Methinks He Doth Protest Too Much

This sounds like a scared Liberal in a CBC suit.

Why shouldn't the right of the political spectrum in this country have what the left has enjoyed in the form of the CBC for all these years?

Of course partisanship on the left is just considered good reporting, on the right it's "drive-by attacks... misrepresentations, and is positively Orwellian"

All that aside more is better in any marketplace, especially when one is dealing with information.

Watch This

There's a lot of noise about the PM not watching Canadian news...

Three points.
1. Do people honestly believe that anything that the PM needs to know isn't briefed to him by people a lot more in the know than the Canadian press?
2. Perhaps the Canadian media should be examining just how poorly they deliver their product when it's not even watched by the leader of the country.
3. With Canadian news as partisan as it is (on both sides) do you really blame the PM for wanting a somewhat removed perspective on it?

Not The News

Read this article.

What is wrong with it? Which story is the story? I get the feeling that the real story, the one about the guy's livelihood and life being destroyed is ignored. Why? Because journalism isn't about reporting stories any more it's about scoring political points.

You can almost hear it...
{Insert breathless indignation}Goodness gracious a Member of Parliament used the word "bastards"! He also compared a government agency to a terrorist group!! How dare he be angered by a bureaucratic injustice! How dare he stand up unequivocally in favor of a constituent!{End breathless indignation}

Someone out there in newspaper land calls that journalism? WTF are these people smoking? What a useless piece of garbage and fluff. Glen McGregor has just enshrined himself in the hack hall of fame.

Way back when when journalism was something less than the mouthpiece of its owner's political ideology, the writer would have interviewed the individual involved. He would have approached the MP on the point of the injustice, not with a loaded question about his views on the agency. The reader would have been given a story worth reading, with a beginning a middle and at least the the promise of an end.

What does this "article" provide? Very little.

The reporter got hold of an email which a reasonable person would assume was confidential correspondence between an MP and a constituent and instead of asking about the nature of the incident the only question the hack can think of is to ask if the MP still thinks that Revenue Canada are bastards?

How did the reporter come across the email?

I so wish I could have been that MP. I would have loved to answer that question in the affirmative. I would so love to use that opportunity to expose a bureaucracy gone mad that treats a law abiding citizen like a criminal because IT lost his paperwork.

But that isn't the world we live in. Because the question wasn't intended to expose the righteous anger of a concerned politician it was designed to ruin, or at least to damage. And the politician who would answer as I suggested would have suddenly found himself in the spotlight of the media's newest three ring circus of nonsense and been dogged into an apology within a week.

Of course opposition politicians would have only been too happy to oblige. There would be accusations during Question Period "Does the honourable member really think the employees of Revenue Canada deserve the title "Bastatrds"...

But the questions should have been about the actual injustice, not the MP's reaction to it. But alas, you can see from the bite marks in the subject that this news dog was not interested in such a travesty, he was only interested in the kind of drive by smear that his profession now takes as its highest form.

It's far more important that an MP used harsh tones, than why he used harsh tones. It's far more newsworthy that an MP was upset by the actions of a government department than the reason he was so angered. And it was FAR, FAR more important that the hack reporter score a political point than expose the sloppiness, inefficiency and callous disregard of a government department for the individual citizen.

Pfft, the guy only lost his house, his business and "other assets"... What kind of story is that?

London Ontario stands up

Ezra Levant, Kathie Shaidle and Salim Mansur spoke before a full house of about 600 people on the topic of HRC's in London, Ontario April 13.

Rory Leishman, another newspaper columnist, said this was the largest political gathering outside of an election ever held in London: way to go Londoners!

For more see:

http://ezralevant.com/2009/04/more-photos-from-london.html
http://ezralevant.com/2009/04/london-rally-against-hrcs-draw.html
http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/1981/128/
http://mooseandsquirrel.ca/2009/04/14/the-hrc-denormalization-squad-in-london-ontario-part-2/
http://torydrroy.blogspot.com/2009/04/smashing-success.html
http://www.lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Columnists/Leishman_Rory/2009/04/04/9001571-sun.html
http://torydrroy.blogspot.com/2009/04/salim-mansurs-speech-in-london-ontario.html

Oddly enough, the local newspaper, the London Free Press, failed to send a reporter (although invited to do so by both institutes that sponsored the event) and maintained a studied silence afterward. Yet the editor of the Free Press chose to publish a smear aimed at Kathie Shaidle several weeks prior to the event, and had this to say on his personal blog:

Posted: 2009-03-15 18:20:04

Last updated: 2009-03-15 18:20:04

PAUL BERTON: We're getting it from both sides (as usual) for a story we published Wednesday.

The story was by Randy Richmond and headlined, "Controversial right-wing blogger invited to speak at London event," with the subhead, "HUMAN RIGHTS: Some members of the city's Jewish community have brought in speakers critical of anti-hate laws."

Some say we shouldn't be giving people like Kathy Shaidle any publicity. Others say the story was a smear job.

We quoted Warren Kinsella, author of Web of Hate: Inside Canada's Far Right Network, as saying,"Any group that associates with or defends her is diminished by her."

I wasn't here last week, but the suggestion for the story came from a reader, who rightly (I think) decided this was something Londoners should know about -- i.e., that this kind of person was invited to speak within our midst.

She (and others) will be speaking about the Canadian Human Rights Commission, Canada's anti-hate laws, and freedom of expression.

It's a favourite topic in the blogosphere (as you know), and a useful debate for the community.

The question today is whether the story was part of a "smear campaign," as some have suggested, or whether we should have done it at all, as others have charged.

As we've managed to annoy both groups, I can only assume (again) that we're doing our jobs well, that it was not a smear job, and that it was warranted. (And the fact Mark Steyn has apparently decided to blog about Randy Richmond can only be good for lfpress.com. I'd link to it but I'm sure most of you are well aware of where to find him.)

For our part, it would be unthinkable for us not to do the story just because we might find Shaidle's views unpleasant (to say the least). The more people who know about events like this, whether to support it or take steps to fight it, the better. If you don't believe that, you don't believe in democracy.

To do anything but tell readers what is going on in this region, good or bad, is not responsible from a journalistic standpoint, from a business standpoint, never mind our duty to society.


So what does silence mean?

You might want to inquire, so send Paul a line here:

http://www.lfpress.com/perl-bin/publish.cgi?x=blogs&s=blogs&search=blogs&s_blog_id=15

or here:

Paul Berton
Editor-in-chief
The London Free Press
National Comment Editor
Sun Media
519-667-4514
paul.berton@sunmedia.ca

Who is watching the watchkeepers?

We saw the shameless antics of the MSM during the Canadian and American federal elections. Careful filtration of the news, creative use of headlines, pointed inattention to certain stories and creative selection of photographs were all used to support the "Progressive" slates in each election and discredit, ridicule or diminish the message of the "Classical Liberal" voices.

Now it is clear that private interests are extending the reach of Progressives and attempting to throttle the exchange of ideas and information in the Bolgosphere; specifically, the Google search engine is being censored and right wing blogs and videos are under attack.

This is particulary dispicable, since Google is the premier search engine and the source of information for much of the civilizd world. "To Google" is considered a verb and understood to mean to search for information. Since competators either have inferior search algorithems or are associated with restricted "walled garden" approaches to avalable information, this represents a huge threat to free speech, both more insidious than the Orwellian "Human Rights Comissions" of Canada, and more all encompassing.

Read what this blogger has to say:

http://thesecretsofvancouver.com/wordpress/google-censoring-right-wing-blogs/activists

Google Censoring Right Wing Blogs

November 28th, 2008 Posted in activists

The abuse of power by the friends of Obama…

Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, is a staunch Obama supporter and is in line for a cabinet post… and is now using Google as a tool against right wing thought.

A good example: In the past few weeks, Atlas Shrugs was usually in the top five of the search results for “Obama birth certificate“, “Obama odinga“, “honor killings”, “Obama campaign finance fraud“.

Now they’ve been wiped off Google search pages.

Google also shut down a number of anti-Obama sites on their Blogger network, during the election.

Here’s a small sampling:

Blue Lyon @ http://bluelyon.blogspot.com (back up after the election)

Come A Long Way @ http://comealongway.blogspot.com

Hillary or Bust @ http://hillaryorbust.blogspot.com

McCain Democrats @ http://mccaindemocrats.blogspot.com

NObama Blog @ http://nobamablog.blogspot.com

Politicallizard.blogspot.com @ http://thelizardannex.blogspot.com

Reflections in Tyme @ http://reflections-in-tyme.blogspot.com

More on the story here.

Nice Change from the Obamanauts…

Be careful what you say. The fairness doctrine has begun.

photo credit: ConnorTreacy

Like the MSM, we do have the ability to take action. Looking up other search engines and making them your default is probably the best means of making the point, since this has the potential to deprive Google of advertising revenue. Money talks, and we can say a lot by removing some of Google's income stream.

John Galt, the Internet awaits you.

The National Post Gets It...

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

The article is one of those equivocation pieces the main stream media is so fond of, and in true style it paints a picture of modern (Canadian) man as a petty, selfish immoral brute that needs to be told what can and can not be said.

That mentality drags us all back to the darkest Dickinsonian days of the industrial revolution, where abuse, exploitation and racism abounded. But is that the kind of world we live in today? Are the majority of Canadians predisposed to racism and hatred? It’s a basic question, are we moral creatures or are we just animals with utensils?

I can tell you how some would like us to answer those questions, for it has long been the joy of traditional media to cast humanity in the worst light. To twist our society into a caricature where one is either an oppressor or a victim, with a dash of “Yes Veronica there is a Santa Claus” thrown in for stark contrast.

This perversion has been accepted over time by populations and governments. It has led us to the garden path we are on, strewn with fabricated rights like potted plants, for because we are so evil and so predisposed to harm, abuse and degrade other men we must be constrained against ourselves.

We can’t rely on human nature because human nature is weak and evil.

We can’t appeal to compassion because we are only animals incapable of caring.

In truth, it is possible to look at our society and see all of that, but the premise is incorrect.

The reason we see our society in decline is because of these potted plant rights. Because of them we can’t rely on hundreds of years of liberal thought and the few basic and true rights like liberty, equality and property because the fabricated rights we’ve created have weakened those inalienable rights and rendered them impotent.

With every new right, with every caveat included in our national laws we weaken our liberty. And those fabricated rights, incapable of sustaining themselves need to be watered and nurtured by fabricated bureaucracies who’s sole purpose is to ensure that the fabrication is given due consideration. And having precious little to do these bureaucracies seek to ensure their survival by perverting the weakness that they themselves have created in our society. Soon the garden path is a jungle, a jungle in need of a clear cutting.

There is not one, single solitary complaint brought to the CHRC that could not have been resolved with pre-existing law.

Ernst Zundel didn’t need to be tried in a kangaroo court, he needed to have the full weight of existing law rallied against him. Furthermore he needed to face the honest and righteous wrath of ordinary Canadians, he needed to be ostracized, to be loathed, and held up to contempt by every honourable, moral Canadian. And what is more is that we Canadians needed to do it. We needed to stand up as individuals and as a society to be counted, to counter the idea that we don’t care, that we are immoral and that we need to be prodded to act.

We don’t need the CHRC we need freedom of speech, freedom to speak in unvarnished, blunt and forthright language. We need to speak up and out for our society against racism, against intolerance against fanaticism and against all those who would seek to silence such speech.

As Ezra Levant has said time and again “Fire them all”

Signs of the Collectivist Apocalypse (SOTCA)

It is obvious to anyone who reads Atlas Shrugged, that throughout it, the policies and programs undertaken by the ubiquitous Thompson government and the so called Peoples States, combined with the altruistic and nihilistic tendencies of anti-heroes like James Taggart and Wesley Mouch are leading to the final destruction of society. Indeed the book culminates in a collectivist apocalypse and the escape of the heroes and heroine to Galt’s Gulch.

Like the canary in the mineshaft I seek to warn you all that we may be looking at the same fate somewhere down the road.

So just to keep tabs on the situation I introduce a recurring theme to Uncommon Sense, a chirp here and there which I will call…

Signs of the Collectivist Apocalypse (SOTCA)

My first entry is about the US Treasury and a sweeping power grab by its new Head

The regulatory blueprint proposes eventually vesting new powers in the Federal Reserve as a "market stability regulator" -- effectively formalizing a role the central bank already has adopted recently by expanding the list of financial firms which can borrow directly.

It would give the Fed authority to demand that all financial system participants supply it with full information on their activities and grant the Fed a right to collaborate with other regulators in setting rules for their behavior.

Woosh!!! Super Finance Cop to the rescue!

Hold on a sec... Weren't these the same guys that were at least partially responsible for the sub-prime fiasco? Foxes in Hen houses anyone?

The great Cash and Cars Giveaway

Or How Dalton Made us all Pay

WINDSOR, Ont. - Ford of Canada will use a $17-million investment from the Ontario government as part of a $168-million plan to reopen the Essex engine plant in southwestern Ontario, but the company warned Monday it will not expand the project further without direct participation from the federal government.

Excellent Dalton McSquirmy throwing good money after bad, just to be threatened by the Ford company that it will all be for naught if they don't get more!!!

It's almost like he wants to be the Premier of a have not province...

And This is News Why?

We're all used to politicians speaking and not really saying anything but to write an article based on that premise, well that's just dumb. Welcome to the Toronto Star, home of Liberal propaganda.