It's not all Iranian nukes and other harmless fun. Before they fade from view, here's a few news items I wanted to note:
~This is a Canadian story, but it's not irrelevant to what's going on in Indiana and beyond. The gist of Robyn Urback's column is captured by the headline:
On A Day About Inclusivity, Anti-Bullying Activists Protest Laureen Harper's Support
This is in reference to the so-called "International Day of Pink", which is supposedly to protest the bullying of LGBTQ students. Something called "the Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity" (CCGSD) invited Mrs Harper, the Prime Minister's wife, to be an official "ambassador" for the event, and she accepted. Don't ask me why.
But next thing you know big chunks of the LGBTQWERTY machine announced they would have no truck with the Day of Pink on the grounds that Mrs Harper is married to a big transphobic bully:
Critics called the CCGSD's decision to appoint Laureen Harper a spokesperson as a "major misstep," a "huge mistake," "gross" and "totally offensive." One tweeter said she is "married to a huge bully of LGBQT folk," and thus, shouldn't be offering her support, and many pointed to the government's stalled progress on Bill C-279 — a transgender rights bill — as the reason why the prime minister's wife has no business showing support for gay and trans youth.
I don't think she has any "business showing support for gay and trans youth", either, mainly because, as I said the other day and in my book, I think the "Day of Pink" is a lot of tedious poseur bollocks. I may also add that an institution called "the Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity" is not just self-evidently risible but something a conservative such as Mrs Harper ought to be wary of: We live in an age where "gender and sexual diversity" is unbounded but the only diversity that really matters - intellectual diversity, diversity of thought - is on the ropes. Nor do I like the idea that the participation of the Prime Ministerial consort adds the imprimatur of officialdom to an event that is already unpleasantly coercive. Next year the Governor General?
But I wouldn't make a big deal out of it. On my rare forays to Ottawa, I've enjoyed Laureen Harper's company immensely - and, judging from this somewhat bleary photo, she doesn't seem to mind mine that much. She's funnier than her hubby, and, in my experience, a fine and inspiring extemporaneous speaker. If she wants to promote the Day of Pink, I respectfully disagree with her, but I don't hate her or despise her. I'm not going to boycott her and denounce her and huff'n'puff that she should be hounded from public life. There are no 100 per cent political pin-ups, as I reflect mournfully every New Hampshire primary. If you're lucky, you've got an 80 per cent candidate, but a lot of the time it's more like 60.
But that's not enough for the LGBTQWERTY enforcers. You've got to agree with them 100 per cent - or you're just another bully and a hater and a transphobe. Or, even if you aren't, your husband is, so you've got no business lending your support. Why is it not enough to say "Well, yeah, I don't agree with you guys on everything, but this pink T-shirts thing seems harmless, so count me in"? Why does diversity have to be enforced with such ruthless homogeneity?
That mentality is why the LGBTQWERTY movement didn't even pause for breath after their gay-marriage victories and instead insisted, in Ann Coulter's words, "on going house-to-house and shooting the survivors". The world these guys are building for us will have "sexual diversity" but no other kind. But don't worry, about 24 hours after the dawn of their utopia, the mullahs'll nuke us. So there's that.
~CanLit dominatrix Margaret Atwood is apparently also Chief Commissioner of what Kathy Shaidle calls the Royal Canadian Fashion Police. The other day she criticized the dress style of the lovely and enceinte Duchess of Cambridge. My pal Ezra Levant's line is hard to beat:
When you look like Tracy Ullman in Robin Hood: Men in Tights, should you really be commenting on how other people look?
Miss Ullman's character was the deranged crone Latrina.
In London a few weeks back I woke up early and caught a bit of the BBC's breakfast telly show. Miss Atwood was on the sofa, and at that hour of the morning Ezra's point is well-taken. I had to switch off after two minutes. Click below for his defense of Her Royal Highness:
~If you've spent time in a cricket-loving country and then wound up in a non-cricket-loving country, Richie Benaud is one of those fellows you assume will always be there - and next time you're in England or Oz or wherever you'll switch on the TV and he'll be saying "Not a bad little inswinger" or something similarly trenchant. You'd be hard put to find a cricket fan on the planet who couldn't do a crude impression of Benaud, albeit not as skilled as Rory Bremner's. Alas, on Friday he joined John Arlott, Christopher Martin-Jenkins et al in the celestial commentary box. Tim Blair writes of his captaincy of Australia:
Benaud adopted an attacking approach missing from Australian Test cricket since the retirement in 1948 of Sir Donald Bradman. Benaud's leadership in the 1960/61 series against the West Indies, which included the first ever tied Test, remains his magnificent legacy.
Tim adds:
An extroverted player, Benaud's commentary style was spare and understated.
That in itself is somewhat understating it. I chanced to meet him just the once in a BBC green room, and said hello on the assumption that he'd reply with something spare and understated. But he was positively garrulous. I gather that was not untypical once he was off the air. Somewhere or other in the last day's tributes, I read that his wife Daphne used to say that, on their weekly trips to the local supermarket in Coogee Bay, he'd spend so long chit-chatting with anybody who came up to him on the pavement outside that all the frozen food had melted by the time they got home.
It was a brilliant commentary style, as beautiful in its economy as Arlott's flights of poetry. Rest in peace.
~I've mentioned previously how honored I am to be alongside Ian Plimer, Willie Soon, Richard Lindzen and other eminent scientists in Climate Change: The Facts. Brandon Shollenberger thinks it's nothing to be proud of:
Anyone whose work is included in this book should be embarrassed by how bad a book it is.
I think that's what we call on Broadway a money review!
If you'd like to see for yourself what's got Mr Shollenberger so riled up, it's available in paperback from the SteynOnline bookstore, where I'll be happy to autograph it personally to you, or to Brandon for his Christmas present. But, if you can't wait that long and you need it within the next five minutes it can be yours in eBook via Kindle, Nook or Kobo.
And my co-author Christopher Essex will be talking about the book this Thursday on the nationally syndicated Bill Martinez show at 9am Eastern/6am Pacific.
