Taking “environmentalists to task for being unfair to Stephen Harper” – criticism from the left.
Advice for Rick Mercer.
Photojournalism in crisis – (from August 2006, but a worthwhile read).
Trick or treat!
Mark Collins;
Canadian “gotcha” journalism at its worst: David Akin of CTV typifies Canadian “reporters” by putting political spin on a defence story whilst not mentioning facts crucial to the matter (and at least some of which he full well knows).
Add your own in the comments.
And the righteous struggle against the Zionist occupiers – in Argentina
If one only read the CBC’s account, you’d be led to believe that the controversial remarks of a senior Muslim cleric in Australia occurred in a vacuum;
A senior Muslim cleric in Australia apologized Thursday after he was widely condemned for recently reported comments he made about women and rape, but said he would not step down from his position.
Sheik Taj Aldin al Hilali denied he was condoning rape in a sermon last month when he compared women who don’t wear a headscarf to “uncovered meat,” suggesting they invite sexual attack.
But Hilali apologized to any women he had offended, saying they were free to dress as they wished.
Hilali was quoted in the Australian newspaper as saying in the sermon: “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside … without cover, and the cats come to eat it … whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat’s?”
“The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred,” he was quoted as saying, referring to the headdress worn by some Muslim women.
Hilali issued a statement Thursday saying The Australian had selectively quoted from the sermon, and that he was shocked at the reaction.
“I would like to unequivocally confirm that the presentation related to religious teachings on modesty and not to go to extremes in enticements,” the statement said.
“This does not condone rape; I condemn rape,” he said. “Women in our Australian society have the freedom and right to dress as they choose; the duty of man is to avert his glance or walk away.”
Read the CBC item carefully.
Now,we go to the Sydney Morning Herald for the part they left out;
As well, by revealing so unequivocally his primitive views of women, Hilaly destroyed the claims by cultural relativists that Sydney’s series of gang rapes by Muslim men had nothing to do with culture or religion.
“If you take uncovered meat and put it on the street … without a cover and the cats eat it, is it the fault of the cat or the uncovered meat?” he said in the sermon to 500 people last month at Lakemba mosque. “The uncovered meat is the problem. If the meat was covered, the cats wouldn’t roam around it. If the meat is inside the fridge, they won’t get it … if the woman is in her boudoir, in her house and if she’s wearing the veil and if she shows modesty, disasters don’t happen.”
Then in a clear reference to the gang rape trial of Bilal Skaf, he said: “A woman possesses the weapon of seduction. It is she who takes off her clothes, shortens them, flirts, puts on make-up and powder and takes to the streets, God protect us … then it’s a look, then a smile, then a conversation … then a date, then a meeting, then a crime, then Long Bay jail. Then you get a judge, who has no mercy, and he gives you 65 years.”
The only incitement committed by 18-year-old Ms C, who was raped 25 times by up to 14 men including Skaf in 2000, was being Australian. Sitting on a train, dressed for a job interview in her best suit, and reading The Great Gatsby, she was a slut, an “Aussie pig” as they called her later, while boasting: “I’m going to f— you Leb style.”
“I looked in his eyes. I had never seen such indifference,” she said.
Hilaly was simply echoing what the father of four Pakistani-born gang-rapists from Ashfield once said of the young victims: “What do they expect to happen to them? Girls from Pakistan don’t go out at night.”
Hilaly’s younger, Australian-born counterparts have been saying the same thing for years.
“A victim of rape every minute somewhere in the world,” Sheik Feiz Mohammad told 1000 people at Bankstown Town Hall last year. “Why? No one to blame but herself. She displayed her beauty to the entire world … strapless, backless, sleeveless, nothing but satanic skirts, slit skirts, translucent blouses.”
Like the selective reporting on yesterday’s anti-war rallies, the damning stuff is left on the cutting room floor.
*
More – “Canadian Soldiers are murderers” – on the scene reporting that you won’t get from the CBC.
Update: Make Mercedes! Not War!.
OTTAWA—Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada, announced today the awarding of the first four Military Valour Decorations to members of the Canadian Forces who have displayed gallantry and devotion to duty in combat.
The recipients will be invited to receive their decoration from the Governor General at a presentation ceremony to be held at a later date.
Military Valour Decorations are national honours awarded to recognize acts of valour, self-sacrifice or devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy. They consist of the Victoria Cross, the Star of Military Valour and the Medal of Military Valour. This marks the first time that these decorations, which were created in 1993, have been awarded.
[…]
Sergeant Patrick Tower, S.M.V., C.D.
Edmonton, Alberta, and Victoria, British Columbia
Star of Military Valour
Sergeant Tower is recognized for valiant actions taken on August 3, 2006, in the Pashmul region of Afghanistan. Following an enemy strike against an outlying friendly position that resulted in numerous casualties, Sergeant Tower assembled the platoon medic and a third soldier and led them across 150 metres of open terrain, under heavy enemy fire, to render assistance. On learning that the acting platoon commander had perished, Sergeant Tower assumed command and led the successful extraction of the force under continuous small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire. Sergeant Tower’s courage and selfless devotion to duty contributed directly to the survival of the remaining platoon members.
Sergeant Michael Thomas Victor Denine, M.M.V., C.D.
Edmonton, Alberta
Medal of Military Valour
Sergeant Denine deployed with 8 Platoon, C Company, 1 PPCLI during Operation ARCHER in Afghanistan. On May 17, 2006, while sustaining concentrated rocket-propelled grenade, machine gun and small arms fire, the main cannon and the machine gun on his light armoured vehicle malfunctioned. Under intense enemy fire, he recognized the immediate need to suppress the enemy fire and exited the air sentry hatch to man the pintle-mounted machine gun. Completely exposed to enemy fire, he laid down a high volume of suppressive fire, forcing the enemy to withdraw. Sergeant Denine’s valiant action ensured mission success and likely saved the lives of his crew.
Master Corporal Collin Ryan Fitzgerald, M.M.V.
Shilo, Manitoba, and Morrisburg, Ontario
Medal of Military Valour
Master Corporal Fitzgerald deployed with 5 Platoon, B Company, 1 PPCLI Battle Group in Afghanistan. He is recognized for outstanding selfless and valiant actions carried out on May 24, 2006, during an ongoing enemy ambush involving intense, accurate enemy fire. Master Corporal Fitzgerald repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire by entering and re-entering a burning platoon vehicle and successfully driving it off the roadway, permitting the remaining vehicles trapped in the enemy zone to break free. Master Corporal Fitzgerald’s courageous and completely selfless actions were instrumental to his platoon’s successful egress and undoubtedly contributed to saving the lives of his fellow platoon members.
Private Jason Lamont, M.M.V.
Edmonton, Alberta, and Greenwood, Nova Scotia
Medal of Military Valour
Private Lamont deployed with the Health Support Services Company, 1 PPCLI Battle Group during Operation ARCHER. On July 13, 2006, an element of the reconnaissance platoon came under heavy enemy fire from a compound located in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, and was isolated from the rest of the platoon. During the firefight, another soldier was shot while attempting to withdraw back to the firing line and was unable to continue. Without regard for his personal safety, Private Lamont, under concentrated enemy fire and with no organized suppression by friendly forces, sprinted through open terrain to administer first aid. Private Lamont’s actions demonstrated tremendous courage, selflessness and devotion to duty.
Victor Davis Hanson writes about American attitudes about Iraq, but his commentary applies equally to the behavior of our own chattering classes on the war in Afghanistan;
Watching and reading the recent Washington punditry, whether in print or on television, is a depressing spectacle. Almost all—Charles Krauthammer is the most notable exception—have somehow triangulated on the war, not mentioning why and how in the B.C. days they sort of, kinda, not really called for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. For some the Road to Damascus was the looting or Abu Ghraib, for others the increasing violence. Still more now say the absence of WMD did the trick.
But almost none of the firebrands of 2003 speaks the truth behind the facade: They supported the war when it looked like few casualties and a quick reconstruction and thus confirmation of their own muscular humanitarianism—and then bailed along the way when they realized that wasn’t going to happen and the unpopular war might instead brand them as “war mongers”, “chicken-hawks” or just fools.
Instead of that honest admission, we get instead either cardboard cut-out villains of the “my perfect three-week war, your screwed-up three-year occupation” type—a Douglas Feith, Gen. Sanchez, or Paul Bremmer—or all sorts of unappreciated and untapped brilliance: from trisecting the country to “redeploying” to Kurdistan, or Kuwait, or Okinawa?
[…]
I wrote about the daily changing wisdom in Fields Without Dreams, and how fickle human nature is, rather than looking at things in a tragic sense that there are no great choices, but often just bad and worse, and that wisdom is predicated mostly on the perception of success. In 1982 I picked early and thereby avoided a horrendous tropical storm that ruined the industry, saving thereby 200 tons of raisins that sold for over $1400 a ton; in 1983 I picked early again, the clouds blew away, and in weeks of perfect weather I produced lousy, sour, and light raisins, selling scarcely 140 tons for $400 and lost far more than I had made the year before. I was neither a genius the year before, nor a fool the next, but rather did the best I could in both years, recognizing that we are still subject to fate, despite our vaunted technology and knowledge. I am not advising helplessness, simply some recognition that the verdict is out on Iraq, and what looks bad today, might look far better very soon—and that erstwhile supporters turned vehement critics might well reinvent themselves a third time.
This bit of tongue in cheek penned by the Toronto Star’s Public Editor, Sharon Burnside;
“The Star does not quote unnamed sources who make critical comments about others — and that’s as it should be, since readers would have no idea who the sources are, nor if they had motive for mischief-making.”
h/t Chris Selley, (who has the punchline).
“Where do you want your well?”
(Be sure to follow Damian’s link)
EXCLUSIVE – MUST CREDIT SDA
Update – A media source confirms: ” Just for the record, CKBI ran the story at 10:59 am SK time. You had the post at 10:46. No one IN THE WORLD had this story before you did.
AND, like Drudge, long may you demand attribution for your world class scoops!”
Still awaiting reaction from Liberal MP Ralph “The biggest savings will go to the biggest spenders” Goodale ….developing
Lisa, at London Fog;
Canadians are stupid in exact proportion to the importance they place on McKay’s comment, assuming he even said it in the first place. The real victim here is the taxpayer who pays the wages of these buffoons. Bitches, all of you. Is it okay if I call Stronach, Jennings, and Sgro dogs or bitches? Can a woman be accused of “sexism?” if her comment is directed to a member of one’s own “victim” group? If you can’t take the “heat” ladies, you should resume your role of sock darner and toilet cleaner.
Stanley Kurtz; “Islamic militias tear capital apart. Country may soon be divided….No, not Iraq. I’m talking about France. Europe continues its descent into…what shall we call it? Civil war? Intifada? Call it what you like, but take it deadly seriously. More scare-mongering from an American conservative? Well, I’ve noticed the beginnings of a shift in the European press in just the past week or two. There’s a new sense of alarm, and even the partially spoken belief that Europe’s American critics may have a point after all. Take a look at “What’s Wrong With Europe,” from Spiegel Online.”
The French capital has an intifada unfolding on its doorstep. For 11 nights running, garbage containers and vehicles have been burning in Departement Seine-Saint-Denis. Night after night, gangs of teenagers storm through their neighborhoods, throwing Molotov cocktails into carpet shops and nursery schools, turning vehicles into bonfires — 250 in one night, then 315 the next night, and 500 the next.
[…]
Social divisions in today’s French society run along ethnic and religious lines, and they also signify deep cultural rifts. The ideal of the French republic — the nation as a community of the willing, of citizens who enjoy equal rights, regardless of their ethnic origins or religious beliefs — is giving way to a volatile co-existence among communities that want to retain their identities and live according to their own rules. The official French position has always been to condemn multiculturalism — and yet the state must now deal with the consequences.
Between “us” and “them”
The strict separation of church and state, a sacrosanct pillar of French government, has become an illusion. Jihad may not be what’s inspiring the rioters, but Islam is undeniably an inseparable component of their self-identity. Islam strengthens their sense of solidarity, gives them the appearance of legitimacy and draws an unmistakable line between them and the others, the “French.”
Suddenly “big brothers” — devout bearded men from the mosques who wear long traditional robes — are positioning themselves between the authorities and the rioters in Clichy-sous-Bois, calling for order in the name of Allah. As thousands of voices shout “Allahu Akbar” from the windows of high-rise apartment buildings, shivers run down the spines of television viewers in their seemingly safe living rooms.
As welcome as these self-appointed keepers of the peace may be, worried authorities think they have detected something akin to a Muslim law enforcement group — perhaps even the beginnings of an Islamic militia. “The logic behind this unrest,” says one police officer, “is secession.” If he’s right, it would be a nightmare scenario of entire neighborhoods and communities separating themselves from the state and essentially declaring their independence, creating zones with their own laws, areas to which the authorities no longer have access unless they wish to be perceived as hostile intruders.
RTWT
(Note – the Spiegel piece is from 2005)
Hugh Hewitt: The line I’m reading from is on page 220. “The conservative account of Christianity, it is first and foremost of a single life, of one man, Jesus. It’s subsequently both an attempt to distill what it meant to be Jesus, most fatally, in the abstract religious genius of Paul.” And I…what do you mean by fatally there?
Andrew Sullivan: Because if you just have doctrine, and you do not feel Jesus in your actual life, if you do not feel it in the practice of faith, if you just cling to doctrines and certitudes, you become what Jesus criticized, which was the Pharisees, who said oh, we’ve got it all down. We know what the laws are. And they did exactly to Jesus what you’re doing to me, which is ask them all these trick questions. And Jesus, actually, was smart enough to be silent, and to say no, what matters is love and forgiveness, and how we live our lives. And that’s what Jesus said.
HH: Well, Jesus didn’t write a book, though.
AS: Hugh, you and your pharisaical form of religion, and your cross-examination. You remind me exactly of the Pharisees and scribes in the Gospels.
HH: But Jesus didn’t write a book or go on a book tour, and you did.
AS: So what?
HH: And so when I ask you about what you’ve written in your book, it’s not really a trick question.
The train wreck continues….
Kathy Shaidle, in the comments –“The parody Hewitt did with Lileks an hour later is pure joy. Since Sullivan obviously isn’t a conservative anymore, and some are questioning his fidelity to Catholic dogma, is it safe to wonder if he’s even really gay?”
The U.S. Department of Defense is now taking its requests for corrections public through a website known as For the Record (located at http://www.defenselink.mil/home/dodupdate/index-b.html). Here, the Department of Defense is openly calling for corrections from major media outlets, and even noting when they refuse to publish letters to the editor.
The most recent was this past Tuesday, when the DOD published a letter, that the New York Times refused to run, which contained quotes from five generals (former CENTCOM commander Tommy Franks, current CENTCOM commander John Abizaid, MNF Commander George Casey, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers, as well as his successor, Peter Pace) that rebutted a New York Times editorial. This has been picked up by a number of bloggers who have been able to spread the Pentagon’s rebuttal – and the efforts of the New York Times to sweep it under the rug – across the country.
[…]
The DOD is pushing back, not only putting out requests to correct the record (with the refusals published as well), but also citing stories of heroes that the media has failed to cover – usually two or three a week. Among these are accounts of those who have been awarded medals for battlefield bravery, like Navy Cross recipients Robert J. Mitchell Jr. and Bradley A. Kasal, as well as Silver Star recipients Juan M. Rubio, Sarun Sar, Jeremy Church, and Leigh Ann Hester. The DOD has also followed CENTCOM’s lead in running pieces on what terrorists actually say – another item largely ignored by the mainstream media.
“In other news: dogs are always thinking about food, leftist wackjobs are always thinking about getting Karl Rove, and Michael Moore is always thinking about staging a Twinkies® truck heist.”
Coming soon to your local mental health facility – Doctor Dominatrix!
Voter fraud in Missouri
One final note
— the job of public editor requires me to probe and question the published work and wisdom of Times journalists, even when my constant probing and poking and prodding and questioning invariably turns out to be a monumental waste of time because the work and wisdom has already been purified though layers and layers of The Times’ fail-safe editorial charcoal filtering system.
In the new print edition of Maclean’s, I write about my experience at the hands of Canada’s monopoly bookstore chain. Notwithstanding Chapters-Indigo-Whatever, I’m duking it out with Dawkins back and forth for NUMBER ONE IN CANADA – which isn’t bad for a book entirely unavailable in Canadian bookstores.
Emphasis mine.
Add your own in the comments.
“No, I represent the people, you represent the media.”
Video here.
Via Powerline.
Damian Penny – “The members of CUPW are acting like, well, fundamentalists.”
They do play hardball down there. Drudge Report:
ALLEN’S REVENGE: EXPOSES UNDERAGE SEX SCENES IN OPPONENT’S NOVELS
Yes, “expose” seems like the right word.
