"One should doubtless keep an open mind...though open at both ends, like the food pipe, and have a capacity for excretion as well as intake." -- Northrop Frye, 'The Great Code'
... if you ask Hillary Clinton’s campaign operatives they would tell you “Face to Face with the PM” was a great PR scheme they would like to emulate.In some of the most recent emails dumped by Wikileaks from today, John Podesta (Clinton’s campaign chairman) and other staffers discussed and lauded the public broadcaster’s propaganda program.
... Way to go CBC! You’ve got top political players in the most powerful county in the world following your lead in creating their “staged” propaganda. You should make this a lead story. It’s about you after all, and you helped your idol, Hillary! Also, now would be a good time as ever for you to lend your sophistry to her floundering campaign.
Graeme Gordon at "Raving Canuck" has been doing a great job keeping a close eye (and ear) on that bloated, massively government funded, Liberal-(and farther left)-cheer-leading, propaganda outlet known as the CBC. Teasers from Graeme's two most recent posts:
If anyone still thought CBC’s decision to launch an “Opinion site” next month was a good idea, an op-ed published by the CBC today should set her/him sober.The hit piece—and yes, I’m aware this response is a hit piece as well, but at least it is published on my own independent blog, not paid for by taxpayers—entitled “Canadian Taxpayers Federation has 5 members—why should we care what they think?” was written by Dougald Lamont, a senior policy advisor for Liberal MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette. ...
Dear CBC Execs,Let me start off by saying you are doing an exceptional job on covering the heroic saga of Colin Kaepernick’s Rosa Parks moments of bravery. But driving home today, while faithfully tuning in to CBC Radio One, I found it tremendously problematic that your news updates about Kaepernick didn’t mention his most recent act of daring valour: his wearing of socks covered in white pig cops. ...
Notley's recent attempt to directly censor journalists she doesn't like is one thing. A more insidious form of corruption has been politicians' blatant [legal?] bribing of journalists and media outlets they do like.
... The CBC is the obvious example. In the recent federal election, the NDP
and Liberals battled for the hearts and minds of the CBC’s journalists.
Thomas Mulcair started the bidding with a promise of a $115 million
annual CBC bonus if he were elected. Not to be outdone, Trudeau upped
the ante to a whopping $150 million. The politicians were brazen: they
were offering the journalists who cover them a success fee[using taxpayers' money] if they were
elected.
... The Canadian Media Guild, the journalists’ union that
dominates the CBC as well as The Canadian Press newswire, formally
registered as a “third-party” campaign group with Elections Canada, ... Every unionized journalist covering the
election was contributing part of their own salary to an anti-Harper
election effort.
... It’s not just CBC journalists who are corrupted by being politicians’
pets. Journalists at private media are, too. As they nervously polish up
their LinkedIn resumes, they can’t help but notice that the only major,
national news organization still hiring is the CBC ... How many private sector journalists are tailoring their own work now to
mirror the editorial line of the CBC where they hope to be in six
months?
... The CBC coverage of last election cycle should leave no doubt in Canadians’ minds that the CBC is the cheer-leading captain of our new government
... notes on CBC’s incestuous ties to the LPC:
- A couple of CBC
executives took leave-of-absences so they could campaign with the LPC; -The union representing many CBC journalists registered to campaign
against the Conservatives last election; - A former CBC journalist who
covered federal politics recently wrote about how the new defence
minister is “bad ass” is now working and writing press releases for that
very same “bad ass”; - And the LPC has promised to give the CBC an
additional 150 million dollars to its one billion dollar annual subsidy
(essentially bribing the network for immensely favourable coverage of
Trudeau).
... evidence supporting the propaganda charge against CBC’s special, “Face
to Face”, is the reality-TV-like-quality of the production. It was odd
that Peter Mansbridge and producers thought it appropriate to start each
interview with the repetitive camera shot of the
PM’s-glossy-wooden-door-with-gilded-lettering being opened by each
contestant and then Trudeau purring each time, “Welcome to the Prime
Minister’s office.”
Since I refuse to watch the CBC I only suspect that it is following its usual pathetic pattern of political bias. Graeme C. Gordon confirms this in his excellent piece "The CBC's Insolent Election Bias":
As Canada’s federal election is less than a month away, the CBC is now a
full-fledged left-wing partisan mouthpiece. If you thought the BBC was
bad, it has nothing on its bastardized clone. Canada’s public
broadcaster—despite its cute mandate to reflect the views of all
Canadians—has devoted itself to mocking Conservative Leader Prime
Minister Stephen Harper, all the while lauding and defending Liberal
Leader Justin Trudeau. ...
"Canada's largest newspaper, the Toronto Star, teamed up with CBC, the state-run broadcaster, put out a documentary about Khadr ... Except it's more like propaganda than a documentary. And couldn't be more pro-Khadr if it had been produced by the Taliban."
The following were not found to beassociated with WTN exposure:
self-reported sleep (e.g., general disturbance, use of sleep medication, diagnosed sleep disorders);
self-reported illnesses (e.g., dizziness, tinnitus,
prevalence of frequent migraines and headaches) and chronic health
conditions (e.g., heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes); and
self-reported perceived stress and quality of life.
The following wasfound to be statistically associated with increasing levels of WTN:
annoyance towards several wind turbine features (i.e. noise, shadow flicker, blinking lights, vibrations, and visual impacts).
Further down in the report:
5.3 Annoyance and Health
WTN annoyance was found to be statistically related to
several self-reported health effects including, but not limited to,
blood pressure, migraines, tinnitus, dizziness, scores on the PSQI, and
perceived stress.
WTN annoyance was found to be statistically related to measured hair cortisol, systolic and diastolic blood pressure.
Huh? WTN exposure IS NOT associated with a bunch of bad health effects but WTN annoyance (caused by WTN exposure) IS associated with the same bunch of bad health effects and then some.
Brian Lilley provides all we need to know about the latest Media Party attempt to
a) smear the Harper government
b) protect its candidate, Justin Trudeau, and
c) limit free speech
Hmmm, to me this smells like illegal collusion by the Media Party network weasels. (Update: Apparently it does to others, too. See BC Blue.)
Here's Brian's column on the history of this dating back to 1988 when the Liberals took the opposite position:
In November 1988, the Liberal Party of Canada went to court to force CBC and CTV to carry their attack ads against Brian Mulroney and his Progressive Conservatives.
... The networks claimed they owned the video footage in question and said the Liberal party’s use of it infringed on their copyright. The networks lost and were forced to run the ads; they were also turned down on appeal by the Supreme Court.
So now the networks are trying to pull the same bullcrap, this time supported by the Liberals? Outrageous!
My only question is, if the SCOC has already ruled on this, what do the Conservatives want to change? PM Harper and others have already stated that the Copyright law, as is, is sufficient.
Ezra Levant revisits the Royal Ontario Museum presentation of "The Trial of David Suzuki", this time using memos and e-mails between the CBC, ROM and lobby groups funding the partisan anti-oil propaganda stunt to highlight their strange and unethical behaviour. The CBC's Laurie Brown is 'credited' with dreaming up the loopy idea and enlisting the other participants.
A great performance by Ezra. He deserves an award.
Ace reporter and pundit, Ezra Levant, attended a Suzuki anti-oil media event and produced this brilliant episode of The Source:
Peter Foster also attended. He opines on Suzuki's "Carbonist Manifesto" and on Ezra's role at the event:
The occasion was a photo op ... at which Mr. Suzuki would reveal his “Carbon Manifesto” and generate publicity for his upcoming “trial,” an event due to take place at the Royal Ontario Museum on November 6.
... His Carbonist Manifesto, however, amounts to a plan to wreck the Canadian economy. Oil exploration has to stop at once. Seventy per cent of energy has to be generated from renewables within a generation. A carbon tax of $150 a tonne must be applied immediately.
...Usually ... Mr. Suzuki expresses his wacky beliefs within the safe and scripted confines of the CBC, not with Ezra Levant in his face.
The problem, however, is that the photo-op event to promote the mock trial had already been hijacked by Mr. Suzuki’s nemesis, Sun TV’s Ezra Levant.
Mr. Levant, whose persona might be described as somewhere between a steam roller, a legal pitbulland a right-wing Jon Stewart, has been a relentless critic of Mr. Suzuki ...
... Mr. Suzuki fled, with the Sun TV mic hounding him all the way to his waiting Chevy Volt. ...
... I asked Laurie Brown, the “veteran” CBC-er whose brainchild the trial is, what would happen in the unlikely event that Mr. Suzuki were found guilty. Would there be a sentencing?
Sure she said with a laugh, they’d take him outside and hang him.
Maybe they should have had a gallows at the photo op. I’m sure Mr. Suzuki would have had no trouble imagining Mr. Levant swinging from it.
... Keystone has become the most contentious issue in U.S.-Canada trade relations since the 1980 National Energy Program. ...
... Keystone XL’s opponents are not reasonable people. It has become a “pipeline in the sand” for a radical U.S. environmental movement, which sees stopping it – and holding up development of the oil sands – as a symbol, and evidence of their coercive power, from which governments, and corporations should learn. Or else.
... What is truly astonishing is how these activists, who have little or no concern for either science or jobs, are given equal time – and even supported — by Canada’s media. ...
University of Ottawa professor Stewart Elgie founded an organization called "Sustainable Prosperity", "a national green economy think tank/do tank ... in the pursuit of a greener, more competitive Canadian economy." [Note that Preston Manning is listedas a steering committee member.]
Given Elgie's green activist orientation it behooves one to read his report with some skepticism as it is likely to be tainted with substantial confirmation bias (and worse). Both Elgie and his report are critiqued by Hilary:
Ottawa based Stewart Elgie – not unlike IPCC-nik and recently elected British Columbia Green Party MLA, Andrew Weaver – has a history of putting advocacy carts ahead of evidence horses. ...
... BC per capita energy use has been declining since 1978. The post CTax rate of decline is actually been SLOWER than the 2000-2007 trend (the CTax was announced and introduced in 2008)for the package of CTaxed goods, and most of the individual commodities in the package. ...
... BC's economy has always been less carbon-intensive than the rest of Canada's (due to its large hydro resource and two of the most densly populated major urban areas in the country) But comparisons of BC's fossil carbon energy usage and the rest of Canada's show that BC's relative advantage was much better every year from 2002 through 2007 than any year after the CTax was introduced. ...
... Second, over 85% of the post-Ctax reduction in BC energy use was reductions in industrial energy use. This reflected the historically unprecedented shrinkage of BC's forest products and paper manufacturing sectors ...
... the driver of post-2007 energy demand reduction in BC has been de-industrialization. Manufacturing employment in BC has fallen 26% since the CTax was introduced, while the Cdn national average has been a 15% decline. ... etc.
Jian Ghomeshi is arguably the coolest thing on CBC radio. However, Mr. Ghomeshi became uncharacteristically heated during his show, Q, on Monday morning over an issue that often raises righteous temperatures: climate.
The text for Mr. Ghomeshi’s editorial, titled “Hot enough for ya?” was a new report from the World Meteorological Organization, WMO, which claimed that the decade to 2010 was one of “unprecedented high climate extremes.” ...
... Mr. Ghomeshi is an important and influential figure, but one suspects that he did less research on this editorial than he does for most celebrity interviews. Next time he has Al Gore on the show, perhaps he can ask him about the British High Court judgment that found “An Inconvenient Truth” to be chockablock with scientific errors.
"It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences." -- C. S. Lewis
