Dispatches from District 48
Via Steven Green at Instapundit, comes this story of a comedian getting fined $42,000 by Canada for telling a joke:
Canadian comedian Mike Ward was fined a whopping $42,000 by Quebec’s Human Rights Tribunal for jokes he made about a disabled boy.
The child, Jérémy Gabriel, who suffers from Treacher Collins Syndrome, is a bit of a national celebrity in Canada after he sung for the pope in 2006 essentially because everyone thought he did not have long to live. Ward’s joke was a rant about how the child was supposed to die, that he “stole a wish” and is unkillable.
Hmm, I believe I have made this same joke about Keith Richards at least a hundred times in the context of messing up my dead pools. I better not travel to Canada.
Talk of tightly wound bloomers!!! Mon Dieu!
Mark
Every time you smoke a cigarette, an hour of your life is taken from you and given to Keith Richards. This is the only explanation that makes sense.
This is why the First Amendment is so God damned important.
And why anyone's attempts to erode it should be met with abject scorn.
President Obama could generate some serious goodwill by offering political asylum to Mike Ward.
You will have it with Hillary - just look at Stevens dissent in CU, same with his dissent in mcdonald and dissent in heller
I bet the kid doesn't even get any of the money.
I was going to rebut that Keith Richards isn't disabled, but I don't know, there's something going on there.
Do they have jury trials in Canada? Common, decent Canadians can laugh at a joke. The thought police can't. Just ask Mark Steyn about his battles with the Canadian human rights commission.