Don't Do The Hate Crime If You Can't Pay The Hate Fine

In what is surely a victory for victims of hate everywhere, the Canadian Human Rights Commission has fined an Ottawa man $4000 for using the Internet to spread hatred.

The commission was shown how Bobby James Wilkinson created and maintained a website for the Canadian Nazi Party, and on that website called for attacks on a number of groups, including Blacks, Jews, Asians, homosexuals, Arabs and Latin Americans.

He even went so far as to call for "genocide" where such groups were concerned.

[S O U R C E]
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Is The Queen A Diva?

A new BBC documentary purports to show the normally good-natured Queen in a snit after being asked to remove her crown for an official portrait by celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz. "I've had enough of this," the Queen has been reported as saying.

While we here at the Pop Culture Institute normally hesitate to take sides in such matters, it should be pointed out that the Queen has been the Queen longer than Annie Leibovitz has been a photographer, and leave it at that.
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RIP Lady Bird Johnson

Former First Lady Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson died today at her home in Austin, Texas. She was 94.

LBJ always said she was the "brains" behind him, but she was also undoubtedly the heart as well. When the President went about enacting his Great Society reforms, it was she who pushed for their cultural element. In a similar effort she also set about beautifying the highways and byways of the United States, by extensively planting wildflowers and native trees alongside interstates and within Washington, DC itself.

This lovely lady, herself so devoted to improving lives through the beauty of our natural environment, will be sorely missed.

[Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum]
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Congratulations Your Highness

On July 11th, 1957 Prince Karīm al-Hussaynī became His Highness Aga Khan IV, leader of the world's Ismaili Muslims.

A powerful voice for moderate Islam, His Highness has used his Imamate to advocate in favour of eradicating global poverty, the education of women, and in support of religious pluralism in the approximately 2 dozen countries where Ismailis live, including Canada. He also awards a prize for Islamic architecture awarded every three years since 1977 which is the richest prize for architecture in the world.

In 2005 His Highness was awarded the Order of Canada by Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson.
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