It’s Probably Nothing
So, How’s That Libyan Thing Going For You Lately?
The US Department of Defense is determined to free itself of “dirty” Canadian oil…
In a short, but strongly worded statement, the Department of Defense (DOD) has weighed in in support of Section 526, the provision of the 2007 energy bill that requires federal agencies to make sure that the fuels they buy do not create more pollution and exacerbate global warming. The statement was sent to Congress on July 5 and reported in The Hill on July 8.
What could possibly go wrong?
Gatekeepers
Shortly after the Sun Media group of newspapers announced this week that it is pulling out of the “media watchdog” known as the Ontario Press Council (“representing the collective opinion of a newspaper’s conduct shared by people from a broad cross-section of Ontario society and from the newspaper field“), Toronto-based Jeffrey Dvorkin, first Executive Director of the Organization of News Ombudsmen, rued the decision, saying “there’s now no mechanism in place for any kind of public accountability with Sun media. It’s really too bad.”
“Accountability” is a noble-sounding word, but it starts to mean something else when ombudsmen who appoint themselves as the arbiters of journalistic accountability are doing so in political terms. The high-minded Dvorkin, for example, who isn’t a member of the OPC but is the first Executive Director of the Organization of News Ombudsmen, certainly seems to hold views about “media conduct” that are in some manner political; in this post on his blog, for example, titled “Fox News North: Looks Can Deceive“, he refers to Ezra Levant’s “rants”, and writes:
His approach is far to the right while devoid of serious analysis….Anti-CBC criticism will be easy to ignore when lumped together with Levant’s sophomoric tirades…but the CBC shouldn’t break out the champagne just yet on the belief that the threat has passed.
Freedom of expression and freedom from outside interference is surely more important than the “standards” of self-appointed outside overlords. The Sun chain of newspapers’ decision not to voluntarily grant journalistic oversight to the OPC is “too bad”, but not for the Sun chain or its readers.
This Is My Brother Mohammed, And This Is My Other Brother Mohammed
Michael Totten interviews a high-ranking member of the Muslim Brotherhood;
Esam El-Erian: Look, sir. If you don’t dare to learn the truth about 9/11, we will. We were victims of this dirty and bloody crime.
MJT: You think you’re victims because Egypt was blamed?
Esam El-Erian: All the nation. The whole Arab and Muslim nation was called terrorists. And you put these nations under dictatorship to face this ghost.
MJT: We didn’t put Egypt under dictatorship.
Esam El-Erian: Your administration did.
MJT: Mubarak was already in power.
Rising Anger Down Under
Alan Jones is kind of like the Rush Limbaugh of Australia. He has a podcast that’s well worth a listen if you want to keep apprised of what’s going on in the big land in the southern hemisphere.
Recently Jones has been hammering Australia’s PM Julia Gillard about the carbon tax that she and her Green Party coalition partners are insisting upon bringing in. The outrage is more than a little reminiscent of something that happened here in Canada almost 3 years ago.
The Australian public is clearly outraged at Gillard’s arrogance to introduce something they don’t want. No surprise that some Radical Leftists choose to use Saul Alinsky tactics to support their zealotry.
Christopher Monckton is down there stirring up the pot:
P.S. Ezra Levant and Tim Ball discussed the issue on Sun News TV yesterday.
Reader Tips
To help put you into the mood for tonight’s tips thread, here’s a patriotic and uplifting little WWII-era number by Rosalie Allen called Hitler Lives.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
Paul Vs Bernanke
More Pavilions At Folkfest
…a typical Friday at a middle school in the largest city in Canada. I forget which brand of tampon used to advertise itself with the pitch “Now with new [whatever] you can go horse-riding, water-ski-ing, ballet dancing, whatever you want to do”, but perhaps they can just add the tag: “But not participate in Friday prayers at an Ontario public school.”
h/t BL
Reason #786
Why Japan is better than Haiti.
Not Watching For The Asteroid
A Little Excitement
…in Delisle last night. No damage here, but lots of neighbors weren’t so lucky.
Reader Tips
In tonight’s Tippity amusement a ballsy Swede channels his inner Cro-Magnon as he demonstrates the proper technique for dealing with a nanny state crusader charging moose.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
Take Me, Obama
Chris Matthews* has competition.
Before the policy choices have to be weighed and the hard decisions have to be made, can we just take a month or two to contemplate him the way we might contemplate a painting by Vermeer or a guitar lick by the early-seventies Rolling Stones or a Peyton Manning pass or any other astounding, ecstatic human achievement? Because twenty years from now, we’re going to look back on this time as a glorious idyll in American politics, with a confident, intelligent, fascinating president riding the surge of his prodigious talents from triumph to triumph. Whatever happens this fall or next, the summer of 2011 is the summer of Obama.
No Time for the Times
Mark Steyn sticks it to the Gray Lady–and twists:
…On the whole, I prefer an unrespectable reptilian press sticking its foot in the grieving widow’s doorway to, say, a media of portentous over-credentialed unreadable drones with no greater ambition than to serve as court eunuchs to the Obama administration. If the National Enquirer operated to the high-minded standards of the New York Times, John Edwards might now be vice president or attorney general. If Murdoch’s tabloids “destroy lives,” as the Times airily claims, they’re at least equal-opportunity destroyers, as willing to plaster a Tory rent-boy over the front page as a Labour one.
By contrast, the New York Times happily colluded in the destruction of the Duke lacrosse players’ lives for no reason other than ideological predisposition to a politically correct narrative. I would say that, whether through malice or intellectual torpor, that kind of bias is far more damaging to public discourse…
The Times did print this today by Roger Cohen:
In Defense of Murdoch
One Wonders What Gluey Huey Thinks of Bloggers
The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
June 12, 1987 – “Today I say: As long as the gate is closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind.”
July 11th, 2011 – “Mr. Assad – post on this wall.”
CWB: Pat Martin Is A Moron
Indeed.
“Perception Is Reality”
I’ve always maintained than anyone who believes that dangerously naive political “maxim” is either a fool or a liar. Reality is reality. Everything else is just seven second delay.
The World Still Has Too Many Reporters
Sam was returning from a school fair on Friday evening with his brother and friends. He was running when he fell on a curb next to the main slide which he said was jutting out by at least and inch.
Has your child been hurt at the playground? Contact Evening News reporter Annabelle Dickson.
h/t EBD
SDA Book Club
Tyler writes;
I enjoy your work, SDA is a great place to stop by.
I am looking for reading material for the summer. Do you have a list that you could recommend? May be you have had a post in the past?
That’s pretty open ended, but I thought I’d open it up to our readers – feel free to share your summer book recommendations in the comments.