Canadian hack-journalism.

You are "told"; by whom? Who is the teller who tells Canadians to prepare? Prepare for what?

The message is: Take your "Day of Action", Canadians. You will like it; you will love it, suckers. You have been told.
...-

National Post | Taylor: Indian give and take

Canadians have been told to prepare for a native “Day of Action” this Friday ...-
(jacks newswatch)

I thought Their Satanic Majesties Request was a great album. Oh, Satanic Verses, sorry about that chief.

Seriously, although I have not personally read Rushdie's book, I figure if the queen wants to knight him then why the f**k not. This "outrage" is nothing more than a version of cartoon outrage (although the Verses came out first). It never fails to amaze me how these people can get so worked up into a freinzy at the drop of the hat and yet still describe themselves as followers of the "Religion of Peace". They remind me of extras on a movie set: outraged on cue.

The phrase "islamic rage boy" is getting popular, may have been coined by Hitchens. At any rate, i look forward to the acronym "IRB" becoming popular.

We have Mark Steyn.
Andrew Coyne occasionally does some great work.
enough

Add-in David Frum and Charles Krauthammer...

If you wonder why Canadian commentators and journaists avoid true "controversy" it was dicussed amply in yesterday's thread on socialism's trend to uniformity...the love of diversity in everything but opinion.

This genetic trait of the dogmatic left ( which supply us with the majority of our MSM journaists/commentators) dictates a kind of herd mentality in newsies...this is a uniquely Canadian MSM phenomina but I have noticed it get stronger over the last 2 decades.

Our media get onto a single agenda and push it like a lock-step unreasoning beast...there is no diversity of opinion in the Canadian MSM when they are on an agenda.

These days they have installed themselves as Canada's defacto opposition as they are in a petulent snit over Harper's dethroning the Ottawa press aristocracy. Whatever the policy of the Harper government the MSM will find itself slavishly promoting a contrary position. If Harper says Black is Black...the media tells the public black is white.

This is why we see our media take the obvious wrong side of issues...because they ignore reality and reason to accomplish 2 things...1) act as a unified media "mob", 2) act in opposition to any Harper policy.

This is why you see all the world's scoundrels coddled by the leftist media...they are sycophants for muslim terrorist orgs, they have a new found love of the worthless gun registry, they are in lock step behind the premiers who want to villainize Alberta, the oil patch and impliment Kyoto taxing regimes. Global warming is a threat...all the wrong sides of issues because reason is rejected for group think contrarian agendas.

Here's Hitchen's "Rag Boy" source, a good read:

http://www.slate.com/id/2169020/

It's simply amazing how throughout the EU, the US and Canada lefty dolts in unison grovel before the mob that wants us all dead. We, the ordinary people, have more spine and commonsense.

"To the left, he is problematic in the extreme, because the left courts the Muslim vote."

Enough said.

Yep, but Krauthammer et al write in US media.

I'm not even talking about content here. I just love the Brit art of personal invective. Canadians are too polite.

Why write like that when you can blame Harper, Bush, the Joos and the neo-con "conspiracy" like linda mcquag.

I've never read a piece of trash so lacking in intellectual merit. Quite frankly I'm so angry at that B*&$*&# I can't even descibe it here without offending Kate's decorum rules...

http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/229279

"Why don't Canadian journalists write like this?"

Because they have all been bought, with our stolen taxes.
Yes, just like 20 buck crack whores working the same corner.
Check that,.. our media is more pathetic, because the crack whore gets paid for doing what she said she would do.

There's another reason why Canadian political journalists don't get hard-hitting...except (think this over) on groups that don't, or can't, credibly complain about rough treatment from the media.

In a way, it's a pity, as it's the source of a real dearth in Canadian political thought. I just finished reading an old Lew Rockwell column [ http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/drunkdriving.html ]saying that the blood-alcohol laws are absurd because they criminalize a condition, not an action. His 'insensitive' perspective yielded the suggestion that drivers' actions that tip off the police should be themselves cracked down on, through increasing the associated penalties. That way, dangerous drivers - whether drunk, high [a trick long missed] or sober - would be taken off the road. (The relevant statutes could have a clause added to the effect that "The defendant's state of inebriation at the time of the incident cannot be used as a defense.")

The only way to come up with such ideas is to be 'insensitive'. I offer the opinion that political correctness stupifies political thought.

Many, if not most of us, are sick to death of Native Indians and their thuggery and lawbreaking while we pay them big bucks to build them houses to trash.

Now we're supposed to deal with Islamic/Muslim "extremists" ? No way. If they pose any threat in our civilized Democracies or they can't abide our lifestyle and laws they are free to leave or they should be forced to.
The only Leader to have the sense to spell it out is John Howard of Australia.
It's beyond comprehension why people opposed to our way of life or at odds with it expect to live among us.
They are attracted to our country because of our Charter and multicultural policies. It allows them to live in Ghettos and enjoy all the rights and freedoms we have to offer.

That is a recipe for disaster and a eventual breakdown of all the country was built on.

"Why don't canadian journalists write like this"
They would be called "islamaphobic" and face castigation from leftwing peers.

"Why don't Canadian journalists write like this?"

They don't because they all want a Liberal appointment to the Senate or perhaps even GG.

How could today's journalists write well when keeping the prevailing politcal metanarrative intact counts more than substance.

Steyn and Krauthammer have never stepped foot in journalism school. The best never did. Sadly, because of the MSM quota system on conservatives there aren't and will never be enough of them.

Today you have dumbed down stylists or hacks that regurgitate the MSM party line. I forget which editorial hack at the NYT's was deconstructed by a blogger years ago to demonstrate that he had almost a sentence list that repeated over and over and over again. It wasn't thought any more than what appeared in Pravda in the good old days of the USSR.

I'm bringing up what's familiar to me as American examples, but, the situation exists in Canada and Europe where the left has control of the MSM.

I suppose this is what Jack Straw doesn't get, or doesn't want to admit. (From David Thompson's blog)

Respect and Fear

The last few days here have been a kind of Rushdie and Related Topics Week. Assuming no further Rushdie-related events materialise, I thought I’d wind up this saga, at least for now, with a few words from the man himself. Here’s an extract from a lecture presented by the Centre for Enquiry and given at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on October 11th, 2006:

“I suppose one has to mention the Danish cartoons. I ran into a young journalist working for a small New York magazine who said… his proprietor refused to publish the cartoons because he was worried about his offices getting bombed. This kind of cravenness was worldwide. And the name that cravenness was given was respect. When people said they didn’t publish them out of respect for Muslims, what they meant is they didn’t publish them because they were afraid of their offices getting bombed. And when you create that kind of climate of fear, when you concede… you don’t as a result have less intimidation. I mean as a result you have more intimidation.

I think, with the cartoons, there were two quite separate issues. One is whether you thought the cartoons were good or bad and should have been published or shouldn’t have been… and those are the decisions that every newspaper editor makes every day, and different editors would make different decisions. But the second issue is when the subject of intimidation enters, and the question is how do you respond to intimidation, and do you give in to it or do you not give in to it. I think that when the intimidation became as heavy as it did, the only proper response was everybody should have published the cartoons the next day. And not to do that was a way of showing that threats work...

This is a curious climate that we’re living in, where people are falling over backwards not to name the phenomenon that’s taking place, which is a progressive intimidation of the world in which we live. I’m not talking about these great big geopolitical things going on elsewhere in the world; I’m talking about what is in our own hands to discuss and argue about and fix – what is happening in our town, what is happening in our culture. And the way in which things that we in this room value a great deal are being eroded by this kind of intimidation and cowardice, and by an unwillingness to call things by their true name.”

IS JACK STRAW AN IMAM?

(From the blog uppompeii1.uppompeii.com)

Jack Straw, MP for Blackburn and leader of the House of Commons appears to have another role or so it appears to me judging by his recent statement concerning the "Rushdie affair"

This is his statement:

"I understand the concerns and sensitivity in the community. "That said, there can be no justification whatever for suggestions that as a result of this a further fatwa should be placed on the life of Mr Rushdie."

OK now read it again, Mr Straw has NOT condemned the fact that an individual living in Britain has been threatened with their death.

Mr Straw has not condemned the use of Sharia law in the UK.

What Mr Straw has done is to act as an Imam, he has effectively said that one Fatwa on the life of Mr Rushdie is sufficient and there is no need for another.

Mr Straw appears to support Islamic law and accepts that the Fatwa served on Mr Rushdie many years ago still holds good.

I find this statement by Mr Straw utterly amazing and clearly very poorly thought through but then again he is a NuLabour politician and we all know that they speak with a forked tongue and little insight

irwin daisy: That'a a interesting take. And let's remember that his boss Blair (who evidently only read the Meccan suras) thought Islam was progressive! One thing I got out of Efraim's Karsh's excellent "History of Islamic Imperialism" is the key role the Christian elites played in collaborating with the Islamic conquerers. In fact, if you think about it these conquests wouldn't "take" without native collusion.

Let's face it: the elites have their own agenda and will sell us schmuck plebs down the toilet with nary a twinge. We need only look at the back-door manipulations going on now in the EU with the objective of shoving the discredited and rejected constitution down Europeans' throats.

So ... let's just say he a pol not necessarily a Mohammedan!