Al Jazeera on press freedom in Canada

I don't really follow the goings on at the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression NGO. I blithely assume that as Canadians we are privileged to enjoy one of the free-est media environments on the planet.

Sure, it's obvious that the big media platforms are all singing out of the same hymnal, but we've long enjoyed a healthy sub-culture of counter-mainstream media, from The Tyee and Rabble on the left to Ezra Levant's rancid Rebel Media at the other end of the spectrum.

It therefore came as somewhat of a surprise to learn, via Al Jazeera of all things, that Kevin Metcalf, the communications officer for CJFE, was recently canned for having the temerity to call out our government for its failure to censure Israel for the murder of unarmed protesters in Gaza. Oddly enough, the think tank here at Falling Downs had just made the same observation.

Interesting to see Doug Saunders tweet referenced in the AJ story. Doug is Canada's Tom Friedman. As the most high-profile prognosticator at Canada's newspaper of record, Doug has a lot of schlep, and Doug was "disturbed" to see CJFE trying to influence our government's position on Israel.

I guess if you're gonna disturb Doug, your career is at risk.

Well Doug, our department of Global Affairs routinely expresses our outrage over perceived transgressions against fundamental human rights all over the world on a near daily basis.

Perhaps you could explain why criticism of Israel is out of bounds.

A million ain't what it used to be

Back when I was coming up, a million dollars was a lot of money. If you were worth a million bucks you were considered "rich." In a town of 50,000, there might have been a few dozen millionaires and half a dozen or so folks with a net worth of ten million or more.

Those were the "super-rich" of the era.

Today a million bucks won't buy you a house in Toronto or Vancouver.

I'm contemplating these numbers because of something I read in my Globe and Mail today.

The story quotes a Conservative Party website as saying "Justin Trudeau has made Khadr one of the wealthiest men in Canada..."

As you know, Khadr's lawyers negotiated a ten million dollar settlement with the government for violating his Charter rights.

Lot's of folks are having shit hemorrages over this. Go to Twitter and search "Khadr settlement" and you'll be mightily impressed (or depressed) at the bile emanating from your fellow Canadians.

You'd think Khadr was personally responsible for writing the Charter of Rights and then finagled his way into Gitmo, just to trick the government of Canada into violating his rights so he could sue them big time.

But back to that hoary claim that a ten million dollar settlement has made him "one of the wealthiest men in Canada."

Not likely. In that town of 50,000 I came up in, which is now a small city of 130,000, there are today many dozens of folks with a net worth of ten million or more. Extrapolate that across the country and you've got tens of thousands of men with a net worth of ten million, and more than a few women too.

So when you claim that this settlement, which is entirely in line with previous settlements our government has made with other Canadians who have had their Charter rights violated, makes Khadr one of the richest men in the country, you're engaging in something that used to be called "yellow journalism."

I might expect to see that in Ezra's arch racist Rebel Media, but I'm surprised to find it, unchallenged, in Canada's putative newspaper of record.

And I'm profoundly disturbed that the Conservative Party would stoop to this level of hate-mongering.

Ezra Levant victimized by anti-Semitic Canadian legal system

Poor Ezra.

Well, at least after this he'll be a little poorer than before.

Canada's wannabe answer to Fox News, the Postmedia Network, has been grooming the hapless Levant for years to become Bill O'North.

It just ain't been happening, and the reason it ain't been happening is that virtually nobody tunes in the obnoxious turd.

Hopefully nobody at Sun TV or the bankrupt parent company is foolish enough to fund an appeal, in which case we owe Khurram Awan a huge debt of gratitude for helping rid the public square of this anti-Arab, anti-Indian hate-monger.

Bwana and the Darkies; Ottawa plays hardball with First Nations

Just about everything in this story grates.

The First Nations Financial Transparency Act was an odious bit of racist presumption that subjects Canada's First Nations to a far higher standard of conduct than Ottawa itself is subject to.

The intent was to humiliate First Nations by exposing their fiscal ineptitude, their avarice, and their propensity for corruption.

The Harperites hoped that their water-carriers in the right-wing media, scum like Ezra Levant, would be able to use the inevitable embarrassing revelations as fodder for anti-Indian hate-mongering in perpetuity.

The Act has had mixed results. Overall, the First Nations have been shown to have at least as much fiscal responsibility as what we find in the political machinery of the colonists. Yes, there have been a few scandals, but overall, not much to write home about.

So now we see this "hardball" headline in the Toronto Star. The implication is that these 80 nations that have not yet bowed to the dictates of the First Nations Transparency Act must obviously be the worst of the worst!

Therefore, it's now up to Massah to play "hardball."

What a disgusting display of abusive language; the people who have all the power threaten to play "hardball" with those who have none.

And this from a government that never tires of pointing fingers at various real and imagined human rights miscreants around the world.

Thomas Walkom is thin edge of Canadian media willing to question war

He may have provided the thin edge, but it remains to be seen if that will lead to anything more substantial.

The entire Canadian political/media environment, from left to right to the most opportunistic shit-bags in the spectrum, (Hello Ezra!) take it for granted that this media fiction we have labelled "Islamic State" is so so evil that all good sense must be set aside so that we can climb aboard this latest crusade against evil Mooslims.

What danger do radical or not-so-radical Mooslims pose to Canada?

Have they bombed us?

No.

So why are we bombing them?

Oh! I get it!... so we can piss them off enough to make them target us in the future!

Then we'll have a real enemy, and we'll be more beholden than ever to the military-industrial combine that has found this imaginary war so profitable from the get-go.

Voices against war are few and far between in mainstream  media.

It should be more than obvious by now that more bombs on Muslims create more Muslim "terrorists."

This totally opportunistic "coalition" joining the latest campaign against "terror" are creating more terror, not fighting it.

Too bad Walkom's is such a lonely voice.

Canada's PM Harper displaces Obama as leader of Free World

No, while I've birthed some whoppers in this space, I couldn't possibly make up anything that retarded.

All the credit goes to Ezra Levant.

Apparently Obama's stooped and slender shoulders can no longer bear the burden of leading the Free World. He is too busy appeasing Putin, Iran, North Korea, Republicans, Wall Street, unions, the Democratic Party, AIPAC, the gay lobby, the gun lobby, Michelle, and the Taliban.

Thank God Big Steve has stepped into the breach. His appeasement agenda is limited to the dirty oil lobby and Likud.

The best thing about having Harper as leader of the Free World is that while he talks a tough game, he's been steadily shrinking Canada's defence spending. For all his bellicose talk, Big Steve couldn't start a war even if Canada had enemies.

As Winston Churchill supposedly said, it's always better to jaw-jaw than to war-war.

Big Chief Harper's favorite Indian casts rude aspersions on Chief Spence

Think what you will of Theresa Spence's hunger strike; at least she was doing something.

Something that contrasts starkly with Patrick Brazeau's anti-Spence smear campaign.

Brazeau has been flitting around the country on his Senate expense account waxing wise on the error of Chief Spence's political protest.

This latest diatribe was so far past any standard of professionalism or common decency that it scarcely merits comment.

Unfortunately, it's exactly the kind of performance that the Indian haters will seize upon.

This should get him extensive face time on the Sun TV channel. Ezra Levant drools over this stuff.