US at war with the US

Dems and Pubs at each others throats.

Can we afford this lack of focus towards our most stealthy Isamofascist Enemy Iran at this time?

Hillary promises a cap on troops in Iraq to win political ground in the US. Why does it seem idiotic to me that one would inform the enemy of future plans? Guess the *Isamos* will vote Hillary.

No major USA based crisis since 9/11. The Bush team seems to be doing something effective for North American security. Hillary never seems to touch on how the Dems will continue and enforce that perfect security record

A singular focus at taking out the leaders and motivators who goad car and body bombers in Iraq seems the most logical requirement to stabilize the country.

Seems all important that both political parties would cooperate on world security now! If Al Qaeda, Hezbullah and the Taliban are allowed to get their act together, US elections may not even be possible in a state of war emergency. = TG

RE: Chinese Killsat

The Chinese are obviously sending a warning to the US. The irony is that globalization and free trade has made China the world power it is today.

"Why would he do that if he has a convertible BMW?" he asked, during an interview with The Globe at a
suburban Tim Hortons.

"If there is any homegrown terror, it is the RCMP," Dr. Abdelhaleem said.

More Islamologic...

***

Benny Morris: The Next Holocaust Will Be Different

You must read this powerful essay by Israeli historian Benny Morris: This Holocaust will be different.

The second holocaust will be quite different. One bright morning, in five or 10 years, perhaps during a regional crisis, perhaps out of the blue, a day or a year or five years after Iran’s acquisition of the Bomb, the mullahs in Qom will convene in secret session, under a portrait of the steely-eyed Ayatollah Khomeini, and give President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, by then in his second or third term, the go-ahead.

The orders will go out and the Shihab III and IV missiles will take off for Tel Aviv, Beersheba, Haifa and Jerusalem, and probably some military sites, including Israel’s half dozen air and (reported) nuclear missile bases. Some of the Shihabs will be nuclear-tipped, perhaps even with multiple warheads. Others will be dupes, packed merely with biological or chemical agents, or old newspapers, to draw off or confuse Israel’s anti-missile batteries and Home Front Command units.

With a country the size and shape of Israel (an elongated 20,000 square kilometers), probably four or five hits will suffice: No more Israel. A million or more Israelis in the greater Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem areas will die immediately. Millions will be seriously irradiated. Israel has about seven million inhabitants. No Iranian will see or touch an Israeli. It will be quite impersonal....-
(via LGF)
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid=1167467762531&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

"No major USA based crisis since 9/11. The Bush team seems to be doing something effective for North American security. Hillary never seems to touch on how the Dems will continue and enforce that perfect security record "

If one major USA based foreign terrorist attack happening on your watch is a "perfect security record" (sorry as memory serves Bush was president at the time) then what's zero attacks rate?

The US isn't at war with itself, it's a democracy and it's doing what democracies do, argue amongst themselves incessantly.

"Hiding behind masks and bandanas, these heroic opponents of free speech matched Taylor’s intolerance with their own."

I'm surprised it took you this long to come to the defence of your hero.

"I'm surprised it took you this long to come to the defence of your hero."

I don't think anyone is actually defending him, but there are better ways of dealing with someone like this than shouting him down.

The man's entire argument is based off of Straw Men and Half-Truths; I'm willing to bet that you can (easily) bully him into a debate and publicly destroy his argument.

The Australian Imam who said that Muslims have more of a right to Australia than Australians, also said that he was taken out of context. Ok then, here's what he really said:

(from the Gathering Storm)

Sheikh Al-Hilali claims that Afghan Muslims preceded Captain Cook in his discovery of Australia:

"Australia is an old-new continent. The Europeans issued a false birth certificate for it when the British seafarer Captain James Cook reached it. However, Australia already had the most ancient race of men on the face of the earth – the Aborigine people… They continue to live their primitive lives to this very day."

Some of them may live the old ways, but many others I am sure run businesses, wear suits and do rather well for themselves.

"But when you become acquainted with their traditions among their tribes, you find that they have customs such as circumcision, marriage ceremonies, respect for tribal elders, and burial of the dead – all customs that show that they were connected to ancient Islamic culture before the Europeans set foot in Australia."

Ok so where is the proof? Hang on don't europeans have marriage ceremonies, respect for the dead and all that?

"That is, Islam had roots deep in the Australian soil and read the Qur'an and called to prayer before the bells of the churches rang in Australia. The best evidence of this is the hundreds of mosques in the center of Australia built by the Afghans. Some of them were destroyed, and others were turned into Australian archeological museums, and still others remained unharmed, and they bear a history that proves that Islam has roots and ancient connections to Australia."

Again what proof?

"But because they did not have the proper conditions to continue to exist, such as schools, propagation of the religion, and connection to the Islamic world, the first generation of our Afghan ancestors dissolved…"

Ah right, so no evidence is evidence in itself. Sounds like something New Labour would dream up.

"I visited the town of Alice Springs in central Australia, and found there a map [of Alice Springs] under the name Mecca. Alice Springs is surrounded by high black mountains, similar to the mountains of Mecca. Summer there lasts 10 months, and winter only two months. The temperature is above 50 degrees Celsius."

Ok go on...

"There are several kinds of dates and palm trees there. We did not believe that dates could grow there. Now that we know the reason, we no longer wonder. We found that our ancestors the Afghans were among the first Muslims, and they settled this area and called it Mecca.."

"The strange thing was that when our muezzin [who accompanied Sheikh Al-Hilali on his visit to Alice Springs] stood up to call for prayer, the old people of the town came out, and so did men and youths, and they looked different than the black Aborigines. They were a mixture of Afghan and Aborigine, as a result of marriages of Afghan men and Aborigine women. When the muezzin called 'Allahu Akbar,' they said, 'We have heard this song from our ancestors…' When they asked us 'What is this song you are singing?' we told them that this was an announcement of prayer time. When we asked them their names, they answered John, or Steve, but their names ended with Saraj Al-Din, Abdallah, or Muhammad…"

And Christ came to announce the coming of Mohammad. And Abraham was asked to sacrifice Ishmael, not Isaac. And people who convert to Islam are actually reverts, because everybody is born Muslim. And, and, and...

As far as historical revisionism is concerned these 700 A.D. neophyte wack jobs put the left to shame.

Islam - the religion of idiots who believe anything.

"Islam - the religion of idiots who believe anything."

Every religion has a lot of idiots who believe anything ...

Every religion is based off of beliefs that if someone came up to you and claimed that these things happened to them you would have them commited to an asylum; if your daughter became pregnant and claimed to be a virgin would you believe her?

Islam isn't a bad thing, it is the people who abuse people's beliefs that are the problem.

I agree with Kate. The races need to be kept separate.

Quote from/by the Washington Times: "the U.N. "oil-for-food" scandal, the biggest financial disgrace of all time."

The MSM will not report/investigate on "the U.N. "oil-for-food" scandal, the biggest financial disgrace of all time."

Reports are buried in the business pages; not on the front pages. There are no screaming front page headlines: Kofi Annan and Maurice Strong Have Been Ripping-off the UN; Bribed by Saddam; AdScam Paul Martin, Jr., Liberal ex-Prime Minister, Canada, in on the rip-off$. ...-

The MSM is carrying out the biggest cover-up of all time. ...-

Collapsing Venezuela
The Washington Times

If Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez deliberately intended to sabotage his nation's economy, he would be hard-pressed to do anything different from what he is now doing to his country.

It has been widely reported that Mr. Chavez has been increasingly taking control of the oil, telecommunications and energy sectors, as well as the media. What has not been reported is the full extent of the corruption in Venezuela and how this ultimately will destroy the economy.

The financial scandal taking place is far bigger than Enron, and may ultimately even exceed the U.N. "oil-for-food" scandal, the biggest financial disgrace of all time....-
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1771726/posts

I think Taylor is tryiny to candycoat racism, but any protester that feels he has to cover his face while physically attempting to throw the guy out of the room, clearly knows that the tactic is not acceptable behavior in a civil society.

Shutting down speech on Canadian television

http://www.stephentaylor.ca/archives/000774.html

UPDATE: CRFA mascot, Corncob Bob is on a Hunger Strike to protest the Television Bureau of Canada's decision!...-
http://www.greenfuels.org/news/2007-01-22.htm

UPDATE: Gerry Nicholls, VP of the National Citizens Coalition and veteran of fighting censorship in advertising had the following to say when contacted for comment:

"Just another sad example of how we are regulating speech in this country and how we consistently underestimate the intelligence of Canadian consumers."

I am really surprised that anyone in Winnipeg still reads the columns penned by the pompous, know-nothing so-called "journalist", Gordon Sinclair.

But I am beginning to get over my bafflement about why the Free Press would continue to let this joker pontificate.

"...matched Taylor’s INTOLERANCE with their own."

"I'm surprised it took you this long to come to the defence of your hero."

- Robert McClueless

---------------------

"As far as historical revisionism is concerned these 700 A.D. neophyte wack jobs put the left to shame."

Not to be outdone, 'NoOne' sez:

"Islam isn't a bad thing, it is the people who abuse people's beliefs that are the problem."

I stand corrected, I was wrong about putting the left to shame.

In the Lets Make News Dept: Warplanes at Pearson Headline by Toronto Sun reporter Tom Godfrey.

Apparently (gasp) airplanes land at toronto's Peason Airport and (double gasp) some are foreign military aircraft. What a crock of BS. This is nothing new, period. It happens all the time but this so called journalist tries to make a story of how, for security reasons, he was not told of their mission, whether they were armed or if (wait for this reaching connection) they had anything to do with the CIA prisoner flights!

The only reason I can see for this so called "story" is to get the GTA dippers and old hippies into a frienzy. He could then cover the protest march.
Hey, the Winterpig Free Press could use this guy.

there are better ways of dealing with someone like this than shouting him down.

Would you say that if he were a Muslim Cleric spewing hate against the west?

NoOne has made a subtle mistake in characterizing what these masked thugs did to Mr. Taylor. They didn't just shout him down. They ended up physically removing him from the room before he even had a chance to speak - with the police nowhere to be found.

There's no defending that. That's not free speech, that's assault.

And that's how far to the left Halifax has gone.

Christopher Hitchens reviewing Mark Steyn's book (LGF):

"Martin Amis, speaking to the London Times, had this to say:

There’s a definite urge—don’t you have it?—to say, “The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.” What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation—further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan. . . . Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children. . . . They hate us for letting our children have sex and take drugs—well, they’ve got to stop their children killing people.
I know both of these men to be profoundly humanistic and open-minded. Straw has defended the rights of immigrants all his life and loyally represents a constituency with a large Asian population. Amis has rebuked me several times in print for supporting the intervention in Iraq, the casualties of which have become horrifying to him. Even five years ago, it would have been unthinkable to picture either man making critical comments about Islamic dress, let alone using terms such as “deportation.” Mark Steyn’s book is essentially a challenge to the bien-pensants among us: an insistence that we recognize an extraordinary threat and thus the possible need for extraordinary responses.

He need not pose as if he were the only one with the courage to think in this way."

I hope Hitchens is right about his last sentence.

Minion, if you agree with the speaker in question, that's your opinion, not mine. However, it would carry a lot more weight if you posted such comments using your real identity.

Moral equivalence in the Globe's reporting:

"Canada making enemies, Hamas warns
Palestinian minister shunned by MacKay"
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070122.whamas22/BNStory/International/home

1) Front page:

'During an hour-long interview that he [Palestinian foreign minister and HAMAS--"Islamic Resistance Movement"--founder] said was a replacement for the meeting Mr. MacKay denied him, Mr. Zahar alternated between saying he was anxious to open a dialogue with Canada and saying he looked forward to the moment that Canadians voted the “extremist” Conservative government out of office.'

2) Buried inside at the end of the story:

'Later in the interview, he suggested that there should be a single Islamic state stretching across the Middle East, adding that there was plenty of space in Canada to establish a Jewish homeland.'

Mark
Ottawa

"Would you say that if he were a Muslim Cleric spewing hate against the west?"

Why would it make a difference?

"there are better ways of dealing with someone like this than shouting him down." - NoOne

"Would you say that if he were a Muslim Cleric spewing hate against the west?" - Robert McClellland

Here we go, a pissing match between McClueless and one of his fellow leftoids.

Nice setup Kate.

Re the Freep..... IMO
Black Rod is almost wasting his time by cutting over Gordon Sinclair's lack of journalistic integrity.
Sinclair himself has been sinking into a delusional world of conspiracy's and imagined triumphs on his part as a great populist warrior for social justice.
In reality he's just an untalented hack with little imagination and an ego problem.

Any day you want to see how bad the Winnipeg Free Press is as a newspaper ...just read Sinclair.

It boggles the mind why they keep him....

irwin daisy

Why do you assume I'm a leftist?

Federally, I have voted for Jason Kenney running for the Reform, Alliance and Conservative parties does that make me a leftist? I have supported those parties in every election and have met Preston Manning, Stockwell Day, and Stephen Harper does that make me a leftist?

Why is it that if you don't agree with senseless bigotry and intollerance (regardless of the forms) you get labeled by braindead morrons?

Saying "Islam - the religion of idiots who believe anything" is about as accurate as saying "Christianity - the religion of idiots who believe anything"; just because some religious leaders don't believe in evolution and claim the world is only 7,000 years old doesn't mean ever christian does.

so why is this going to take a year other than for the entertainment and payment of lawyers and the MSM

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070121/pickton_trial_070122/20070122?hub=TopStories

From news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article2154795.ece

In a Q&A at the Independent, with questions sent in from online readers Martin Amis was asked:

What is the most depressing thing about Britain you have observed since your return? And the best? GRANT MULLIN, Surrey

The most depressing thing was the sight of middle-class white demonstrators, last August, waddling around under placards saying, We Are All Hizbollah Now. Well, make the most of being Hizbollah while you can. As its leader, Hasan Nasrallah, famously advised the West: "We don't want anything from you. We just want to eliminate you." Similarly, when I went on Question Time the other week, a woman in the audience, her voice quavering with self-righteousness, presented the following argument: since it was America that supported Osama bin Laden when he was fighting the Russians, the US armed forces, in response to September 11, "should be dropping bombs on themselves!" And the audience applauded. It is quite an achievement. People of liberal sympathies, stupefied by relativism, have become the apologists for a creedal wave that is racist, misogynist, homophobic, imperialist, and genocidal. To put it another way, they are up the arse of those that want them dead.

Even the Toronto Sun is trying to scare-monger about Canada's participation in the war on terror. Be very afraid--see:

"C-130J in Canada"
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2007/01/c-130j-in-canada.html

Mark
Ottawa

Very interesting extract from Observer columnist Nick Cohen's new book

"Don't you know your left from your right?

It is not novel to say that socialism is dead. My argument is that its failure has brought a dark liberation to people who consider themselves to be on the liberal left. It has freed them to go along with any movement however far to the right it may be, as long as it is against the status quo in general and, specifically, America. I hate to repeat the overused quote that 'when a man stops believing in God he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes anything', but there is no escaping it. Because it is very hard to imagine a radical leftwing alternative, or even mildly radical alternative, intellectuals in particular are ready to excuse the movements of the far right as long as they are anti-Western."

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1995096,00.html

In addition to what Mark Collins posted, the Globe article goes on to quote Zahar, Hamas' Foreign Minister:

"For the sake of the future -- one, two or three decades from now -- the only way to help everybody, everywhere is to co-operate with the Islamic movements and Arabic countries because they are not your enemy."

- "one, two or three decades from now" - when Islam takes over the world you mean?

"The question is very simple: Why do you refuse to meet us? As a human being, as a man, what is preventing you from meeting us? We are not eating human flesh."

- "eating flesh," like the Jews do with Christian children?

"Canadians have to change their extremist government, or else they're going to lose their credibility as a neutral state," he warned. "You cannot create a new enemy without a price."

-I thought he said they were not our enemy.

-----------------------------

I stood corrected, I now stand stupified:

"Why do you assume I'm a leftist?" - NoOne

"Saying "Islam - the religion of idiots who believe anything" is about as accurate as saying "Christianity - the religion of idiots who believe anything"; just because some religious leaders don't believe in evolution and claim the world is only 7,000 years old doesn't mean ever christian does."

And what does that have to do with the head chopping in Jakarta?

nuff said.

Bringing the races together has made us diverse we now have:

Chinese food
Affirmative action,
Hiring quotas
White flight from changing suburbs.
Lower per worker productivity
Terrorists among us
Tax funded Community centres for non white male groups.
Ethnic criminal gangs.
More sources for illegal drugs.

And lets not forget that even though the MSM's tell us they are hard working the new canadians are more likely to be unemployed and on welfare.

http://www.cic.gc.ca/ENGLISH/research/papers/education/education-e.html

"12% to 18% reported unemployment insurance benefits"

http://www.cic.gc.ca/ENGLISH/research/papers/education/education-h.html

"14.3% of immigrant taxfilers landed since 1980 reported welfare benefits as an income source in 1995, as compared to a 9.6% incidence for all Canadians."

Thus more likely to be on EI or welfare.

I could go on but,... anyone want chinese food?

For such trinkets was the empire lost.

Storm Hits Weather Community Over Climate Expert's Global Warming Claims

WASHINGTON — The Weather Channel is standing by a staff climatologist who is taking some heat after blogging that TV weather forecasters who are skeptical man-made global warming should lose their professional certification. Climate expert Heidi Cullen defended herself last week in The Weather Channel One Degree Climate Change blog after questioning the fitness of meteorologists who disagree with her conclusions. "I've read all your comments saying I want to silence meteorologists who are skeptical of the science of global warming. That is not true," wrote Cullen, host of "The Climate Code with Dr. Heidi Cullen," a weekly global warming program on The Weather Channel. "The point of my post was never to stifle discussion. It was to raise it to a level that doesn't confuse science and politics. Freedom of scientific expression is essential." Cullen raised Cain last month when she suggested that the American Meteorological Society decertify meteorologists who don't warn about climate change. "If a meteorologist has an AMS Seal of Approval, which is used to confer legitimacy to TV meteorologists, then meteorologists have a responsibility to truly educate themselves on the science of global warming," Cullen wrote in the blog. "If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn't give them a seal of approval."...-
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1771815/posts

Why would a commenter post this?
Ouderkirk said:

"Global warming? Looks like it is cold in that studio." ...-

Funny bit on a Saturday Night Live skit on the CAIR response to 24 - "...and another cause of Islamophobia...Terrorism."

hotair.com/archives/2007/01/21/video-snl-on-islamophobia-redux/

Wajid Khan's words are a testament to Canada and to himself; his loyalty to Canada stands in full contrast to Citoyen Dion, a foreigner, a puny Liberal, the Liberal Party leader, with two loyalties; one to France, and another to Canada.

Remember this: The defence critic for Citoyen Dion is Liberal Quebec MP, D. Coderre, who marched for Hezbollah in Montreal under the infamous slogan: We Are All Hezbollah Now.

A salute to Wajid Khan. A salute to Prime Minister Harper.
God bless Canada.
Canada! The True North, Strong and Free. ...-

Wajid Khan deserves our respect

This has not been a particularly kind month for Mississauga MP Wajid Khan. But the political dogfight in which he finds himself pales when compared to the day his MiG 19 was shot down over India in 1971. Mr. Khan parachuted to safety, only to end up in an Indian PoW camp for the next year.

Can Wajid Khan the MP replicate the surviving skills of Wajid Khan the fighter pilot? I caught up with Mr. Khan and asked him whether he was going to quit. “You must be kidding,” he quipped.

When I suggested that now that his own Muslim communities, especially Arab leaders, are attacking his credibility, he interrupted: “Listen to me very carefully, my community is the Canadian community; I am not the ambassador of some country to Canada; I am an MP representing Canadians and my primary interest is Canada’s welfare. I am not in politics to represent some overseas group or government. Yes, I am a Muslim, but I cannot be held hostage by self-appointed community leaders who have their own hidden agendas.”

[…]

o Note: The author Tarek Fatah is a staunch Canadian immigrant and speaks his mind. He’s very clear about Khan and I think he’s right. Many of his articles are featured on this site because he’s the only Muslim “leader” I am aware of in this country who has values similiar to my own. He points out that Khan refused to meet with Hamas and Hezbollah. I would also. I have a problem with organizations that support the cause of people who send children out to blow themselves up in the name of “God”. “Shake the hand of Abbas?” Not in my lifetime. I wouldn’t even acknowledge his presence (and I know he’s supposed to be the ‘good guy’). The big problem for me is that he’s also a thug and a liar. I couldn’t bring myself to do that and that’s why I’m not in politics I guess. I should add that Tarek is in “deep kak” within his own community from people like Khaled Mouammar and Mohamed Elmasry. He’s received death threats. So much for speaking your mind in Canada if you are a Muslim. I worry about him.
jack's newswatch
H/T: Babbling Brooks and Political Staples

The 2008 US presidential race has started. Debate dates are already being announced. We have an election in 35 days. That is not long enough, to get candidates, and get a message out. I don't want 2 years, but 35 days is not enough. Liberal spokeswoman saying there will be no election till at least the end of 2007.
Start the countdown, 2 yrs from today, the new president will be sworn in. The cbc will do an about turn if it is a democrat.
Big party in Quebec tomorrow, 1 yr anniversary of Harper's election, and the country is still together, altho with crazy glue.
There are supposed to be at least 24 more liberals not running again. There replacements probably can't announce too soon, as it would cause the liberals trouble, with blogs asking why they can't support dion. Interesting times ahead. Watch for the nomination meetings in your riding of all parties. We need to know who is leaving the sinking liberal ship.

Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl announced the wording of the ballot Monday in Red Deer, Alta., an area where many grain farmers favour marketing choice. Strahl said barley farmers can
vote to maintain the board's export monopoly,
scrap the board's role as a marketer
or allow the board to be part of a free market for barley....-
(CP)

Hey Mark, I beat you to it: "In the Lets Make News Dept" (TexasCanuck 2:45pm).

I find the scary part is that it is in the news section and not commentary. As for the C130 picture, I noticed he used an American picture even though there are Canuck pictures of the same thing but then again if he didn't research the story why should he post an appropriate photo.

I used to enjoy it when Hollywood would play loose and easy with military accuracy (I'd love to have that 100 round clip for my Glock) but now that the MSM is doing the same lousy job at researching the facts, I'm getting worried.

CHAREST, HARPER ANNOYED BY FRENCH POLITICIAN
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Quebec Premier Jean Charest have taken French presidential candidate Segolene Royal to task for saying she sympathizes with the idea of Quebec sovereignty....-
national newswatch.

Citoyen Dion responds:

Aux armes, Citoyens. Moi, Citoyen Dion, is a Citoyen de la France.
Vive L'Empereur. Vive le Quebec libre. Vive De Gaulle. ...-

PM (John Howard) drops multiculturalism

PRIME Minister John Howard officially scrapped multiculturalism today as he sacked Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone and renamed her old department.

The trouble-plagued Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) will now be known as the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, with former Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews the new minister.

Mr Howard defended the change, saying Australians believed that immigration should lead to citizenship.

“I think the title of the new department expresses the desire and the aspiration, and that is that people who come to this country, who emigrate, immigrants, become Australians,” Mr Howard told reporters. ...-
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1772065/posts

Canada must scrap multiculturalism.
Down with multiculturalism.

Tusla OK, to unbury a 1957 car...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/23/buried.car.ap/index.html

Auzzie scrap multiculturalism? Is this a dream? Gadzooks, if this happened in Canada, we'd get 24 hour CBC news coverage of every leftist wingnut opinion for the next 2 years...

"observing a relic" ...-

Newspapers
Billionaires and Broadsheets
Maybe none of the billionaires lining up to buy a newspaper—e.g., David Geffen, Ron Burkle, Eli Broad, Hank Greenberg—know what they would be getting into. Maybe their motives are … complicated. Maybe they're not even serious. But they may be the only future the industry has.

I was invited the other day to stop in for an off-the-record visit with one of the really, really rich men who are lining up to buy the country's biggest newspapers.
...
Out in Chicago, in a far different reality, I was at a meeting of new-media types about the future of news: user-generated, social-network, Web 3.0, intracranial-chip, and so on. Forget newspapers—digital news was about to flatten broadcast too. That was the subject: who'd be the next big brand—the CNN (though it would not be CNN), or the New York Times (though it would not be The New York Times), or the Google (though it would probably not even be Google)—of the new-news world. Or would the whole idea of news brands die a whimpering death?

It was only happenstance that this meeting about the future of the new news was in Chicago, which is ground zero of the end of old news. That Chicago should be the scene of this last act is a masterstroke of staging. The Chicago Tribune has dominated this city for most of the last century. It is one of the city's biggest companies and biggest employers (the entire Midwest media community seems to have worked, at one time, for a Tribune company). The Tribune's web of power and influence is bred into the city. The Tribune is Chicago. You can't imagine the Tribune being taken over by outsiders any more than you could have imagined the Los Angeles Times, that bastion of civic back-scratching, being taken over—although, as it happens, six years ago, the Tribune itself took over the L.A. Times. And, too, there is the great Tribune Tower, mock-Gothic, art-directed, sentimental, rising, near our new-media meeting, over downtown Chicago.

A year ago, institutional shareholders at Knight Ridder, owner of more than 30 daily papers—with Gannett and the Tribune Company, K.R. was part of what's been known in the industry as the three bears—in a display of petulance and impatience and power, forced management to sell the business to the highest bidder (and not so high, at that—$4.5 billion). Almost immediately thereafter, the largest block of shareholders at the Tribune Company (the former shareholders of Times Mirror, the company that had owned the L.A. Times) became aggrieved, too, and in a series of push-pull maneuvers forced the Tribune Company—which, in addition to the Tribune and the L.A. Times, owns Newsday, the Hartford Courant, the Baltimore Sun, many television stations, and the Chicago Cubs—to put itself on the block, where it now teeters, entertaining offers.

Our new-media meeting adjourned for lunch to a downtown club—an odd, out-of-time, red-leather steak-and-shrimp-cocktail club—in the Wrigley Building. It was a huge room, and there wasn't much business. We were there with some amount of irony—or mockery: observing a relic. And, indeed, one of the people in our group, a prince of new media, with heightened relic radar, suddenly singled out Dennis FitzSimons, head of the Tribune Company, among the most anonymous of the anonymous people in the room....- by Michael Wolff
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/02/wolff200702?printable=true¤tPage=all

The Big Eye in the Sky: Old Sol. ...-

Global Warming ALSO Detected on Triton [Neptune's Moon] by NASA's Hubble telescope...-

Global Warming on [Planet] Pluto Puzzles Scientists [occuring throughout the solar system]...-

NASA News Release: Evidence for Recent Climate Change on Mars [Global Warming on Mars]...-

In Climate Controversy, Industry Cedes Ground

Wall Street Journal ^ | January 23, 2007 | Jeffrey Ball
The global-warming debate is shifting from science to economics...-

U.N. climate panel to project wrenching change(Doomed!!)
reuters.com ...-

via free republic

VOTE LIBERAL FOR LOCAL LARGESSE*: CONSERVATIVE MP

Conservative MP Royal Galipeau has shocked his Ottawa constituents by saying they should have voted Liberal if they want more federal agencies and offices in their riding.
Le Droit ...-

*Liberal large$$e, aka Ad$cam.

Tomax7,

Australians have better survival instincts.

Phantom Observer says:

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion today announced the creation of a new political advisory structure encompassing Caucus, the Liberal Party and outside advisors.

Each Leader’s Advisory Group will be comprised of up to three people who will be appointed by the Leader. Membership may include the Regional Caucus Chair (elected by Caucus) and the Provincial or Territorial Association President (elected by the grassroots of the Party).

The Leader’s Advisory Groups will provide independent political advice to the Leader and the Caucus on a regular basis.

How many advisors does this make? 13 groups (one for each province and territory), for a total of 28 advisors. And apparently there will be more coming, presumably as more topics of interest pop up on the parliamentary agenda.

Now mind you, this is on top of the shadow cabinet and committees that Dion’s already announced. I’m not certain how the channels of communications are going to be organized, but it looks very much like Dion’s bureaucratic instincts are going to result in something rather hydra-headed, and therefore unlikely to be wielded with any sort of urgency.
Right now, what we’re seeing is Dion’s version of the Liberal Party. It has me worried, not in the partisan sense but rather like watching Humpty Dumpty building the wall he intends to sit on. You just know the end result is going to get ugly....-
http://phantomobserver.com/blog/?p=474

It's Citoyen Dion's Socialist Pyramid Scheme.

Harper to France: Butt out.

Prime Minister Harper speaks for one country: Canada.

Dion is speaking for two countries: France and Canada. Dion is deluded. BTW, Royal is a socialist, as is comrade Dion. ...-

Harper rebukes Royal over Quebec

PARIS (CP) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper harkened back to one of the stormiest chapters of Canada-France relations to remind the woman who could be the next French president to butt out of Canada's national unity debate. ...-

[Meanwhile, Dion fails to remind Royal of France's complicity in the Rwandan genocide.

Citoyen Dion, he of the Deux Tongues: Dion speaks for Canada and France.] ...-

"Federal Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, who was visiting Quebec City, said Royal's comments hurt her credibility.

"She does not understand," he said. "You do not interfere in the affairs of a friendly country, you do not wish for the dismantling of a friendly country. Canada does not wish for the dismantling of France and France certainly does not wish for the dismantling of Canada." ...-

Citoyen Dion's hatchet man was Martin's hatchet man. ...-

[Socialist Liberal Party Canada]

National Election Readiness Committee Members

Co-Chairs, National
Mark Marissen*
Nancy Girard

*Marissen here:

The Legislature Raids: MARK MARISSEN CONTROVERSY, as told by the ...
Mark Marissen - the person who as former prime minister Paul Martin's chief hatchet man in ... And she didn't campaign to become Mayor of Vancouver, either. ...
bctrialofbasi-virk.blogspot.com/2007

VOICEONLINE.COM
Federal Liberal B.C. boss Mark Marissen: I am not a dictator ... VOICE: What's happening in Vancouver South, because there again there's a lot of resentment ...
www.voiceonline.com/voice/061230/headline4.php

Senator Hays, Liberal, from Alberta: two appointments in two days.
What is?
...-

Stéphane Dion announces new Liberal Advisory Structure

ALBERTA
...
Advisor: Senator Dan Hays
lib.ca
...-

PRIME MINISTER ANNOUNCES APPOINTMENT OF NEW PRIVY COUNCILLOR

January 22, 2007
Ottawa, Ontario

Prime Minister Stephen Harper today announced the appointment of Senator Daniel Hays of Alberta, as a Privy Councillor. ...-

""If a meteorologist has an AMS Seal of Approval, which is used to confer legitimacy to TV meteorologists, then meteorologists have a responsibility to truly educate themselves on the science of global warming,..."

Wow a climatologist who believes in global warming, that's about as outrageous as a geneticist who believes in evolution.