I unfortunately could not be there yesterday, but it sounds like it was quite a show.
Like Kathy, I am completely unimpressed by the coverage of the trial from both Jon Kay and Christie Blatchford.
BlogWrath was there and provides an absolutely excellent summary-and Richard from Eye on A Crazy Planet has more.
Arnie will be there today as well.
Mark Steyn has some thoughts on this as well.
What bothers me a lot about the Post's coverage is the attitude that 'oh they were just kids', or 'oh they were just amateurs, caught up in the moment'. Silly young students, didn't really know what they were doing.
That is a lot of dog squeeze.
When something like this happens to you, in real time-it's not amateur hour. It's very real. Real people's lives are on the line.
Here's what it means: real chequebooks being opened and accounts drained; real jobs being threatened; one's ability to make a living being threatened; and very real family, psychological and emotional pressures come crushing down on those trying to fight back.
Had the Canadian "human rights' regime prevailed, Mark Steyn would have been forbidden to publish in Canada.
An attempt was made to destroy Mark Steyn, and the ripple effect would have been a chill on publishing one's opinion about, or criticizing Islam in the "free" world.
Part of the stakes of this trial include a discussion about whether or not that was a strategic objective of the proceedings initiated by the 'young naifs' or not.
That's a pretty big deal.
Anyone who writes and has published anything ought to concur.
This kind of reminds me how all the brilliant leftist academics and sneering journalists said that Saddam Hussein was such a paper tiger! He wasn't really so dangerous after all! Really?!?!?
These geniuses always have all the answers post-facto. Not in real time.
This is a chronic theme of jihad deniers as well.
It's no big deal, nothing to see here, lone wolf, etc..
It is also a chronic theme of the extreme left to focus on the minutia and ignore the big picture.
That is why someone like Michael Bloomberg focuses on soda servings and not on crime.
Why the Obama administration focuses on using federal powers to force people to bake cakes, and on "climate change" instead of the invasion of Ukraine.
And while soda servings are calculated and gasbag politicians fly around the world burning fossil fuel on their mega jets, opining about other people's "carbon footprint", there are Russian troops on the ground in Ukraine, Iranian missiles bound for Gaza now in Israel's hands, Ughurs slaughtering civilians in a train station in China, and a Malaysian airplane has "disappeared" without a trace.
Forgive me for not being optimistic this morning!
UPDATE:
Mark Steyn Weighs In-The Potemkin Parliament Pajama Party
