If you haven’t yet watched this stirring exchange between MoToons publisher Ezra Levant and Officer Shirlene McGovern of the Alberta Human Rights Commission, I urge you to do so now.

Here’s Levant’s opening statement. Note Officer McGovern’s expression throughout.

And on the subject of ‘permissible’ intentions, 

Officer McGovern said “you’re entitled to your opinions, that’s for sure.” Well, actually, I’m not, am I? That’s the reason I was sitting there. I don’t have the right to my opinions, unless she says I do.

A transcript of Levant’s opening statement can be read here. Here’s a brief extract:

For a government bureaucrat to call any publisher or anyone else to an interrogation to be quizzed about his political or religious expression is a violation of 800 years of common law, a Universal Declaration of Rights, a Bill of Rights and a Charter of Rights. This commission is applying Saudi values, not Canadian values. It is also deeply procedurally one-sided and unjust. The complainant – in this case, a radical Muslim imam, who was trained at an officially anti-Semitic university in Saudi Arabia, and who has called for sharia law to govern Canada – doesn’t have to pay a penny; Alberta taxpayers pay for the prosecution of the complaint against me. The victims of the complaints, like the Western Standard, have to pay for their own lawyers from their own pockets. Even if we win, we lose – the process has become the punishment.

The cartoons were published to illustrate this article (free registration required), which is also discussed here. Words of support can be sent via Mr Levant’s website, where more clips and commentary are available, including this on the causes of Islam’s image problem.

Update. 

Related. And. Also. Plus.

Please bankroll my insensitivity. 

The Huffington Post isn’t one of my regular haunts, but in light of the following perhaps it should be. Behold the bewildered psychodrama of Ms Erica Jong.

I am so tired of pink men bombing brown children and rationalising it as fighting terrorism… I am so tired of pink men spouting nonsense on TV. I am so tired of pink men arguing, blathering, bloviating, predicting the future – usually wrongly – and telling women to shut up. I am so sick of hearing that another pink man has dropped his children out a window, off a bridge or killed his pregnant wife or killed his unpregnant wife because he was infatuated with another pregnant woman. I am so sick of pink men making war and talking about peace… Don’t tell me about women who kill. I know there are some – but fewer. So let’s just remember our mothers – who bore us, protected us against our fathers and grandfathers and all the pink or brown men who wanted to rape us or kill us or starve us because we were girls.

This measured yet devastating critique is followed by,

I am not stupid.

And by,

I know all generalisations are false.

(Via Protein Wisdom.)

The photography of Corey Arnold. 

More. And. Also. Plus.

Original Star Wars trailer. (1977) “The story of a boy, a girl and a universe… A billion years in the making.” // Life-size beer brewing Bender. Bite his shiny metal ass. // Cannibalism in Texas. (h/t, Ace.) // Tintin redubbed. Caution: salty language. // A magnificently cheesy moment from Mike Hodges’ Flash Gordon. (1980) Sydow to the max. // The art of Syd Mead. // The race to the Moon, told graphically. // New solar cycle begins. “This upcoming cycle will be one of the most intense ever measured.” More. // Soyuz TMA-11, Kazakhstan. // Oliver Kamm on Oliver “laughing boy” James. // Deogolwulf on Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, mistress of rigour. // Andrew Bostom and Matthias Kuntzel on Islamic anti-Semitism. // John Rosenberg on Obama not being “ideologically black.” // Five dangerous things you should let your kids do. “They’re young. They heal fast.” // Tokyo’s traffic control centre. (h/t, Coudal.) // Inverkip power station. (h/t, 30gms.) // The science projects of Johnny Chung Lee. Low-budget EEG, the $14 Steadicam and new things to do with your Wii remote. (h/t, The EQ-aliser.) // 2008 Consumer Electronics Show. // Tetris, played well. (h/t, An Insomniac.) // Snow flakes. // Harlan Ellison: Dreams with Sharp Teeth. (h/t, Savage Popcorn.) // Punishments of 19th century China. // 79 versions of Popcorn. (h/t, Dan Collins.) // And, via The Thin Man, a tale of improper passion.

Via the Bureau of Communication, some helpful tools for self-expression.

For instance, on the airing of grievance.   

Or, apology made simple.*

*See also, statement of gratitude. 

More.