Readers have been sending a steady stream of news links over the past couple of weeks. I’ve arbitrarily chosen a few – I’m sure I’ve overlooked some I shouldn’t have. In addition to doing a lot of posting, I’m also starting to come face to face with some work deadlines. A lot of the stuff sent demands blog posts of their own, but sometimes I’m preoccupied with other things, other times (Steyn columns come to mind), the links have propogated across the blogosphere already, and I figure that most of my blog-surfing readers will have or soon will, come across them somewhere else.
“He was a founding director of a Scarborough mosque and a doting father who brought his children to the park for picnics on weekends. Now he’s been named as a key commander of a terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda that’s fighting against the Americans in Iraq.”
(From August of 2004, background on terrorist groups in Canada.)
Pierre Pettigrew says the US State Department asked Canada not to add the Tamil Tigers to the list of terrorist organizations. Official US State Department response: “Say, what?”
Finally – Confounding the experts, scientists discover that ice melted before the invention of the internal combustion engine. Who knew?
Embrace Hollywood
“Democrats need to embrace Hollywood because this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story.” – Michael Moore*
“Michael Moore makes a substantial living going into peoples’ private lives. Sneaking up on them,” Urbanski said. So Urbanski feels no compunction in talking about the only client he ever fired. In fact, he fired Moore with a 10- page letter.
“A more dishonest and demented person I have never met,” Urbanski wrote me in an e-mail, “and I have known a few! And he is more money obsessed than any I have known, and that’s saying a lot.”
Urbanski believes that Moore hates America, hates capitalism and hates any normal concept of freedom and democracy. This seems odd, considering that if it weren’t for America, freedom and capitalism Moore’s brand of expression and capitalistic success would be impossible, if not illegal.
“Michael Moore could not withstand Michael Moore’s scrutiny for more than 15 seconds,” Urbanski said.
Has Hollywood figured out what Moore is really about? Was that why he was snubbed?
Urbanski has given some thought to Moore’s methods. “Moore has an interesting racket. A Jesse Jackson-like shakedown. He figured out he could shake down his own type of thinker, his own constituency, for his own enrichment.”
And to think, nobody suspected a thing!
Toronto: Man Sets Self On Fire
This is sad. And what a situation for police to be faced with – a man soaked in gasoline inside a van (curiously, it was rented), threatening to set himself alight – and then following through. No word yet on his condition. Pulse24 TV has the video available. For the life of me, I don’t know why.
Liberals Aghast! NP Not Buying It.
Further to the PMO orchestrated “faux outrage” of Liberals towards Monte Solberg’s irreverand pokes on his blog, at Paul “I Have The Dithers” Martin, the National Post is scornful;
Generating reports that they were “aghast” over Mr. Solberg’s posting, the Liberals launched what appeared to be a concerted campaign to misrepresent his comments — falsely suggesting, among other things, that he’d mocked the work of Dr. King. “It’s actually quite despicable on his part because he trivializes the civil rights movement,” Montreal MP Marlene Jennings huffed sanctimoniously to The Canadian Press. “He trivializes Martin Luther King Jr.’s contribution to the whole notion of tolerance, of peaceful resistance, of peaceful civil disobedience and, literally, the pain and the suffering that many blacks and whites underwent in order to remove segregationist legislation.”
Even the Prime Minister’s Office got into the act. “Mr. Solberg’s blog drips with Conservative party disrespect and disdain for the Charter, the Supreme Court, basic human rights and, astonishingly, the legacy of Martin Luther King,” Martin spokesperson Scott Reid said. And the Liberals were joined by the Centre for Research Action on Race Relations, which called on Mr. Solberg to apologize to the black community and specifically to Dr. King’s family.
If ever one wondered why politicians typically stick to their staid talking points, this episode provides the answer. Mr. Solberg could have played it safe on his Web site, following other public figures’ lead by only posting recycled press releases. Instead, he made an effort to actually engage the public by presenting his opinions in a creative way – – and immediately had his words yanked out of context by intellectually dishonest partisans bent on painting him as a racist.
Perhaps it’s just a tactic. Yet, it’s hardly an isolated case, nor is “yanking words out of context” confined to the political operative. One finds the most absurd “recreative interpretation” being utilized by columnists, journalists, and pundits – and while not limited to the “left” side of the political spectrum, they certainly seem to have embraced the practice.
I used to think the viewpoint of the left could be explained by differing background, upbringing, experiences, psychology. I’m beginning to think it’s just poor reading comprehension.
Helen, More Than A Little Steamed
So You Think You’re Smart?
Try this.
I shall assume you’re sitting on a chair at your monitor. Pick up a pen and scrap of paper.
Now, lift your right foot in the air, and make a few circles in a clockwise direction . Now, write the number 6.
What just happened to your foot?
Via Murray Wood Show
Sgrena’s Speeding Car
Now I’m angry.
ABC News:
A senior U.S. military official tells ABC News he believes the investigation into the fatal shooting of an Italian intelligence officer by U.S. troops in Iraq will ultimately prove the officer’s car was traveling in excess of 100 mph.
After three major wars, Saddam Hussein’s negligence towards the country’s infrastructure, and two years of damage by roadside devices and carbombings, Iraq still has better highways than we do in Saskatchewan.
A Little Gas On The Fire
Trodwell at Right Thinking People administers a Right Proper Fisking to Norm Spector.
Apparently Norm is feeling a little down on the Internet, conservatives, bloggers, Canadians and a lot of other things, so one wonders whether he hasn’t had a little too much cheese in his diet lately. In fact, his piece sounds like an impassioned defence of the Mainstream Media, and as such, puts me in mind of King Canute ordering the tide to retreat. You know Canute, right? Danish guy, fancy crown, damp cuffs?
…nibble nibble nibble nibble ….
According to the Vancouver Sun, there should be a letter to the editor from me in today’s paper, in rebuttal to Norm Spector’s misrepresentation of my post on Missile Fallout at the Shotgun. The process included a few emails and an interesting phone call from Fazil Milhar (editorial pages editor), in which I (or the Shotgun admins?) were virtually accused of altering the content after the fact. Gee. I wonder where he got that idea?
He explained that the Sun couldn’t include a URL to my original post, as there was the possibility the content might be changed (by me, evidently), and that according to Canadian law, the Sun was legally responsible for any libelous statements contained in an external link.
“Oh?” I asked, “It didn’t seem to stop the Montreal Gazette from providing a link to Monte Solberg’s blog”.
I thought I’d been disconnected for a moment. Utter silence.
The problem was resolved with an offer to quote the post in its entirety. I thanked them, and mentioned that my letter would also appear here in its original form. (here). In the meantime, if someone who has access to a Vancouver Sun would be so kind, I’d be curious to know if today’s paper includes any URL’s.
In the meanwhile, at Blogs Canada, Norman has found both a new home and his intellectual soulmate in the persona of one “MWW”, none other than Meaghan Champion-Walker-Williams. Elevated discourse fair threatens to burst open the seams.
Guest BloggerJames B. Badger
James Badger left this in my comments below, in response to the Lloyd Axworthy letter.
“(I’ll) leave you with the assurance that we yanks are not laughing at canada, only some individual canadians.” Gunner is wrong.
“Americans are already angry with Canadian anti-Americanism. However, more recently Americans have begun to become more indifferent to Canada and its motives.” Greg is closer, but these two statements are not mutually exclusive. Maybe we’re pissed off – AND – no longer care what you do.
I confess my total lack of understanding of your (Canadian) political system, but when you keep electing these “bastards”, at some point we come to believe that they do indeed represent the will of the people. Just as our re-election of President Bush entitles you to assume that at least the majority of Americans support our stubborn, willful, crazy cowboy President.
I’ve ridden my bike through your beautiful countryside. What a fabulous place for motorcycles! But I’ve also read your papers. Listened to your politicians. Felt the sting of the insults. The betrayal of what I thought were our friends and allies.
We’ve taken our last two vacations in the U.S.A. when we had planned on Mexico and a return to Canada. For the first time in my life, I’ve begun to read EVERY label, looking for the “Made in” sticker before I purchase. And Canadian products don’t fare much better than French products in our household.
Americans are sick to death of subsidizing our enemys. And again, like France, Canada is starting to look less and less like a country that disagrees with us, and more and more like one that does not wish us well.
We can raise plenty of cattle in the U.S. to meet the demand. Have lots of timber too. Iraqi oil will be coming on the market in greater quantities before long. And we haven’t done the ANWAR drilling yet.
So just how stupid are your politicians?
Did you see our new Ambassador to the U.N. yet? Do a Google search on Bolton. Maybe you’ll began to get a sense of just how much the status quo is being shaken.
After 9/11 your “elephant” neighbor began to wake up. Canada could have jumped astride and gone along for the ride. You could have given us the occasional pat on the head, and we would have continued to pretend that Canada was a trusted ally. Instead your politicos chose to stand in front of the elephant stridently screaming “STOP”. Now there is a brilliant strategy! Especially as nations all over the world are beginnng to join the rush toward freedom. It’s a stampede! (That’s what clumsy cowboys quite often do, you know? Start stampedes.) But your leaders are sleeping peacefully through the cacophony of the thundering hooves. Wonder if they will wake in time.
Forgive this rant, please. Pent up frustration that just occasionally blows the lid off, when I hear one too many stupid, vicious, condesending attacks on my country for the horrible crime of trying to rid the world of this particular stripe of subhuman monster, global terrorists. And we’ve committed the additional offense of holding the first democratic elections in the history of Afganistan and Iraq. (Developments in Libiya, Syria, Lebonon, Pakistan, ect. will go undiscussed for now.) Well hell, no wonder they hate us!
Thanks to all of you on this site, and other sympathetic blogs. It’s nice to know that ALL of Canada is not insane. And in America, somewhat less than half of my countrymen are stark, raving mad. So perhaps there is hope for reproachment yet.
So why did I go off on my tirade here? When many of you are defending my countries honor, and thus it is least deserved? Cause I, and millions like me, am angry at Canada on the whole, though not at all Canadians in particular. I read your papers and get a sense that many of your columnists, at least, fail to judge the American mood acurately. Or believe that a ruined relationship with the U.S.A. will be consequence free. You betcha!!! Just ask the French tourist and wine industries. And didn’t a group of Canadian farmers just converge on the capital to plea for help? Can you name ONE American politician who feels the cattle ban is an urgent matter? Didn’t think so. How long have you had complaints about softwood imports? Boy, we’re really in hurry to solve those issues too, huh?
Canadians should have a crystal clear grasp of the damage that has been done to the relationship between our countries. I’ll not be so presumptuos as to suggest what should be done. Except to remind all of you that we can always find a place for a few more good citizens if it gets too crazy in the frozen north. This nation is proudly made up of those who either left, or were thrown out of their country of origin.
Sorry for being so blunt, but I thought you should know. Thanks for listening.
Today At The Milgaard Inquiry…. Say… What?
An ex-girlfriend who was with him at the time, testified today that David Milgaard raped her. Then came tape of a hypnosis[1] session in which she recalled witnessing an extremely disturbing violent incident – though she can’t remember who committed it.
At the rate things are going, they’re probably going to reconvict him.
Damn the torpedos. I’ll be perfectly honest about my feelings on this.
By their own admission, Milgaard and his crew were driving around Saskatoon the night Gail Miller was murdered in 1969, looking for someone to rob. It is not by coincidence that in wrongful conviction cases, the accused nearly always has a criminal record, or criminal associates. Being arrested and convicted for a crime you didn’t yet get the chance to commit is one of the occupational risks of the industry.
That’s one of the findings that should come out of this inquiry. But it won’t.
Yes, I feel badly that it took 23 years to get Milgaard out of jail – that’s too long a sentence for a petty criminal. Nor should anyone dismiss the possibility that members of the justice system went out of their way to keep him there, even as doubts surfaced – that’s a broader issue that affects us all. So I feel sorry for him in the usual sense? About as much as I do someone who jumps head first from a bridge and ends up in a wheelchair.
Footnote:
[1] Yes, I know recovering memery through hypnosis is crap. It’s astonishing that the inquiry even allowed it.
Dinosaur Blog
Heh. (Thanks to commentor TimR)
Sgrena’s Car?
Rusty Shackleford has new images that Italian TV is stating are Giuliana Sgrena’s car. (Earlier photos turned out to be unrelated, so some caution is being exercised. Nonetheless – if it turns out to be genuine, the story becomes even more ridiculous than first thought.
If this is the car then it would contradict earlier reports that Sgrena’s rescuers had used a truck. If accurate, the condition of the car would also directly contradict the story told by Sgrena in which she claimed 300-400 bullets were fired, one of which hit Italian secret-service agent Nicola Calipari.
Fly The Porcine Skies
At this rate*, we’re going to need air traffic controllers that speak oink.
Liberals Aghast! Not Speechless.
A manufactured contraversy is emerging over Monte Solberg’s satirical post directed at the “discovery” of new charter “rights” by “Paul Martin Luther King”. Not surprisingly, the rhetoric reads like parody – “Liberals aghast. Liberal MP Marlene Jennings said she was “left speechless after reading it.”
We should be so lucky.
Monte fires back;
there are those joyless people who spend their lives looking for reasons to be outraged. These are the people who are offended by everything. What an awful way to pass your days. I really do feel sorry for them.
Finally there are those who feign outrage. This is the camp that my friends Scott Reid and Marlene Jenning fall into. They are real pro’s at the outrage game. They actually get the joke but pretend that they don’t. They are outraged for the cameras and then they go back to their desk, eat a muffin and read the paper.
And, in what I only hope was the outcome of a planned strategy – every Liberal sympathetic journalist on the outrage beat is sending readers directly to his blog – where his response is there to read, without the media filters.
The gatekeepers have just stepped aside to let the hordes into the castle.
This is the power of the blogosphere, writ large.
Monte should be spending the next few days writing and linking like a maniac, to capitalize on the curiousity seeking traffic.
A flashback to remind us all of the double standard in the national media that makes it so important to remove them from the communication loop: Scott Brison, Liberal MP on June 28, 2004:
“There’s not a lot of room for Red Tories in a party with a lot of rednecks.”
This was not satire. This was not the fond self-deprecation so often used here in the west, when referring to our own.
This was Liberal MP Scott Brison, revealing the bigotry of the Liberal Party towards the very people who pay his expense account. A rhetorical club swung by a faux-elitist to drive home the point that, in Canada, there are some segments of society who are unworthy of a voice in the political process because they have committed the crime of being “unsophisticated”, hardworking, and rural.
And nobody raised an eyebrow.
More.
The Mother Machines
In 2000, America dodged a bullet in Al Gore. In 2004, they dodged a bullet and a flowerpot throwing crazy old aunt in the attic.
“Two brothers own 80 percent of the machines used in the United States,” Heinz Kerry said. She identified both as “hard-right” Republicans. She argued that it is “very easy to hack into the mother machines.”
“We in the United States are not a banana republic,” added Heinz Kerry. She argued that Democrats should insist on “accountability and transparency” in how votes are tabulated. “I fear for ’06,” she said. “I don’t trust it the way it is right now.”
More dominos: Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Pakistan…
Publius has been following protest worldwide.
After years and years of waiting, the Kuwaiti parliament is speeding up legislation for women’s suffrage. About 500 women demonstrated. Demonstrators here [Egypt] are protesting against the new election law that would have Mubarak run against other candidates. The basis? They believe it will be rigged. I tend to agree. [Nepal] Even after the declaration of a military dictatorship and the oppression of media, the democratic opposition to the king is preparing for a huge protest tomorrow. Thousands of women rallied in eastern Pakistan on Monday to demand justice and protection for a woman who said she was gang-raped at the direction of a village council, after a court ordered the release of her alleged attackers
Lots more there.
| Totten is right – the western media, pundits and the democratic left would do well pay more attention Victor Davis Hanson. They won’t of course – they’ve shown an unhealthy fondness for worse-case-scenerio wishful thinking punditry. |
 |
Garrett Graff’s First Day
A blogger’s first day in the White House press corp.
McClellan said Graff was believed to be the first blogger to be credentialed to attend his morning press gathering and his televised briefing later in the day. McClellan ran into Graff in the press room in the afternoon and greeted him as “the mystery man.” The two went up to McClellan’s office to chat.
On his blog, Graff wrote: “Our first impression this morning? As glamorous as the beat itself may be, there’s little glamour to be found in the briefing room. The conditions of the briefing room, famously built over the old White House swimming pool, um, leave something to be desired.”
Or read his own report, at DCFishbowl
Pew: Internet Overtakes Radio
Via OTB, (who I’m linking to as the source site requires registration).
The Internet surpassed radio as a source for political news in the United States last year as more people went online to keep up with the presidential election campaign, according to a new report released today. Twenty-nine per cent of US adults used the Internet to get political news last year, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. That’s up from 4 per cent in 1996 and 18 per cent in 2000.
Television remained the dominant medium for most voters, but 18 per cent said they got most of their political news from the Internet, compared with 17 per cent who said they turned to the radio for their news. For those with a broadband connection at home, the Internet rivalled newspapers in importance.
Most Internet users surveyed said they voted to re- elect Republican President George W Bush, but supporters of Democratic challenger Sen John Kerry were more likely to say the Internet helped them settle on a candidate.
The information is broken down further;
52% of internet users, or about 63 million people, said they went online to get news or information about the 2004 elections. We call them online political news consumers. 35% of internet users, or about 43 million people, said they used email to discuss politics, and one of the most popular email subjects was jokes about the candidates and the election. 11% of internet users, or more than 13 million people, went online to engage directly in campaign activities such as donating money, volunteering, or learning about political events to attend.
Pew Research PDF’s available here.
From Editor and Publisher;
A Pew Center study released today found that using the Internet to get news of politics during the 2004 presidential contest grew sixfold from 1996, while the influence of newspapers sank.
In 1996, only 3% of those surveyed called the Web one of their two leading sources of campaign news. In 2004, the figure was 18%. Reliance on TV rose slightly from 72% to 78% but prime use of newspapers plunged from 60% to 39%.
[…]
About one in ten said the Internet had information not available elsewhere. They were more likely to visit blogs or campaign sites for information. Blogs “are having a modest level of impact on the voter side and probably a more dramatic impact on the institutional side,” Lee Rainie, author of the study, told the Associated Press. “Blogs are still a realm where very, very active and pretty elite, both technologically oriented people and politically oriented people go.”
Reached for comment;
Swarm Warning
Today, the dinosaur continues his retreat, but not without braying his displeasure from behind the safe haven provided by the Globe and Mail.
The vast majority of blogs are akin to teenage diaries that attract a few dozen readers a day. Space for immediate reader feedback suggests what talk radio would be without the seven-second delay or the host’s ability to disconnect vexatious callers.
[…]
But the weakness of Canadian conservatism — a coalition united principally in opposition to lefties and Liberals — explains the failure of Canadian bloggers to strike any significant blows against mainstream media.
Amongst conservatives, you’ll find a fair degree of despair bordering on loathing for Canada; neither is a good recipe for convincing one’s compatriots about media bias or anything else. A few conservatives, deeply alienated from the mainstream, propose retrenching behind firewalls or even broach the possibility of separating from Canada and joining the U.S.
The swarm gathers.
None of this is new material to anyone who has followed the great scaly creature’s stumble through the blogosphere… his walnut sized brain stubbornly seized on the post-Rathergate notion that bloggers exist to “take down” the media or get favoured political parties elected, and that nothing short of this achievement constitutes blogging “success”.
But this latest, more public cry from the swamp (an echo of a similar column in the Vancouver Sun a couple of days ago) merits a more straightforward explanation. In this case, I shall allow Norm to do the honours himself with this BlogsCanada.ca announcement explaining his exit from the Shotgun;
“A couple of hours after�filing�the Vancouver Sun�column�posted below, I was notified that I was being suspended for 3 months …. “
Posted at 03/04/2005 09:12:57 EST.
The before vs after timeline he provides might be a little fudging on Norm’s part – there’s no way to know, outside of asking the Vancouver Sun when he submitted it. I was informed of his suspension at around 5pm Mountain time the day before.
But this is the blogosphere, and in true blogger fashion, Sean says it best.
Nibble, nibble.
Paul Martin Luther King
Conservative politicians take note – this is how you write a blog entry.
Never mind that Canada/US relations may have reached their lowest point since we burned down the White House. That’s not important. The real issue is that Mr Paul Martin Luther King is going to defend the Charter from those barbarians who would strip away the “right” to same sex marriage and return us to those backward times of, say, last Tuesday when only opposite sex couples could marry. Those were the days when knuckle draggers like Paul Mart….oh never mind. That’s in the past now. He didn’t understand about the fundamental human right thing. He was ignorant. Actually he was where a third of his own caucus is today. I guess they hadn’t heard that Paul Martin Luther King has now decided that same sex marriage is a fundamental human right that is protected by the Charter. It was all along. We just didn’t know about it until PMLK proclaimed it from the mountain top. Let freedom ring.
Now, Monte, you too, need to add a blogroll, and trackbacks, so we can start shovelling readers your way.