care when we need it. And anyone who offers opinions in public fears the "human rights" industry. All very advisedly, I may say. We can easily address some of these problems (especially the last, by just getting rid of the "human rights" industry), not always so easily the others.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Intellectual freedom in Canada: "Human rights" commissions smartening up?

Franklin Carter at the Book and Periodical Council's Freedom of Expression Committee tells me that:

NEWS

Alberta's Human Rights and Citizenship Commission has dismissed nine complaints filed against the Edmonton Journal and the Calgary Herald in connection with a controversial editorial published seven years ago.

The complaints were lodged by Muslim and Palestinian organizations and their supporters, who argued the editorial was likely to incite hatred or contempt toward Palestinian Arabs and Muslims, contrary to Alberta's Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act.

In the Edmonton Journal, Karen Kleiss reports:

EDITORIALS

The Calgary Herald calls for the abolition of section 3 of Alberta's human rights act. Section 3 makes complaints such as those described in the previous report possible:

Maclean's magazine calls upon Prime Minister Stephen Harper to repeal section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. Section 13 made the lodging of "hate speech" complaints against Maclean's, Marc Lemire, former MP Jim Pankiw and others possible

Who knows, the Commissions may be getting their collective act together.

As I have said elsewhere, government has no business policing media, because government is one of the competitors for time and space in media. Policing media turns the media into a public relations agency for the government, which is not what the citizen wants, needs, or should expect to pay for.

The fact that some media are pretty nasty is hardly the point. You can cancel your subscription, twiddle the tuning button, flick the remote, or go to another Web site or blog. Or start your own Web site or blog.

If you don't, it is your own fault and no one owes you anything.

Intellectual freedom in Canada: Another reason to be proud of my country

We were first to walk out when some anti-Semitic rant started at the UN:

Ahmadinejad & Co. aren't Holocaust deniers because of the dearth of historical documentation. They do so because they can, and because it suits their own interests to do so, and because in the regimes they represent the state lies to its people as a matter of course and to such a degree that there is no longer an objective reality only a self-constructed one. In Libya and Syria and far too many "nations," truth is simply what the thug in the presidential palace declares it to be. But don't worry, Obama assures them, we're not "defined by our differences."

Hey, that's great, isn't it? Yet, if you can no longer distinguish between the truth and a lie, why be surprised that the lie metastasizes and becomes, if not yet quite respectable, at least semirespectable and acceptable in polite society?

Some Western nations walked out of Ahmadinejad's speech: Canada was first; Austria stuck around; America left somewhere in between. "It is disappointing that Mr. Ahmadinejad has once again chosen to espouse hateful, offensive and anti-Semitic rhetoric," huffed U.S. spokesman Mark Kornblau.

Oh, come off it, you ludicrous poseur. ...

Anti-Semitism is not, and never has been, a harmless vice. Unfortunately, far too much rhetoric against the state of Israel has morphed into a cover for traditional anti-Semitism - you can tell because mid-rant the speaker begins to deny that the Holocaust occurred.

Canada was quite right to call Iran's Ahmadinejad on this. Canadian diplomats should be ordered to walk out on any gathering where racist or anti-Semitic rhetoric is declaimed from the podium.

I've met former Israeli Canadians who say plenty of negative things about the government of Israel (that's why they are here and not there). I just listen and observe; I have met plenty of Canadians of all stripes who say negative things about the government of Canada too. Here, anyone can bitch and whine, because we are slowly shutting down the "human rights" commissions that might make it unsafe.

My opinion: If you have a vote and don't use it, go to blazes and don't bug me. I cannot do a single thing about your uncast vote. If you don't like the government, you did it to yourself.