Welcome to Lilliput… from The Wild Duck
As “Mother Hen” to the Canadian Blogosphere, Kate at small dead animals is perhaps best qualified among us to note the reaction of the MSM to the blogging community in the context of the Canadian Federal Election, and she’s done so, b... [Read More]

Tracked on January 24, 2006 11:25 PM

My goodness....let me take the two obligatory seconds of feeling shame for being one of the little people voicing my opinion.

Oh yeah, and a reader tip. Don't tell me the CBC actually reported this?

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canadavotes2006/national/2006/01/03/elxn-harper-accountability.html

"The Finance Department, while Martin was minister, awarded eight research projects to Earnscliffe Strategy Group, Harper said, and only three of them resulted in written reports. Harper suggested that as much as $750,000 was spent for which the government has nothing to show, because the final reports were only verbal.

"It's always been awfully convenient for Mr. Martin to set up a commission that investigates, essentially, his political opponents within the Liberal party but not necessarily his own actions where they may have been dubious," Harper said. "

The irony is that more people will read Charlies column now it has been linked to on a well read blog than if it remained unheralded in the Citizen.

I suppose I could write a letter to the Citizen in response to his ill informed diatribe but heck- nobody reads it.

One can only assume that Mr. Gordon has his RRSP all topped up and is ready for retirement, or that he has discovered his place in line for a Liberal patronage appointment (which probably won't happen).

Probably no one will read his article, anyway.

Mike

Sounds like somebody is losing power is not too happy about it.

I love it when the papers print the word 'blog'. Nothing like making the remaining subscribers curious about the blogs, is there?

Competition should be fair game in any industry. The news media no longer has a monopoly... Go Kate and go bloggers!

Perhaps someone can guide Mr. Gordon over to " The
Huffington Post". Then, we can lie back and see how long it takes for this clown to change his opinion and praise the
"worthiness" of blogs.

There was a time when the little people knew their place. It was: Shouting Back At the Radio.

Why, only this morning I rode by a peasant who failed to tug his forelock. In the old days I would have taken my crop to him.

Don't these blog things have some kind of plug you can pull out somewhere?

Never have I read such intolerant opinion oozing with such elitist hubris and broad brush prejudice.

Gordon is a pompous ass!

This is the reason the electronic vox populi exists...for too long cloistered megalomaniacs have had a monopoly on public commentary....their paper thin egos and deep insecurity resent the fact that virtually ANYONE can reason and have an informed opinion at least as valid as theirs.

In ages past, Gordon and his ilk had common people flogged for making eye contact. Today he is bitter that he can recieve a well deserved kick in his class-baiting tucas from the common folks in cyber space for displaying such uncivil pomposity.

Alas, poor Charles, trapped in the last century. I'm sure he doesn't fully understand the nature of the blogsphere. While it is true that bloggers and commentators can say anything they want, it is also true that anything said can and will be researched, looked into and corrected or corroborated.

No more writing letters to the editor only to wait and see if it is printed days after the fact. No more arguing with the TV or radio. This is as close to real time as it gets.

Some people never learn. Sigh...

this guy retired last year ... check it out here

http://tinyurl.com/btnhj

So what gives?

He made a comment that people are increasingly paying attention to blogs, "for the time being"
I wonder what that means.
Also this idiot doen't know that an IPOD is music device ... am I wrong?

I lampooned this guy real good at duke's
if I will

http://tinyurl.com/agfqx

The Liberals are fighting this election like it were Stockwell Day they are campaigning against.

The msm has become overloaded with fat cats with expense accounts, and their only large appetites are for thick steaks at Hy's in Ottawa while they 'decide' what the peasants should be told.

Those days are gone, but the old guard will never realise it.

Tired.

Now, all this taking Charles to task is just cruel. It is ageist. Poor Charles. All those rude young people dancing around him in the street making fun of his knee breeches and tri corner hat.

As if having to gum your porridge is not humiliation enough

ahh Charles..perhaps it IS time as Vremont once said to "swallow the poison ink and fall on your quill"...

welcome to the 2000's.....i'd blog on a bit more but i have to run out and crank over the velocitator on my Bearcat...

The MSM should do their job as investigative journalists and report the news and views without it being sanitized by sycophant editors and media owners.

Those who fail to study history are destined to repeat it and trying to suppress voices of dissent is always futile.

The blogs are doing the job that the MSM is not. Sure some folks write rot, but then so is much of the MSM. The difference is that I prefer to have the freedom of choice about what I read and what I don't.

SDA is sucessful not because it is a rant outlet for "scary right-wingers" but because its content is intelligent, insightful and informative.

BLOG...Bullcrap Lost On Geeks.

Ordinary people in pyjamas feeling important because they see their words on a computer monitor.

I'm one of them and you are too.

CTV news just now.
Goodale aide says there is no meeting between RCMP and goodale scheduled this week.

So Charles Gordon thinks blogger's have "vicious little ideas" does he, well, he sure won't like it when he realizes just how much the MSM, in printed and electronic form, is losing readership to the blogs. Rock on Blogoshpere!

power to the people,I found that if I took the time to write a consise article the "newspaper" would not print it or would edit it in such a manner that the meaning was lost. The world has changed the "words from on high" are not the only source of information. PM gets his speech in the paper this morning, so , it's really all about Stephen Harper from what he says, seems he has discovered a whole host of issues that did't quite catch his interest before. The consertives have and are defining this election a way that is very gratifing to this fed up western canadian
Oh and thanks Paulie for allowing that the "child tax rebate" proposed by Harper could be spent as I see fit, I almost feel "entitled" I mean it's only my money. You smug fat basterd
bubba

Ron said: BLOG...Bullcrap Lost On Geeks.
Ordinary people in pyjamas feeling important because they see their words on a computer monitor."

Can you imagine the feeling Gordon gets from seeing his "words" splattered all over the print media? Perhaps it is the sticky keys from his euphoric self importance that clogs his word processor with such gunk.

Well, I don't have any pyjamas, but I do see the blogosphere as definitely democratizing the world we live in. I'm ecstatic when I see blogs impacting the media. This is one amazing power tool in bringing about needed change in our country. Hats off to you blogging guys out there.

how the mighty have fallen

Charles Gordon uses the term "vicious little ideas". I guess because he writes for the Citizen he has a license to decide what's vicious and what isn't. I wonder where he got that license from.

I smell the blood of an open wound. Nothing more fun then to pick at it.

Come on Gordon, you gonna cry? You gonna cry? big media baby -- unsurped by a bunch of little blogging meanies... cry now, come on....

Kinda funny how MSM tries to marginalize people who express opinions beyond their controlled public filters.

Just prior to the english language debate before Christmas some media comrades on CBC-Pravda radio were jawing about how nobody but media types would bother listening to the debate. They complimented their ability to properly "filter" through the dull boring debate to get only the important nuggets to disinterested Canadian masses.

That debate turned out to be anything but dull or boring and decently showcased a confident Stephen Harper. I wonder if the CBC was actually trying to decrease viewership with their pre-debate trash talk.

Thank God for blogs and the strong principled people that contribute to them. These shouting electronic streetcorners are a much needed balance to a smug MSM that seems to be looking out more for their interests than ours.

Elitism is the order of the day in the MSM, although I agree with the smug old fart on one point. The blogosphere has been the story in this election. The most significant stories, particularly those relating to the scandal ridden libs, have been broken on the blogs. The MSM like their masters the Libs have been on the defensive, reacting rather than setting the agenda. The blogosphere has done more in a matter of months to address the "Democratic Deficit" than the ruling class or the MSM would ever do in the next century. We have "virtually" returned to the roots of democracy in the Greek city states. All the while the self professed protectors of tolerance and inclusion shuffle nervously as the voices rise!! Can you hear the footsteps Charles??

Tories to clean up government polling
...The auditor general's concerns included the use of public money for partisan polling, and that many contracts only demanded verbal reports...

Exactly who are all these companies polling, and on what issues?

T001 Market Research and Public Opinion Services (formerly Telephone and Field Interview Servic
2087 contracts for a total value of $ 82,664,951

http://csi.contractscanada.gc.ca/csi/prod/en/applctrl.cfm?cmd=indxlist&rqst_levl=2&sr=1&alpha_start=0

Here’s an example of MSM crapitude, from our friends and the Mope and Flail regarding the CPC “Entitlements” ad:

[Excerpt start]
…
"This is certainly one of the most negative ads I've seen in a long time and by far the blackest of the black in this election campaign," said Jonathan Rose, a political studies professor at Queen's University. "It reminds me of some of the most virulent negative ads in the United States."
…
In contrast to the Tory ads, Prof. Rose called the newest Liberal spots a "barrage of feel-good motherhood images and ideas."

[Excerpt end]

Was this the only guy the Globe contacted? Could no one else be found who would counter the good professor’s idiotisms?

Or was it that this guy provided the quote that went most with the Globe’s world view and its agenda to make Canada a champagne-socialist’s paradise?

Re; "blackest of the black" what tree did this guy fall out of? cut the consertives some slack they don't have a lot to work with here that is positive.As it happens events have defined the liberanos in a way on this ad that is only a collection of facts and media soundbites that are,sadly a very public record , how to refute them, simple, attack the messenger. Sorry professer silly-ass even playing "the american card" for the yokels doesen't wow em in Wawa anymore Now about your new career practice after me " you want fries with that?" Oh and tell fat Paulie to keep on talking about Stephen Harper, I don't think he realizes he is doing a job interview in public and all he can do is talk about "the other guy" Get a grip offshore flag boat boy
Bubba

You know, I always find it amusing when people unconsciously "out" their own elists opinions.

With regard to the CPC "Entitlements" ad, when simply repeating the public record of events is

"the most negative ads I've seen in a long time and by far the blackest of the black in this election campaign"

you have to wonder.............so the publicly reported truth is blacker than a direct assertion that a specific person is unfit to govern? blacker than a gun point directly at the audience??? Very telling comments if you think about them!

OK, "elitest opinions"............!

Main stream mooks like Gordon have good reason to panic. The blogosphere can swarm over an issue and bring a remarkable collective expertise to it in real time. Got a health care issue - the blogs will have physicians, nurses, hospital administrators, economists, etc. professionally dissecting it for you. The Charlie Gordons of the world have trouble competing with that. The curtain is withdrawn and they are revealed to be inconsequential little dolts. I suspect that Chas. is whining because he realizes that his professional future just may be nasty, brutish and short (rather like many of his columns).

If the ads are black and negative, Professor, it's because they deal with reality, never a liberal strong point. That said - Whoa! Has somebody interfered with the RCMP? Goodale and Martin insisted there was to be a meeting this week with the RCMP. Now, they're saying there isn't? Does this not STINK? Or maybe the mounties have turned their sights on the Public Accounts relocation allowances to all those hot spots in mid-winter, nicely outlined yesterday here at SDA and Stephen's home for wayward bloggers. Don't tell me the mounties are listening to Buzz Hargrove who wishes it would all go away because it's really just nasty politics, folks. The Libs are good, kind, generous people - as long as it's not their own money they're paying out.

"Speaker's Corner in London's Hyde Park is one of the best places to let off steam in London . It is one of the most famous locations symbolizing democratic rights in the world...
Consider for a moment the so called Opinion Polls that the mass media constantly pump out, they take a survey of random samples of certain social groups and claim an accuracy rate, extrapolated from this to the entire country, of + or - 3-4%. But Opinion Polls are static phenomena a snap shot seeking out for example a yes, no, or maybe, answer. The human brain is however not static but undergoing constant change, a person may think one thing, and yet internally have doubts. Speaker's Corner may be seen as a dynamic refection of mass psychology in that you have here people from every walk of life, every class, and almost every country...
Speaker's Corner is perhaps the most dynamic mirror of human consciousness in the world."

Substitute Blogsphere for Speaker's Corner, Mr. Gordon, and you'll have a better understanding of what freedom of speech is in the 21st century.

I see a lot of good points brought forward in the previuos comments. The one that hooked me in the first place was the "real time" experience. How many times over the course of this election alone has the blogoshere scooped the story days ahead of the MSM? I enjoy having another slant to ponder, aside from the those presented by the MSM. I have come to respect SDA and similar blogs for their insight, research and taste in the way they present the facts.

I can't believe this guy! I would say that there are a lot of friends of the Liebreal's that are very scared right now. I don't think that if PMPM pulled out his scariest attack ads would save his bacon at this point. Thanks to blogs we finally have freedom of the "press". Anyone that has had an opposition view point probably has had their letters omitted from the press, as it has happened to me numerous times!

I just recently discovered the "blog-osphere", and how grateful I am. It gives me great hope knowing there are still ppl out there that want to save this once great nation.
I feel far more informed thru the "blogs" than I do MSM, altho I still like Global National.
Keep up the great work bloggers, I appreciate the education.

Given some of the unsubstantiated nonsense that gets printed on the editorial pages, I really don't think that Mr. George is in a position to criticize bloggers.

More importantly, in this election, the blogsphere has been quite possibly the primary source for investigative reporting, bringing up stories that the MSM doesn't want to cover (the prime example being Angry's coverage of income trusts).

There's another word for letting every little person with a "vicious little opinion" have a voice: it's called "democracy".

Speaking of negative (I use that term because it seems to have lost its meaning), did anyone see the following NDP ad aired just before Christmas:

(note that this is my hazy recollection)

Voice: Paul Martin gave his friends some great gifts this year…

Visual: Nicely wrapped present appears.

Voice: And here’s what he got you….

Visual: Lump of coal drops from above and hits the floor with a thunk.

Voice: But here’s what you can give Paul Martin…

Visual: A boot appears.

I though the commercial was great, until Jack! appeared and started droning on about listening to Ed Broadbent’s ideas for democracy.

Late Breaking Blogsphere News...

THE EARTH IS FLAT

Source: The Bible, Revelation 20:8

........and he will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

Get my point, just because it's in a blog with a quote from a reliable source does that make it factual?

The more I think of this, the more I wonder how Gordon feels about freedom of expression, freedom of speech or freedom of the press?

Perhaps those pesky newspapers printed in Boston and other American cities in the late 1700s were simply the blogs of those days and Gordon would have denounced them too.

When is the last time the msm actually broke a story during this election?

Have they?

Tired.

"BLOG...Bullcrap Lost On Geeks.

Ordinary people in pyjamas feeling important because they see their words on a computer monitor.

I'm one of them and you are too"

Yeah. And isn't it great?

Charles Gordon exemplifies the problem we have with the Canadian MSM and it's reporters right now, they like to be on the governments dinner party mailing list. So who is going to hold the governments feet to the fire when they are sleeping with the bastards? In Canada, Dam near no one.

One threat to Canadian democracy right now is the willingness of the media to climb into bed with the government while being strong armed by the CRTC. Thus allowing CBC to be the biggest governmental media whore in the land and most other outlets co-opted in some form or another.

It means a form of censorship is the standard instead of the exception. Why do you think China, Russia and so many other countries control the net. Particularly the Blogshere.
Why do you think the UN is dying to get it's hands on the net.

The greatest gift that blogging has bestowed on the average Canadian, a voice. A voice the MSM is fast becoming aware and terrified of. Do you think the MSM would even tolerate or accommodate the discourse (sometimes ruckus) that happens in the blogging world, not in my life time.

When I land on a blog site of MY choice. I get lots of debate and I become the person that decides what and if the information is relevant, not the talking heads or patronizing old dinosaurs like Charles Gordon.

Being new to the blogosphere seems a bit what it might have been like to be a character in "The Matrix". I am revolted and feeling a bit defeated and nauseous by the things being revealed and the power structures in place, but at the same time it is liberating to have that same knowledge and now decide what one might do with it. Pardon the pun but it seems ever more important to "de-liberate" this country asap. For starters I guess we will take back this country from the MSM and the lieberals.

You said it best..Until this moment i have been forced to listen while media and politicians have told me what canadians think!!!!...any questions?

Journalistic integrity is an oxymoron, at least when referring to many of the journalists out there. I worked as a journalist for almost ten years and simply couldn't do it anymore. I was tired of being told to "liven up the story so that people will listen". I think the sad thing is is people don't have the time required to really know what is going on in the world and why. There is so much information and spin out there to wade through, and when doing so, trying to keep things in perspective. I, for one, love the idea of blogs. It is refreshing to see what "the little people" have to say regarding politics,family, money and life in general. This is democracy, Mr. Gordon. Suck it up.

What would happen if the Conservatives win a majority and Peter McKay gets caught in a potatoes for patronage scandal. I know this far fetched but think about it.

Will SDA rise up and denounce or will they attempt to bury it? Will he resign his post as deputy prime-minister or will he ride out the storm of controversy?

The beauty of the blog is that it bypasses the need to run our stories or editorials by the Aspers. Mr. Gordon does not have the same luxury and I think he's pissed. He has the fear of the axe and a paycheck to contend with.

Most of us bloggers do what we do out of passion and without pay. We do it because we love our country and want our say on how it is run. We do it because the true Fifth Estate has been overrun by a few big conglomerates like the Canwest network, who fires editors when they don't tow the company line. The press is not a media outlet. It is not there for entertainment and it is not there for your bosses personal benefit Mr. Gordon. It is there to provide information to the public.

So take a valium Chucky...hell, take two, they're small, and sit back and read some of Kate's work. Or try Angry in the GWN. You can live vicariously through the bloggers. You might even get excited seeing someone carve up your boss.

Here's some fortune cookie wisdom for bloggers:

"The pursuit of ideas is for those who choose to live as men instead of as ants."

Maybe Mr. Gordon and his ilk prefer that everyone else stay as ants.

Ron, your comments are inaccurate.

1) Just because Revelation 20:8 euphemistically speaks of the 4 corners of the earth, it does not follow to suggest that this means that the authors of scripture thought that earth is flat, as any reputable Biblical exegete will tell you.

2) Peter McKay is from Nova Scotia, not PEI or New Brunswick. Therefore he is unlikely to be caught up in a "Potatoes for Patronage" scandal as you suggest.

I, being a pastor (who exegetes scripture for a living) who was born and raised in New Brunswick's Potato farming country (Upper St John River Valley) can speak to these things with some degree of authority.

Interesting that I turned up on a blog isn't it? Wouldn't likely happen in the MSM would it?

Ron,

In case you didn't get it, my point is that non-factual statements can be chllenged on a blog better than in the traditional media. You actually make that point yourself by raising the challenges you do.

I spotted this on the Telus website this afternoon. It may not be relevant, but you folks may be able to make something of it.

http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=canada_home&articleID=2134035

Have a peek and see.

It does kind of flash an anti-Liberal stance.

Mike

Spot on Karl!

Don't bother with Ron. He's really Charles Gordon in blogdrag(would that be drog?)

Funny, I blog and read them in the nude. Don"t own any pyjamas.Does that still make me a blogger?

And I thought he was scotty brison.

Wow!

Michael Coren is tearing criminals, Liberals, and weepy shrine-builders a new one.

[approximate quotes follow]

He started off laying into all these people holding vigils, praying, leaving flowers and teddies bears at the site of the killing, feeling "saddened" over the death of that young girl on Yonge Street.

Then he repeatedly calls gangsters "scum."

"When you have drugs and guns, you don't need a job - you have a job, as a gangster."

"Basketball courts are where many of the problems start."

And then later

"I'm not so sure that we haven't reached the point where the safety of ordinary Canadians is threatened should the Liberals be elected."

One of the guests, a bingo caller on local radio CFTR, goes on about her credentials as a crime reporter and says that many people are mistaken in thinking that a lot of the criminals have been through the criminal justice system only to be paroled to commit crime again...

Michael looks on agog, politely lets her finish, and then looks like he wants to crawl across the table and knock her teeth down her throat.

But lay into her he does.

The MSM pro smartly reacts as if the words never left her mouth, and goes on to slag the T.O. mayor Miller and the Liberals.

Great show. I think it's repeated tomorrow. Record it if you can.

Allow me to coin this phrase if you please.
Which I did earlier at Dukes

"Bloggers give good heads up"

RE: Torie ads are dark

Yes, describing corruption is dark. Apparantly the messenger has no right to remind voters of how "dark" the Liberal corruption was.

Perhaps it could be described in much "lighter" terms, you know, with some slapstick jokes and jovial music playing in the background. I guess to the MSM that would be more appropriate.

When the MSN is spoon feed like they have been for years in this country and if they go out side the feeding tube they get cut off from the grits....thats a pun...

Hate to admit it, but I gained a smidgen of respect for Stephen "Bag O' Hammers" LeDrew today.

He's on AM 640 in Toronto this afternoon, spouting the usual Lieberal nonsense, when he turns on the NDP and gains my respect.

[somewhat along the lines of what he said]

"I call the NDP the New Dinosaur Party. Last election they rolled out Ed Broadbent. This election they roll out Ed Schreyer ... Ed Schreyer! He's a real dinosaur. And they have a criminal - Svend Robinson - running for them too."

Good work, bow tie boy.

Im going to date myself here...Bennett.ran B.C for years! along came the new democratic party...he called them the New Depression party

"Today, therefore, I am proposing a yearlong journalism strike. I am urging reporters and editors around the world to put down their notebooks, close their laptops, hang up their phones . Lie down and be counted! Let’s have no reporting, no editing, no application of any human intelligence whatsoever to events public or private till January 1, 2007."

The Year Without Journalism

Funny thing about Jonathan Rose - he wrote article on the 2004 attack ads the Liberals used and commented that they were so effective because the Conservatives did not respond!

http://post.queensu.ca/%7Erosej/policy%20options.pdf

He also has all the NDP and Liberal ads from 2004 election too!

http://www.queensu.ca/politics/politicalads/2004/2004.htm

His main page
http://post.queensu.ca/~rosej/

"In case you didn't get it, my point is that non-factual statements can be challenged on a blog better than in the traditional media".

Karl: And misguided corrections resulting from lack of context can also be corrected.

The potato reference you corrected was obviously to the following May 18 interview: http://tinyurl.com/b7tg4 (ctv - video clip on right)

From www.petermackay.ca/pmkinthenews.htm:

The resulting news clip was dubbed "the Potato Patch interview". "We always kept a garden," he smiles, "and my father just happened to be putting in the potatoes the day I went back."

The words "investigative" and "journalism" are unfortunately an oxymoron now. What we get instead is rolling commentary from celebrity journalists meant not to piss off the Aspers et.al. Heck, do a real good job and you can even become the GG or how about a Senator. That's what we call client capture.

Chuckie's pissed since he can't set the agenda anymore. Boo hoo my friend. Get used to it. I'm sure he is well aware of the decreasing readership across North America that has him on a trajectory to extinction. How many 20 to 30 somethings do you know that get censored news 24-72 hours after the event from a rag that leaves ink all over their clothes?

Fact of the matter is Chuckie, most of us have higher IQ's than you. Sure we have troubles sometimes deciphering a noun from a verb but I suspect you would have trouble with complex engineering problems also. Does this make your view of the world superior to mine?

Kimball and Steyn on the end of the West

Two essays in the New Criterion talk about the West almost in the past tense. Roger Kimball's After the suicide of the West pronounces his post-mortem: a civilization suicided from despair; death from want of a reason to live. The contradiction within liberalism -- within multiculturalism -- Kimball argues, is that it unwilling to believe in anything definite, even in itself.

... an essay called “The Self-Poisoning of the Open Society,” ... dilates on this basic antinomy of liberalism. Liberalism implies openness to other points of view, even ... those points of view whose success would destroy liberalism. But tolerance to those points of view is a prescription for suicide. ... As Robert Frost once put it, a liberal is someone who refuses to take his own part in an argument.

And having emptied life of belief, liberalism has not coincidentally also emptied it of meaning. Kimball quotes Douglas Murray to evoke the atmosphere of a civilization partying frenetically on the brink of black nothingness.

It may be no sin -- may indeed be one of our society’s most appealing traits -- that we love life. But the scales, as in so many things, have tipped to an extreme. From seeing so much for which we would live, people in our society now see fewer and fewer causes for which they would die. We have passed to a point where prolongation is all. We have become like the parents of Admetos in Euripides’ Alcestis -- "walking cadavers," unwilling to give up the few remaining days (in Europe’s case, of its peace dividend) even if only by doing so can any generational future be assured.

Liberalism's first step is to render the past, with its ties to memory and tradition, despicable and valueless. >>> more
http://www.fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/

I regard Ron and his comments like a fart in the elevator. We have an idea who did it, but the result is too insignificant to bother us futher.

"Keep up the great work bloggers, I appreciate the education."

Posted by Rottigirl at January 3, 2006 03:16 PM

I hate to be the one to tell you this, Rottigirl, but it's not an education you're getting here, it's an indoctrination.

arthurdecco...Kate should give us an open troll thread.

Are you also waiting for when Robert's back in town?

arthurdecco: no, she's getting deprogrammed.

This is true democracy at work. For better or worse, comments are un-censored and un-cut. Can't say that for the main-stream-monopoly. Thanks to Kate and all the other dedicated bloggers who do this for little reward and often a lot of grief.

I see you too are up Canadace. Thankyou to you too for your dedication. Finally got some time over the wknd to check out your blog. It is great too. We are practically neighbors. Look forward to future discussions. Good night, have a good rest. These are interesting times for news junkies.

Just so we're clear - I do on rare occasion, delete comments, and I have been known to toss trolls.

I do have a reputation as a "fascist" to uphold, after all.

yyc: Thanks for the correction, but you help to make my point. Having never heard the clip in question called the "Potato Patch Interview", I naturally assumed that Ron was making the (all too common) mistake of confusing one Maritime province with another.

But your correction of me makes my point that the accuracy of a news item or comment on the same can easily be challenged, and corrected on a blog due to it's dialogical nature. Something that is cumbersome and difficult in print and television news.

Karl said: "But your correction of me makes my point that the accuracy of a news item or comment on the same can easily be challenged, and corrected on a blog due to it's dialogical nature. Something that is cumbersome and difficult in print and television news."

and not to be allowed, by the MSM, as it makes the truth come far to close to the surface.

Kate: you uphold it well.