Yes, yes, I know that moonshine is potentially dangerous stuff, but I can’t help admiring the initiative that went into this:

“Border guards in Lithuania have unearthed a lengthy pipeline that was intended to ship illicit alcohol from the neighbouring, authoritarian state of Belarus, giving Lithuanians a last cheap and perhaps deadly shot of Soviet-era liquor on the edge of the newly expanded European Union. Rokas Bukinskas, spokesman for the Lithuanian border guard, said: "We found it [yesterday]. It is 3km [2 miles] long and goes under a local river, some fields and roads."

It’s also nice to know that some forms of genuinely free enterprise are hanging on in Belarus, a country run by a thug who is the worst sort of post-Soviet nightmare.

Britain’s Labour Party continues with its plans to muzzle religious debate. The London Times’ Matthew Parris is not impressed:

“There is a huge danger at the centre of the thinking which grounds this measure. What counts as hateful depends very much on the sensitivities and tolerances of the complainant. As we never tire of reminding ourselves, you can get away with verbal aggression towards Christianity which would be considered unacceptable if directed towards Islam. It follows that the less tolerant any religious group is of criticism or mockery, the greater the protection the proposed new law will offer them. But these may be the very faiths or sects which ought to be confronted — confronted and attacked for the very intolerance and self-righteousness which, if this measure becomes law, will be adduced as evidence of their “sensitivity”. In the 1970s this used to be defined as “self-defined” oppression: the notion that it is for you to say what oppresses you. It is a nonsense.”

Parris also makes the vital point that religious controversy is not always polite, and nor should it be:

“Religion can oppress. I hate — yes hate — the sect and its followers who are stopping women in Saudi Arabia from voting. Religion can bully, it can cow, it can coerce. One of the ways it does so is by impressing upon its adherents the idea that none dare offend it, twit it or tweak its tail. Such sects or faiths cast a spell — cultural, even political, as well as theological — over their adherents. Such spells must be broken. A necessary weapon in the hands of those who would do so is ridicule, contempt and the power of real anger. Ask Voltaire: scorn, laughter, calumny and abuse are vital to those who confront bullies.”

Indeed they are.

But for a contrary view, we can turn to Madeleine Bunting in the Guardian:

”The clause on religious hatred lays down the kind of crucial boundary necessary for ordering relations in a multicultural society; as Muslim has become an increasingly important and visible political identity in this country, the state has an urgent responsibility to provide that boundary.

Free speech or multiculturalism? That’s the choice, it seems.

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Regarding your post about Ronald Reagan in The Corner: Last night my wife and I watched an episode of What's My Line from 1952-53 era where Ronald Reagan was the Mystery Guest. He came across as very friendly, funny and down to earth. Reagan was trying to disguise his voice, and used a number of different dialects. We commented that if the Reagan haters had that footage they would have taken it out of context and used it as an example of some bumbling fool rather than an example of someone having fun.

My wife had recorded the episode with a digital video recorder and made sure our son had a chance to see the man who later became a hero to so many of today's conservatives. Our son is in his second year at Santa Clara University and is the lone conservative voice as one of the school newspaper's opinion page columnists. It is good that he can see that conservative icons aren't always the stuffed shirts the MSM makes them out to be.

When he was still out and about, his offices were in the Fox Plaza, home to many of Twentieth Century Fox offices. It may surprise you to know that even us crazy lefties working in Hollywood were always thrilled to catch a glimpse of him striding through the lobby. He was an important man for all Americans.

Hearing that the office is officially closing is sad, I was wondering to myself the other day if that office was even still open. I did not vote for Bush and wasn't old enough to vote during the 80's but I'll never forget the day that President Reagan pointed his finger at me and gave a smile. I was always amazed that a man who stared down communism would bother to take a moment to smile at a regular citizen.