An article on political blogs that manages not only to avoid meaningful content, it offers up a host of incorrect assumptions;
But for all the political blogs that can be found on the Net, it remains hard to pinpoint with any certainty their impact on voters.
Recent voting patterns indicate turnout among younger Canadians is low and dropping.
How long have we had the “interweb” now? In how many homes? Why does mainstream media continue to stereotype political bloggers and our readers as “tech savvy” twenty year olds?
Here’s a comment that appeared here at SDA a couple of days ago;
Typical CBC leading off with poll showing the Liberals ahead. For the duration, that is the last time I watch any news. I’ll get all my updates on this blog so keep up the good work with your posts. At 77, I have to watch the old b.p.
A surprisingly high number of the visitors to SDA are retired or nearing retirement age – and if the emails I receive privately are any indication, the typical reader here is male, and in their late thirties to early fifties. That’s certainly not the demographic one ordinarily thinks of as the “tech savvy younger generation”.
It’s a misconception held not only by many in media, but by those in political circles, and it results in idiotic prattlings like this by writers dropped into the blogosphere who have no clue what they’re doing, or who their audience really is.
But just because it’s an Internet-savvy generation doesn’t mean blogging is the answer to engaging disaffected voters, said Chris Waddell, a journalism professor at Carleton University who teaches web publishing.
“I’m not convinced anyone reads them other than a small group of insiders,” said Waddell.
“People are not coming home from work at night and deciding they have to read 10 or 12 blogs before dinner in the same way they may read the newspaper or sit down to watch the news.”
Emphasis mine. Who is this man and who’s allowing him to teach your children?
My traffic patterns indicate most people read blogs during the day, often at work (that’s supported by logfile data) with another surge in the early evening.
He adds some of the more effective blogs, especially in the United States, have reached mass audiences – but it’s because reporters from mainstream media pick up on a blog posting.
And there we have it, courtesy of the mainstream media, another “expert opinion” offered by someone who might have saved himself the professional embarrassment by simply admitting he doesn’t know much about the topic.
Blogging is a niche media. Very few political bloggers seek to be all things to all people, no more than most who write political columns in the mainstream media aim to do so. Single bloggers aren’t isolated entities competing with one another, but participants in an ever evolving, open source staff of opinion writers and information providers connected electronically.
One doesn’t compare the traffic of any individual poliblogger to the circulation figures of a city newspaper – the blogger is to the blogosphere what the polticial columnist or financial reporter is to the paper. The web user can pick and choose who he reads and doesn’t read in the same way I skip over columns or sections of the paper I’m not interested in.
But the most serious flaw in the article is that it assumes the transference of opinion and information is one way – from blogger to reader in the same “top down” fashion that mainstream journalism speaks to their consumers.
It’s really the other way around – as a blog develops traffic, the information flow reverses, as readers begin to inform other readers, with the blogger as interpreter and facilitator – functioning, as Hugh Hewitt described it, as an internet guide or “cyber sherpa”.
The impact of blogging on the poltiical landscape doesn’t happen here on these “pages” nor is it measured in my traffic. I don’t write to “sway disaffected voters”.
It occurs when the reader who visits SDA – who follows the links in posts and comments to an Auditor General’s report, to military bloggers in Iraq, who has viewed scanned letters issued from the Finance Department to Adscam players – sends a link to a friend in Nova Scotia, sits down at the table with family, at coffee break at the work place, and someone else raises a subject for discussion that has been framed in the mainstream – such as the war in Iraq, income trusts, Paul Martin’s involvement in Sponsorship. And that person, the blog reader, has information that no one else has heard.
(Update – the comments are confirming my estimate on typical age of SDA readers).
The MSM and the LPC can’t fathom anything else, but a top down information stream. On an aside, Chretien just filed a challenge to Gomery’s findings in Federal Court.
I am 56 and fed up with the bias in most MSM. Yes I look at tv news and I have the Calgary Herald and NP delivered daily, but its more to see what the enemy is doing than anything else. When I want the truth I check out my favourite blogs, and yes I do it numerous times daily.
When blogging first started, or at least when I first discovered them, is when I started sending emails to some MSM outlets, notably CBC and CTV.
I dont know how much effect its had on them but from Kates post we now know they are noticing.
So keep it up bloggers you are making a huge difference.
Some of the stuff posted here you know is ‘insider information’which is why you can expect MSM to be so dismissive. They’re told to adhere to strict editorial policy, so there’s little room for independent or creative thinking as witnessed by Prof. Waddell’s comments. He’s an old horse the Mother Corpse routine trots out when they need somebody to agree with them, and should be dismissed as just another flake among the many. Expect that sort of thinking to become entrenched with nanny state daycare.
I’m 54, I get the local newspaper for local news only, I now skip a lot more stuff than I used to, including the columnists. I have a set blog-reading pattern, of the 43 or so blogs I have bookmarked I hit a few several times a day, some once a day, some once every two or three days. I used to respect the Globe and Mail, now I won’t even read a free copy if it’s available. Bias is a universal constant but lies and manipulative propaganda are intolerable.
Hi Kate you must really be getting to them they
have started to subtly discredit you.
I’m 48 years old and stopped watching or reading
MSN years ago. How stupid do these people believe\
I or anyone else. They stopped providing information
and began telling me how to think. That really ticked me off. So I voted with my feet and remote.
Then I discouvered the Blogs a few months ago and got to sound off. Plus I got to read the opinions of other average types just like me. Low and behold those opinions, ideas and thoughts bore no relation to the truck coming out of MSN. No longer did I have to swallow the pap that MSN was trying to feed me. It still amazes me how stupid they think we the people are.
I used to Love sitting down to read a paper but now on the rare occasion that I pick one up in the following moments I am just cringing at what I read
there they go again telling me how to think. So I don’t read em anymore.
OK! OK! I gotta say it. YOU GO GIRL!
UGH splat! Tomatoe up side the head for that one.
Uhm, lets try again Kate you and others like you are making it a better world for all of us. So my hats off to you for all your hard work and Thanks.
An important quote from the article:
“The Internet tends to be a place where Conservatives feel comfortable,” said Wells.
“But it tends to be from the base wanting arguments that excite the base reinforced rather than arguing for a tent-broadening message.”
Blogs are an important source of information where the MSM fails miserably. But it is also polarizing in many ways, because people just want to have their own opinions affirmed. So they eschew one source of information that they deem to be biased, and go to another one that is clearly so. The best way to stay informed is to read blogs from all over the spectrum – that’s why I’m here. Then it works like the confrontational court system: let each side take their best shot, and let the jury decide. We are the jury. And the MSM gatekeepers won’t accept that they can’t keep all the testimony out.
Newspapers are great…. for day old news. Old news combined with such obvious bias is the reason I stopped reading them. I can get the bias online, or real answers to real questions (ie: not the ones the Liberals have told their CBC or CTV reporters to ask) from blogs. Keep up the dialogue. The increased traffic on blogs is what is scring the MSM. That’s why they have attempted their lame attempts to cash in with their election (censored) blogs.
Listening to Bill Good (CKNW Radio Vancouver) this morning. Someone called in to talk about bias in the media, Good said there is no bias reporting as a matter of fact he says most reporters don’t like politiics and some don’t even vote.
Too bad the caller didn’t bring up that the owner of the Globe and Mail is a personal friend of the PM. I think I heard this person was rallying the troops at a recent fund raiser for the Libs.
Good also dicounted the CBC being biased. He said he has not made up his mind who to vote for but his continued denial if biased news reporting gives me cause to think Liberal is game.
Maybe wrong but thats the way it sounds on the radio.
How about a sidebar poll to see what is the age of SDA readers.
Count me at 35.
45ish yrs old and female, I read several blogs daily at work, on breaks only of course!! then at home read a little more sometimes lots more, depending on what’s happening. I used to love to read at least 2 papers daily, now only pick up the Herald on Saturday and Sunday for the crosswords.
Fantastic post, Kate. I can tell you from first-hand experience that these misconceptions continue to hamper the communications efforts of political candidates as well.
Hi Kate,
Like many other of the commentators, I’m on the downward slide to 50 (and FWIW female). What the MSM and various journalism profs also fail to appreciate is the amount of information that I, as a blog reader, forward. My friends & family who are too busy , technologically inept, or (unless I prod them) uninterested to read blogs get the choicest bits emailed (with proper attribution). I know many of them then email friends, who email friends (and so on). Hence, my one hit to your site probably means at least 10 other people have seen a particularly salient post. Tough to do the same thing with my dead tree issues of the NP and Globe.
CBC Newsworld just had a techie on re blogs during the election. It’s going to become a regular feature. They’ll be checking in with this guy to see what his faves are that day. Just an overview, mentioned a few like rabble????something or other; then the party blogs. More in-depth stuff to come, presumably. You can bet it won’t be anything anti-Liberal.
Blogs, and the informal way they disseminate and digest news and opinion will always be looked down upon by the MSM not because they think it is un-influential but precisely because it is.
The political junkies – those most involved or interested in it – use blogs and the internet as their primary information source. (Speaking from my own experience, some of the very best political writing I have ever read I have found on the blogs) These “junkies” are enormous centres of influence for those less involved as I bet everyone reading this would attest.
The Blogs are doing two things that will be fatal to the MSM if it doesn’t change its ways:
It will destroy the MSM’s journalistic “integrity” (insert great belly-laugh here) as happened to CBS and Dan Rather and it will, by consistently outscooping the MSM, become the point source for information to a rapidly increasing number of people.
The Blogs have the power to bring down leaders – witness the “Swift Boat” issue in the US last year.
Using the low youth vote as an argument only demostrates how ignorant and out of touch the MSM is with the internet. Seniors are some the very highest users and viewers. That you do not see a lot of seniors running blogs is more a function of their low technical knowledge of how to do it, not their volume of usage.
A while back I spoke to the editor of a major Canadian daily and he made the very enlightened observation that the type of media that suffers most when a new form of media dawns – in this case the internet – is the media that came immediately before it in this case Television.
As an aside, I think one of the biggest things missing from the blogosphere in this election compared to the last is a “Live” Andrew Coyne Site. It was on the verge of becoming the Blog of record when AC put it in suspend mode after the Non-con vote last spring.
Selective blog choices would be ‘bl-editing’ wouldn’t it?
Caught coverage of that CBC/Environics poll. Biased doesn’t begin to describe it, unless you use terms slanted or unprofessional. They said Stephen Harper is “only leader polling behind his party.” This is a bad thing? Basically 10% of respondents don’t think Harper good leader but still willing to vote Conservative! This is good news! Once he warms up with regular contact with people he can grow. Liberals have little room to grow, unless they can scare/bribe voters again. Another item on poll – did anyone notice that when they talked about ethics and accountability, questions referred to politicians in general. Love that Pee Wee Herman school of philosophy approach; “I know you are but what am I.” The MSM seems determined to deflect Liberal ethical issues into “all politicians are corrupt” argument.
I notice Harper getting criticism on SSM. I think he has actually made a smart move. Get it on (and off)the table right away, fully disclosed and let MSM/Libs (same) go after him on on abortion and capital punishment. So much for hidden agenda argument. Regarding stance itself; let’s face it, the one-third of Canadians who are in favour of SSM don’t vote Conservative anyway. While I may disagree personally with his stand (Just let it go), it won’t cost him votes but could help him in traditional immigrant communities IMHO.
“…arguing for a tent-broadening message” WTF???
Obviously this old fart of a professor doesn’t know you can’t go camping in the winter, especially in Canader, eh.
For the record: Male, married, employed, 54 years old. Supported Reform & Alliance when I was up north. Read the Houston Chronicle (a bit lefty) during breakfast as my laptop doesn’t support cereal data. I don’t even bother with the editorial pages. Check out Canoe.ca, then Calgary Sun, look in on Drudge, Neale News and SDA in that order only because I’m at work @0600 cst. After work I may see some Fox News (or not) and a scan of the above blogs again.
Oh yes, it is nice to see Jaymeister on side with this one. Me thinks the MSM is too worried about losing their “identity” and “their” breaking story than reporting the news. i.e. Grealdolt
“People are not coming home from work at night and deciding they have to read 10 or 12 blogs before dinner in the same way they may read the newspaper or sit down to watch the news.”
Er, yes actually, that is just what this 37 year old does..I’ve got a lunch break that lends itself to reading too. The NP online and blogs…that’s my information source!
Sidebar readership poll? Good idea!
Time to read ‘the tipping point’ again too…
45 employed rural white male.
Keep on truckin’Kate!
I do not consume ANY MSM–at ALL!
I am 66 and only read the blogs for information
on what is happening in the world of politics.
I simply cannot watch the bias in the paper and
the television.
I found the internet four years ago and have
watched the progross of the blogs and it really
is outstanding. They have the power to change
minds and they are doing a great job of bringing
the news to all in a fast and intelligent manner.
They cover all aspects of politics in both
countries and always take care they are giving
out the truth. They watch each other to maintain
their honesty in reporting and will quickly
let someone making a mistake in their comments
know so they can change their comments.
They are vital to the conservatives in both
countries, and are appreciated by more people
than they realize as some readers do not let
them know they are being read.
As noted in one of the comments, we read and then
inform people of the facts and that often brings
changes for the better.
My son, who never followed politics closey
before in now a card carrying conservative simply
because he read the blogs now.
Progress!
Kate
Why doesn’t someone expose these pollsters for the political hacks that they really are? How do we as citizens ensure that they are reporting true sentiment and not making up “polling information”. For example, would it not make sense for the “Liberal friendly” pollsters to skew the Liberal vote as higher than it is in Ontario so that Ontarians would say” We better vote Liberal because it appears that they are going to win and we want to be on the government side”? These pollsters could be putting out total BS and nobody has any way of verifying it.
40’s, small business owner, married, male, member of Armed Forces reserve…Which is why I feel I have to post my comments anonymously…
God…today this place sounds like a tweleve step program for excessive paranoia.
My name is……….
I am……. years old.
Not even my tin foil hat blocks out the evil CBC.
So the CBC was subtly nudging people towards RABBLE! That place is extreme lunatic fringe, I equate it to a neo-nazi or holocaust denial website for its credibility and amorality factor. I web-surfed in there a few times but found it unbearable, the hate-speech, the whackjob ideas – “everyone in Canada should be on a fixed $25,000 a year salary” – but I guess the CBC would steer people there, it’s definitively anti-Conservative.
42 and not much to look at (but my wife loves me).
I guess I have to thank my 18 years’ as an IT professional for my “tech saviness.” I can bookmark a page – genius I am!
Phil: opposition leaders usually poll behind their party.
bricker at ipsos pointed out last year that voters answer the “best prime minister” question as though the question was “easiest to imagine as prime minister”.
his point was that that when time for a change goes over 60 and the polls show a clear lead for the new prime minister, the opposition leader would still be low on “best prime minister” until the day after the election.
…a clear lead for the NEXT prime minister…
Don is NOT old.
He’s 37. His real name is Dennis and he lives in an Anarcho Syndicalist commune in downtown Toronto.
Come and see the violence inherent in the system!
I’m 52, widowed, employed, mother of 3 home-educated young adults. Two of my kids have blogs and that got me started.
I’m 56 years old and don’t consider myself to be part of the internet savvy generation. Sure I can find my way around, but that’s about it.
As for the MSM I rarely read a newspaper anymore (offline that is)seldom watch a TV newscast or listen to talk radio (something that was almost an obsession of mine.}I just can’t take the leftwing bullshit that spews from them.
I get almost all my info from the internet.
The major difference between a blog and a newspaper or TV show is that blogs are instantly interactive. I can read a blog and then reply instantly, as opposed to having to email a letter to the editor of my local paper and then hope that they print it a couple of days later.
The exchange of information runs both ways, and can quickly mushroom depending on how many links one wants to pursue. That’s been my experience with blogs.
As to the notion that blogs are not very influential, I think that’s absurd. My personal view on the Iraq war, for instance, has changed dramatically thanks to blogs. I’ve gone from being somewhat opposed to the invasion to favouring it, due to the amount of information I’ve been able to glean from blogs over the past year or so. They provide a range of information that the MSM simply does not and cannot. Where in the MSM could I find stories from soldiers right on the front line in Iraq? They’re exceedingly rare.
In the world of politics, blogging has opened up a huge field for right-of-centre thinkers to communicate with each other in real time. That did not exist prior to the internet, which has become an invaluable tool for spreading our ideas. The liberals and socialists always had a compliant MSM with a monopoly or near-monopoly on disseminating information in the past. Newspapers and TV stations, under the watch of their government minders, consistently toed a left-liberal line that no one could easily challenge. That’s all changing thanks to blogging and I think that the Liberals and socialists are more than a little fearful.
The recent CBC strike may prove to be a watershed event in our history; notable because it was greeted not with outrage, but with yawns. This cozy bastion of statism was, for the first time in its history, treated as if it didn’t exist by most Canadians. That’s a far cry from the reaction to a CBC strike one would have expected thirty years ago, when many Canadians had no choice but to get their news from the CBC.
Keep up the excellent work, Kate. I think you’ve hit a lot of nerves with SDA.
Texas Canuck:
You bet I’m on side when it comes to this. The MSM serve nobody but themselves. In the case of the CBC it is their own funding, and in the case of the corporate media it is their conglomerates’ coffers. (Which is why I chuckle at those who seriously believe that Bell or GE or Time/Warner support a socialist agenda.) Blogging is a good thing, but bloggers are gatekeepers too. That’s why the broader variety of sources you turn to the better.
I cancelled my subscription to the Post a few months after the Aspers bought it. Gave them a chance again a few months ago and cancelled it after 3 issues.
Mr. Professor is dead wrong for coming home at night (and before leaving in the morning) sitting down and reading 10 or 12 blogs is exaclty what I do.
Jesus, though…you’d think Harper would do a little better than to allow this SSM free vote stuff to ‘come out of the closet’ so early in the campaign. Saw it on the front-page of every newspaper today and my first thought was: ok, he’s done! Hope I’m wrong! I mean, I appreciate his honesty, but…
…at the risk of offending the anti-abortion, anti-SSM crowd here, when are the higher-ups in the party going to realize that if they are serious about getting power, they’re going to have to put a damper on this kind of stuff.
The reality in Canada is that most people don’t go for it: sheep that they are, they get scared by the notion of ‘far-rightism’, etc. etc… Myself I am a fiscal conservative/social liberal who will always vote Conservative, and it’s incredibly annoying, to say the least, to see our side getting blown out of the water when this shit comes up time after time!
Evilest One
34, male. I guess I’m dangerously close to the stereotypical tech-savvy younger generation. I am certainly NOT any part of a “small group of insiders”, though.
Anarcho-Syndicalist… haha! Left-speak for rule by organized-labour thuggery!
I’ve all but given up on the MSM, I listen to Charles Adler, Dave Rutherford(my favourite), Roy Green, on talk radio. I read the sun’s and my favourite is Lorrie Goldstien, and check out about four conservative type blogs , and one liberal type blog daily, and occasionally watch ctv, and read the toronto star, just to see how crazy they’ve gotten lately. I’m 27 Male.
I just saw a news spot on ctv news net about blogs, they mentioned the blogging tories but prattled on about blogs in general in the usual fashion (tech-savvy geeks, insiders, ‘wow, blogs!’ sort of thing). I still don’t think the media gets it; I check SDA every day for news, and updates. The MSM simply doesn’t cover the news I need to hear about, and i’m contantly aggravated at how biased, one-sided and BLAND their coverage is. They simply don’t cover the whole story. If I wanted government cheerleading, i’d go to the liberal party of canada’s website.
Keep up the good work kate, because I trust you more than I trust any CBC employee.
37 year old male who reads the Post (I don’t find it that biased, actually), the Sun (not because I really like it, but it aggravates me less than the Herald does) and as many blogs as I can on a daily basis. Avoid television news and especially anything to do with the CBC at all costs.
Hello Kate;
I am 65 year old retired military man who reads your blog almost daily. In fact, I am using my son’s lap top in Brandon today, reading your’s and other blogs in order to try and get a true interpretation of what the politicians are saying or not saying.
You have the best blog on the net and it keeps me from becoming completely dejected when I watch the antics of our corrupt Liberal government and direction that my beloved Canada is going under their misguided policies.
Thank you and keep up the great writing.
Alex Mills
Winnipeg
Outstanding post, Kate – I couldn’t agree more. I read blogs for several reasons.
1. I get the news faster than I can from MSM. Because of blogs I was reading about stories like the Oil-for-Food scandal and Sony’s screwed up copy-protected CDs long before MSM caught up.
2. I can read the stories that interest me and pass up all the fluff pieces that increasingly dominate mainstream news.
3. I find it increasingly difficult to watch TV news because of the incredible biases in the way it’s presented. Most people think that because they are watching images on TV it must be real. Once you’ve caught on that they are only showing you what they want you to see, you get a whole different perspective. Last night I watched The National on CBC for the first time in months because someone here had mentioned a particularly biased segment. The whole bloody thing was a joke. They had several segments that consisted of nothing more than “man-in-the-street” types of interviews that reiterated Liberal talking points. Unless you’re going to show me everyone you talked to, don’t bother because I know you’ve edited it down to present only those views that fit your agenda.
4. There are times I’ve read a syndicated news article/column or watched a segment on TV and had to go to the internet to fact-check it because I suspected it was wrong. More often than not, it was either wrong or incomplete or manipulative. I shouldn’t have to waste my time fact-checking MSM stories. I know that if I’m reading a popular blog any errors or misrepresentations will be jumped on immediately.
53 year old male who’s been reading blogs for about 3 or 4 years.
BTW, the new version (1.5) of the Firefox browser has just been officially released and it’s great. Combine it with a newsreader extension like Sage and blog reading is a breeze.
24, married white male living in small town alberta with 2 kids.
No t.v in our house, no newspaper subscriptions, just a sexy mac with a high speed connection.
There’s a number of blogs I check on a daily basis, blogs are the PRIMARY source of information shaping my vote. (Ditto for my wife.)
Thanks for the good work.
P.S I would vote on Christmas day in my santa underwear if it meant a shot at Ottawa.
I forgot to chime in with my particulars: 35 yr-old dad from the GTA in Ontario.
Why am I not surprised by Mrs. Thatcher’s comment (12:57) that the CBC techie reads rabble.ca? What a waste of bandwidth.
39, male, Luddite. Barely technoliterate enough to start MS Word.
Been reading blogs since ’02 – but last year, around about Rathergate, gave up entirely on newspapers. Haven’t watched CBC News since 2000; haven’t watched any televised news since the fall of Baghdad (and I watched that war on Fox). Occasionally watch CPAC / C-SPAN for realtime stuff (haven’t sussed out these “Podcasting” and “liveblogging” things yet).
Keep it up, Kate, SDA rules the Canadian blogosphere.
Don’t forget, almost the first day back in the House and just after the CBC strike ended, Harper got up to ask a question, can’t remember what it was, but he did same something to the effect, Is the minister hoping that, like the month-long cbc strike, nobody would notice? So, I suspect they’ve declared open season on him.
2,000 plus year old Athenian, unemployed, dialectician, sometime dramatist, heterosexual, male, technically dead (DWM).
My favorite blog outside of the one started by one of my students. Enjoy your blog and wanted to have a ringside seat at the most corrupt government ever seen since the 30 Tyrants took over Athens.
Socrates lurks as well but doesn’t speak up for fear he’ll be executed all over again.
“society will always try to tyrannize thought.”
34, male. Tech-savvy enough, though not excessively so. Most of my extended family knows of my blog, and several regularly read it. I haven’t done much e-mailing to them about particular articles though (yet). I’m on lunch at work right now, though I also spend probably at least one hour per night reading blogs (and SDA is probably the most addictive one, since Coyne disbanded his last spring).
Evil Prince, I’m one of those SoCons who think it’s a good idea to be up front and center about the social issues. I believe it was Harper who spoke years ago about how fiscal and social conservatism are fundamentally linked (which is certainly debatable, but a fair argument). There is nothing wrong with taking a principled stand. Do I, who oppose SSM, want the whole campaign to be about it? Absolutely not. To pretend that issues like SSM and abortion are outside the realm of responsible political discussion is a failure of our system to encourage mature debate. I’m more relieved at Harper’s willingness to clearly state the CPC’s position on free votes about SSM up front and early in the campaign, than I was by Day’s avoidance of discussing his views on abortion, despite the fact that, morally, Day holds a view much closer to mine than Harper’s. This ‘boogeyman’ approach to debate in Canada has got to go. PMPM (and many Liberal/MSM shills) insist that abortion/MSM are ‘settled’ issues that don’t need to be debated – they are absolutely wrong. I’m longing for a SoCon Canadian leader who can intelligently discuss these things (many can), but who also won’t back away from a fight/debate (few will).
Kate,
I subscribe to the Post and would cancel it in a minute if I wasn’t addicted to Sudoku (BTW my ability to remember phone numbers and stock numbers has improved dramatically in the last few months). I’m also dying to see to what depths David Aspers will sink to defend the Libs this time around. I do have to thank the Post for introducing me to Mark Steyn who is the best columnist I have ever read.
When I do read the paper I notice how much of it is stuff I read days ago on the net.
As for the blogs, I read at least 10 every day and change them regularly as I find better sources of news or comments. The cream rises to the top much faster on the net than anywhere else. Please keep up the great work!
Marc
PS: 42 MWM
Make sure you put a ‘security fence’ around that age poll.
Vellacott just on CKOM. No wonder we struggle to gain acceptance and votes with idiots like this spouting his anti-gay, anti-abortion view. I too am a fiscal conservative/social liberal, and I don’t support SSM, but focus on real issues.