Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Independent, March 2009; – As Turkey cracks down on ‘honour killings’, women are now told to commit suicide
Frontier Centre for Public Policy, December 2011 – Kwame McKenzie, Senior Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, has stated that “women from the South Asians diaspora are at high risk of suicide– but are less likely to have the common warning signs– and so suicide prevention is more difficult.”
Ethical Oil
White House spokesman Jay Carney declined several opportunities to say that President Barack Obama would veto the tax cut if it contained language aimed at expediting the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline project. Obama last week said he would reject efforts to tie the pipeline to the payroll tax…Carney told reporters he would not comment on what language regarding the pipeline would be acceptable to the president.
Reader Tips
From Motor Trend, the World’s Greatest Drag Race!
Feel free to burn rubber in the comments.
(h/t greenmamba)
Free Ethical Oil!
Glen writes;
On chiquita’s facebook page they are deleting pissed off comments from people pissed about their oilsands boycott as fast as they are getting posted – I think they need a good old SDA deluge!
10pm update – It’s a tsunami! 207 comments on the Chiquita Facebook page, and all of them negative. Putting social media together with environmental extremism as brand marketing strategy – what could go wrong? You can also email eloyd@chiquita.com.
Dec. 17th update: the deluge continues, despite their deletions. Wonder if anyone’s getting the message yet?
It’s Probably Nothing
“India’s worst-case scenario now a reality.“
Great Moments In Journalism
(Bumped for updates)
SDA gets results!
A quote attributed to Don Cherry that The Canadian Press included in a list of some of the year’s most memorable quotes was in fact “made up” by a Toronto-based blogger, the news agency acknowledged Friday.
The quote — “This just proves what a nation of pussies we are” — was said to be Cherry reacting to news of Canada’s declining crime rate.
In fact, Cherry never uttered the words.
[…]
The fact the quote was itself being quoted was brought to the attention of the news agency, and to Bradley himself, by blogger Kate McMillan, who had been alerted to it by a reader on her “Small Dead Animals” blog.
“I called him and asked him and he said, ‘Yeah, I just made it up,'” said McMillan, from Delisle, Sask.
“It’s something that we have to watch for as bloggers all the time, especially those of us that are high traffic and have a point of view.”
McMillan said she appreciated the fact that The Canadian Press responded to her call by immediately taking steps to report its error.
“Sometimes we do this and we get nothing but silence or resistance,” she said.
Original post continues below:
SDA reader Chris, in the comments;
Canadian Press “reporter” Linda Shearman has filed a story on the most “infamous” Canadian quotes in 2011. #1 on the list is this:
“This just proves what a nation of p*ssies we are.” — Don Cherry on news that Canada’s murder rate is at its lowest since the 1960s.
PROBLEM: Cherry never said this.
It appears on a blog post at http://www.andrewbradley.ca/?p=1819 and from the context, it is clear that it’s satire, i.e., a fictional, made-up quote, not something that Don Cherry ever said.
This story has been picked up by Global and the Globe and Mail, among other sites online. But as yet, no one seems to have picked up on the fact their supposedly most infamous quote of 2011 is not something Don Cherry ever said.
I called the Canadian Press about this, and talked to Linda Shearman, who wrote the story. She’s promised to check that the quote is legitimate and get back to me. But I did ask her if it made any sense that Don Cherry would make such a statement in response to a falling murder rate? I read her the entire passage, including the passage about bayonets.
“Do you ever listen to him?” She asked.
“Yes?”
“He says some pretty outrageous things.” she replied.
“Sure, he has his views about hockey, but do you really think Don Cherry would be in favour of a higher murder rate? Does that even make sense?”
She stated was sure she picked it up from other news stories. I pointed out that, given the practice of reporters eating each other’s turds, wasn’t it possible that someone else had picked it up from a satire site before she recycled it as fact?
Because I couldn’t find a source on Google that predates the satire.
She said she’d check it out. I suggested she contact Don Cherry.
Because I called Andrew Bradley. He says he just made it up.
UPDATE: Linda Shearman just called – SDA gets results. Canadian Press will be issuing a correction.
UPDATE 2: Don Cherry is not amused.
For today’s top nominee in journalistic cowardice, the fake quote captured above has been quietly removed in the Globe and Mail version, without so much as noting the page has been updated. However, they forgot to fix their rankings – now their “top ten” infamous quotes begin with #2.
Math is Hard
So why bother trying to teach it properly?
Many of the comments therein are most enlightening:
As a current teacher in a GTA school, Margaret is totally correct about this. It’s idealistic, but sickening and hurts the weakest students who will leave school with no math knowledge. We are inundated with workshops and initiatives in this direction. But please understand it comes from the trendy ‘educators’ writing books and seized on by the boards and education profs trying to be innovative. The unions are too busy with ‘equity’ issues and for them, the numbers do matter.
I’m telling everyone right now that when the school boards or ministry of education people tell you about what a great job that they’re doing, don’t believe it. . . . We see students who cannot add single digit numbers without a calculator, who have no idea how to calculate the area or circumference of a circle, who do not know how to read a tape measure, and in some cases who do not even know how to use their calculator. I would estimate that their academic level is about on par with a elementary school grad from a generation ago. . . . it’s as if they’ve never even attended high school!
Yep – that’s right – the only kids that can do math are the ones taught after school. I had grade 10 students who had no idea what a quarter teaspoon plus a quarter teaspoon was. This was in cooking – how much more practical can you get than that? It’s exasperating. We really do need to throw the school boards out and start all over.
Poor performance in math and science is really going to hurt us economically. How can we ever compete with countries who actually put an emphasis on education fundamentals?
Thankfully there may be a ray of light into a smarter future. Otherwise we may be faced with a lot of this on a much larger scale.
CWB: Royal Assent
From the Montreal Gazette, the only part that matters;
“The Conservatives believe in setting the Western farmers free,” said Manitoba Conservative Senator Don Plett. “It’s a great day for Western Canada.”
Shortly after the vote, Gov. Gen. David Johnston gave the bill royal assent. […]
With royal assent and then the government immediately proclaiming the bill, it means the farmer-elected directors of the CWB are out of their jobs and farmers can begin forward contracting their grain sales with whatever grain company they wish. The actual monopoly won’t be lifted until August 2012.
Update: A statement(pdf) from the Grain Growers of Canada, whose news releases generally manage to evade detection by Wheat Board friendly media.
More: Another CBC poll….
UPDATE (CBC): The Canadian Wheat Board announced Friday that its remaining directors met and have decided to discontinue legal challenges to the legislation ending the board’s monopoly on marketing the wheat and barley grown by Western farmers. (Video here).
It’s finally over.
Not Waiting For The Asteroid
Janet Robinson will step down as chief executive of the New York Times Co at the end of the month, as the company
continues to struggle with advertising declines and a years-long slump in its share price.
From the NYT comments – “Krugman, we want Krugman. The smartest man in the world. He knows everything and he’s right there. If not him, Friedman or maybe Brooks or Dowd. All super brilliant people. They have never, ever been wrong. Maybe get the whole bunch involved.”
h/t trappedintrudopia
Occupy NYT: “An SEC filing says Ms. Robinson will get $4.5 million plus health insurance for a 12-month retirement and consulting agreement, including “two-year non-competition, non-solicitation and non-disparagement covenants, a three-year cooperation covenant and an indefinite confidentiality covenant.”
Climategate 2.0: The Green Police
The UK police and the US DOJ, Criminal Division, are pursuing a leaker of public records subject to one or more FOIA, records that were unlawfully withheld under those laws, which leaks indicate apparent civil violations (tortious interference by seeking dismissal of certain “skeptics”), and raising reasonable questions of fraud against taxpayers.
And they are pursuing the leaker.
Anthony Watts has plenty of updates.
Scratch a Leftist
Pro-Palestinian journalist tells the truth at UBC lecture: Western Anti-Israel activism serves to help terrorists
Reader Tips
Anyone who loves time-lapse videos, as I do, will likely enjoy this. Closer to home, here’s one of my favourite videos of Vancouver, released just before the 2010 Olympics. In both cases, do watch full-screen!
Your full-motion or stop-motion reader tips are welcome, as always, in the comments.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Twisty Bulbs
SDA gets results! Congress suspends light bulb ban. Update: More details here.
A CBC Poll Goes Horribly Wrong
Should the long-gun registry data be destroyed? (Be sure to go rate those comments as well).
Will Trade For Tulips
Via Tim Blair;
EU carbon prices fell to their lowest ever level on Wednesday as the euro currency and equities slid on renewed fears over the bloc’s debt crisis and oil prices tanked after producers promised to maintain high output. […]
“I still don’t see any bottom to this market,” said one carbon trader, who said any positive sentiment from this weekend’s landmark U.N. climate summit in Durban was purely psychological as it brought no increase in demand for permits.
Could the Government Manage a Lemon-Aid Stand Without Losing Money?
Is it too much to ask that taxpayer dollars be spent prudently & efficiently? Apparently so when it comes to the FCC’s Lifeline program, which was implemented to provide poor people with free cel phones and wireless airtime. But rampant abuse appears to have been taking place.
Among other problems, look at the qualifications in two midwest states:
In Missouri, customers are not required to show a photo ID to receive a phone, instead they must show proof that they receive government assistance. In Illinois customers are not required to provide a photo id, and they are not required to show any proof that they are receiving government assistance.
Hmmm, one wonders what could possibly go wrong there!
People on the conservative side of the political spectrum are often accused of being “heartless” and “uncaring” when they point out such waste & fraud time after time after time. Have we really reached a time where incompetence and unaccountability in the public sector is perfectly fine? Failure to fire public employees involved in such scandals, and prosecute them where applicable, clearly means that it is. 🙁
The Tolerant Left
During a break in Wednesday’s Legislative Education Study Committee, Rep. Sheryl Williams Stapleton (D-Albuquerque) angrily confronted Rep. Nora Espinoza (R-Roswell), shouting “Don’t mess with me” and accusing Espinoza of “carrying the Mexican’s water on the fourth floor,” referring to Gov. Susana Martinez.
h/t Jason M.
Santelli On The U.S. Budget
There Are People Who Believe They’re Napoleon, Too…
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Crazy – Public health authorities across Canada are struggling to address the growing popularity of body modifications such as splitting one’s tongue like a snake’s and surgically altering ears to make them elf-like and pointy…
Not Crazy – Sex reassignment surgery in Canada: Province-by-province breakdown of SRS coverage
More Pavilions At Folkfest
What could possibly go wrong?
AUSTRALIA’S Muslims would not move towards a parallel legal system if some Islamic practices were better integrated into the existing legal framework, a University of Sydney academic said.
h/t Revnant Dream