Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

A Mark Steyn speech in at the University of Western Ontario was proving too popular so they searched for a venue that was larger. The London Convention Centre owned by the city was a good choice but the city had other ideas:

“The reason offered by the LCC [in a Tuesday morning phone call] was that they had received pressure from local Islamic groups, and they didn’t want to alienate their Muslim clients. It’s interesting to note that the LCC is owned by the City of London, and is therefore a government operation,” wrote Strictly Right’s Andrew Lawton at the website.

Nice to see civic leaders standing tall to pressure when it comes to free speech.

Strictly Right have found a larger — and more expensive — venue. Mr. Steyn will speak on Nov. 1 at London’s 1,600-seat Centennial Hall.

Let’s hope for their sakes that none of those guys working for the City of London have side jobs at NPR.

As the debate about Canada continues in my comments Mark Steyn points to another gem in Canada’s love affair with free speech:

On Monday Mr. Earle, a stand-up comedian of conventionally Trudeaupian views, goes on trial at the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal for putting down two hecklers at his nightclub act. They were, alas for him, of the lesbian persuasion, and so he is now charged with “homophobia.” What a wretched embarrassment to a once free society.

Hey their country their rules and they will have to live with it.

Update: Via Robert Stacy (who will see her later this week) we have Ann’s Answer in her column, the conclusion?

If a university official’s letter accusing a speaker of having a proclivity to commit speech crimes before she’s given the speech — which then leads to Facebook postings demanding that Ann Coulter be hurt, a massive riot and a police-ordered cancellation of the speech — is not hate speech, then there is no such thing as hate speech.

Five Feet of Fury is all over this.