[Rhodes22-list] Nuts! - Political

[Robert Skinner]

Don't worry, be happy...

Visit your local Rasta Hookah parlor.

PC will die of its own silliness, 
just as prohibition died of crime.

Freedom is just another word for 
no more rights to lose.  Goodnight,
Gracie, wherever you are.

Keep stoking those grey cells, Brad,
and many amused returns of the day.

/Robert
----------------------------------------
Brad Haslett wrote:
> 
> This is no way to start a birthday - reading nonsense like this.  I love
> Vancouver, as well as Seattle and Portland (home of Powells, best bookstore
> in America), but I couldn't live in any of the three - way too much
> silliness.  Here's the latest from Vancouver.  Brad
> 
> -------------------------------
> 
> Thursday, September 27, 2007
> 
> Blowing smoke   [Mark Steyn <ma%69%6cb%6f%78@%73te%79%6eon%6cine.c%6f%6d>]
> 
> Okay, Muslim foot-baths in Kansas City airport, gender-segregated swimming
> sessions at French municipal pools, banning pork from Aussie hospital menus,
> no eating donuts for Belgian cops during Ramadan, no seeing-eye dogs or
> alcohol in Minneapolis taxi cabs, fine, fine, fine. Must be sensitive and
> all that.
> 
> But this<http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=e8396556-5079-4cb5-bfe6-648e95d565d3>is
> an amazing victory. In Vancouver, infidels can't smoke but Muslims
> can:
> 
> Vancouver's hookah-parlour owners are celebrating after winning an exemption
> Thursday from a proposed new bylaw that will ban smoking on most sidewalks
> in commercial districts, in bus shelters and even in taxis passing through
> Vancouver.
> 
> In giving the bylaw unanimous approval-in-principle, Vancouver city council
> members bowed to arguments that hookah lounges provide an important cultural
> space for the city's Muslims and granted them a temporary exemption...
> 
> [Emad Yacoub] said hookah lounges are essential for immigrants from
> hookah-smoking cultures, because it helps them deal with the depression
> common for newcomers and gives them places like they have at home.
> 
> Where do the rest of us go to deal with depression? As Jay Currie asks, "What
> about my culture? <http://jaycurrie.info-syn.com/and-what-about-my-culture/>
> "
> 
> By creating a special exemption for Muslims - who do seem to be the only
> immigrant group actively demanding these sorts of "cultural accommodations"
> we are basically declaring our Muslim citizens worthy of special treatment
> and, at the same time, unworthy of the health concerns which are purported
> to be the basis of general smoking bans.
> 
> The state, in other words, is prepared to treat Muslims as free-born adults
> who can weigh the "cultural value" (ie, the pleasures) of smoking against
> the health risks. But not the rest of us.
> 
> 09/27 07:04 AM<http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDFiZTdlYTg4ZTZkNzcwMDljNGQ1ZDdjYzRmNjFhYzE=>
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-- 
Robert Skinner  "Squirrel Haven" 
Gorham, Maine         04038-1331
s/v "Little Dipper" & "Edith P."