jason kenney, project much? someone's lying. that much is true.

Last week, the CRTC retreated from its proposal to open the broadcast floodgates to lies and intentionally misleading news.

Indeed, the broadcast regulator now says it never wanted the regulatory change in the first place and was only responding to orders from a parliamentary committee.

The committee last week quietly withdrew its request for regulatory amendments in the face of a public backlash.

With that, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission was only too happy to drop the idea altogether.

Make no mistake, this dangerous idea was dropped for one reason only: public outcry. We did this. If Canadians hadn't spoken out forcefully and in great numbers, we'd soon see Fox-style fake news on Canadian TV stations, and the poisoned atmosphere that follows.

According to our illustrious Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, however, Canadian news outlets are already lying all the time.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Wednesday that Ms. Oda has apologized and that should be the end of it. When pressed by The Canadian Press on whether that was enough after misleading the House of Commons, Mr. Kenney shot back: “The CBC lies all the time. What media are you with?”

Notorious liar, blowhard and bigot Jason Kenney is claiming the CBC lies all the time? Talk about pots and kettles!

Friends of Canadian Broadcasting is asking Kenney to prove his statements or withdraw them. You can help.

Jason Kenney says: "the CBC lies all the time"

Canadians say: "Prove it or apologize!"

On February 15th, one of Prime Minister Harper's closest confidantes, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney let the cat out of the bag when he blurted out that "the CBC lies all the time".

He made his comment in French - you can see the original story as published in La Presse here. We have translated the story into English here.

More disturbing than Kenney’s actual words is what they represent – a sinister ideological antipathy towards public broadcasting.

If we don’t act now, Harper and company might come to the erroneous conclusion that they can get away with these outrageous allegations without consequence.

Please send a message demanding Kenney prove his shocking allegation, or apologize and withdraw it.

Go here to send a letter to Jason Kenney and the federal party leaders.

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important reminder: deadline for comments on crtc proposed regulations is approaching, please send letters!

An activist friend has alerted me to another proposed change in CRTC regulations that would effect truth-in-broadcasting laws. The deadline to respond to this one is February 7, and the deadline to respond to the other proposal - which I blogged about here - is February 9.

If enacted, these proposed regulations would: weaken media accountability, further blur the already cloudy distinction between news and entertainment, weaken already eroded trust in media, and ultimately undermine democracy.

Naturally this is happening quietly, one might even say stealthily. The period for public comment is unusually short, and the mechanism for public comment is cumbersome.

Please don't let that stop you. Here's what to do.

1. Go to this page on the CRTC website.

2. Find Notice Number 2010-931.

3. Click "submit".

4. Follow prompts until you get to the page on which you comment. Name and postal code are mandatory. Street address is not.

5. Write and submit your comment.

THEN

6. Return to this first page.

7. Find Notice Number 2011-14.

8. Repeat above steps.

On my earlier post, I copied a sample letter written by Antonia Zerbisias. Here's another I received via email forward.

+ + + +

I strongly object to any weakening of the policy prohibiting the broadcast of false or misleading information in Canada.

Firstly, there are no reasonable circumstances where outright lies and deceit, as prohibited by the current policy, could be in the public benefit. On the contrary, there are endless examples where broadcast falsehoods have or continue to endanger the public interest. In Canada, broadcast falsehoods promoted and supported the wrongful confinement of Japanese-Canadians, for which the Government of Canada eventually had to apologize and pay compensation. In the United States of America, a significant proportion of the population currently believes lies about their own president, falsehoods knowingly broadcast by news channels for
political purposes.

Secondly, there is no likelihood that the Supreme Court would uphold any challenge to the provisions. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not elevate private interest over public interest. It is clear that the private benefit of broadcast falsehood (whatever that might be) would not be considered to outweigh the public benefit of the regulation prohibiting it. The only possibility is that the court might determine certain very specific conditions on the restriction, which could be added to the regulations as required by the court at that time.

Thirdly, the modified provisions as proposed are dangerously inadequate. There is no definition as what kind of danger to the public safety is considered. Certainly any promotion of false or misleading information by a major broadcast network is a threat to the people of Canada. Democracy only ultimately falls in countries where political lies come to dominate the media. But given this fact, the modified provisions are entirely inadequate. To put the onus of proof on the truth-tellers is wrong. A broadcaster found to be lying to the Canadian people must be the one responsible to try to defend their actions.

For these reasons, under no circumstances should the proposed regulation change be made.

+ + + +

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action alert part 1 of 4: tell the crtc truth in broadcasting matters

Largely under the radar, the Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) has proposed changing its rules to allow the broadcasting of intentionally false and misleading information, as long as that information does not "endanger or [is] likely to endanger the lives, safety, or health of the public". These dangers are not defined further. See more on this below.

To believe this is mere coincidence as SunTV launches its news station - so-called "Fox News North" - strains credulity.

The CRTC is now accepting comments on the proposed rule change until February 9 only - and they don't make it simple. To learn more about how to submit a comment, go here; scroll down on that page.

Here is the link link to submit a comment online. Reference Notice number 2011-14.

You can also contact James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage, who is responsible for the CRTC:
- by fax: 819.994.1267, and
- by phone: 819.997.7788.

Via Antonia Zerbisias, here is a letter you can use as a model for your own.

We object strenuously to any policy that permits intentionally false or misleading information to be broadcast in Canada.

We wonder why the CRTC would betray the public interest by protecting broadcasters of intentionally false and misleading information.

We cannot think of any false or misleading information that would not ultimately endanger the public in some way, whether it is misleading information on international affairs, on scientific information, on health or environmental information, or on other news. Broadcasting intentionally false or misleading information presumably reflects a corporate or governmental agenda that will in some way ultimately damage members of the public.

That intentionally bogus information is to be acceptable as long as it does not "endanger or likely to endanger the lives, safety, or health of the public" provides no protection to the public:

* Who will determine whether intentionally bogus material could "endanger" members of the public?

* Who will determine whether anyone has been "endangered"? If someone makes a lifestyle choice (such as joining the military) based on intentionally false or misleading information can they sue the source of the misleading information (or the CRTC) because they have become "endangered" because of that information?

* If people have been harmed or put at any risk by the broadcasting of intentionally bogus material, is that the same as "endangered" or will there be levels of damage that need to be defined in a court of law?

* If intentionally bogus information is found to endanger the public, will the CRTC's permission for the broadcasting of intentionally false or misleading information be revoked?

* How many people have to be proven to be harmed before this might be revoked?

The most basic question is why the CRTC, which is paid for by the Canadian taxpayers to represent Canadian public interests, is violating its mandate by protecting instead the anticipated broadcasters of intentionally false and misleading information. Whose agendas are the CRTC and James Moore, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, actually serving by this amendment?

From Stephen Bede Scharper, a professor at University of Toronto, writing in the Toronto Star:

A recent, little-noticed news item may result in a deep and indelible blemish on the Canadian mosaic.

Earlier this month, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), without fanfare, posted on its website a potential game-changer in the world of broadcast journalism. The CRTC is seeking to relax restrictions concerning the broadcasting of specious information on radio and television.

Currently, the law stipulates that broadcasters "shall not broadcast any false or misleading news."

Sounds reasonable enough — and straightforward — as it should, since it concerns the integrity of news reporting.

But not apparently to the CRTC. It is proposing to soften the regulation, banning "any news that the licensee knows is false or misleading and that endangers or is likely to endanger the lives, health or safety of the public."

In short, with the new wording, broadcasters could air false or misleading news with impunity, provided that it does not endanger the lives, health or safety of the public.

Unfortunately, the CRTC does not specify who will judge whether or not such disinformation poses a danger.. . . .

Write! Fax! Call!

Many thanks to both AZ and AW for bringing this to my attention. 

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shame on you, cbc news

Dear CBC News:

In a story about Don Cherry's Christmas visit to Canadian troops in Afghanistan, I am disgusted by your description of Mr. Cherry as "one of their fiercest backers".

In what way does Mr. Cherry "back" the troops in Afghanistan? By ridiculing people who want peace? By unquestioningly supporting war?

By describing Mr. Cherry as one of the strongest supporter of the troops, you equate supporting war with supporting soldiers, thus implying that people who oppose war do not support the troops.

Those of us who want Canada and the US to withdraw from Afghanistan support soldiers in a way we believe is far more meaningful. We want as few of them injured and killed as possible. We want them safe. We want them home.

Your description of Mr. Cherry befits his publicist more than a news source. Shame on you!

Sincerely,

Laura Kaminker

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wikileaks, facebook and time magazine for adults

I happened to see this on Saturday night, and have been waiting to find it on YouTube. The show pretty much sucks, but once in a while it has a moment.

"What are the differences between Mark Zuckerberg and me? Let's take a look. I give you private information on corporations for free and I'm a villain. Zuckerberg gives your private information to corporations for money and he's man of the year."

When I was a kid, my family subscribed to Time and I thought "Man of the Year" - as it was called then - was a real thing, an actual award with meaning, like a Pulitzer, rather than a promo for the magazine. In 1975 Time named a dozen women Women of the Year. Doesn't everyone know the conversion rate of female to male achievement is 12:1?

"Tonight I want to congratulate Time magazine on the excellent selection of Mark Zuckerberg as Person of the Year. Time magazine - always on the cutting edge; discovering Facebook only weeks after your grandmother."

The Onion says it best.


TIME Announces New Version Of Magazine Aimed At Adults

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wikileaks petition: support freedom of information

From Avaaz:

The massive campaign of intimidation against WikiLeaks is sending a chill through free press advocates everywhere.

Legal experts say WikiLeaks has likely broken no laws. Yet top US politicians have called it a terrorist group and commentators have urged assassination of its staff. The organization has come under massive government and corporate attack, but WikiLeaks is only publishing information provided by a whistleblower. And it has partnered with the world's leading newspapers (NYT, Guardian, Spiegel etc) to carefully vet the information it publishes.

The massive extra-judicial intimidation of WikiLeaks is an attack on democracy. We urgently need a public outcry for freedom of the press and expression. Sign the petition to stop the crackdown and forward this email to everyone -- let's get to 1 million voices and take out full page ads in US newspapers this week!

WikiLeaks isn't acting alone -- it's partnered with the top newspapers in the world (New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, etc) to carefully review 250,000 US diplomatic cables and remove any information that it is irresponsible to publish. Only 800 cables have been published so far. Past WikiLeaks publications have exposed government-backed torture, the murder of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, and corporate corruption.

The US government is currently pursuing all legal avenues to stop WikiLeaks from publishing more cables, but the laws of democracies protect freedom of the press. The US and other governments may not like the laws that protect our freedom of expression, but that's exactly why it's so important that we have them, and why only a democratic process can change them.

Reasonable people can disagree on whether WikiLeaks and the leading newspapers it's partnered with are releasing more information than the public should see. Whether the releases undermine diplomatic confidentiality and whether that's a good thing. Whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has the personal character of a hero or a villain. But none of this justifies a vicious campaign of intimidation to silence a legal media outlet by governments and corporations. Click below to join the call to stop the crackdown:

Sign the Petition here.

Sources: [from Avaaz]

Law experts say WikiLeaks in the clear (ABC)

WikiLeaks are a bunch of terrorists, says leading U.S. congressman (Mail Online)

Cyber guerrillas can help US (Financial Times)

Amazon drops WikiLeaks under political pressure (Yahoo)

WikiLeaks avenged by hacktivists (PC World)

US Gov shows true control over Internet with WikiLeaks containment (Tippett.org)

US embassy cables culprit should be executed, says Mike Huckabee (The Guardian)

WikiLeaks ditched by MasterCard, Visa. Who's next? (The Christian Science Monitor)

Assange's Interpol Warrant Is for Having Sex Without a Condom (The Slatest)

Sign the petition here.

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the age of involuntary transparency: forbes interview with wikileaks founder julian assange

Forbes Magazine has a lengthy interview with WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange.

Admire him or revile him, WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange is the prophet of a coming age of involuntary transparency, the leader of an organization devoted to divulging the world’s secrets using technology unimagined a generation ago. Over the last year his information insurgency has dumped 76,000 secret Afghan war documents and another trove of 392,000 files from the Iraq war into the public domain–the largest classified military security breaches in history. Sunday, WikiLeaks made the first of 250,000 classified U.S. State Department cables public, offering an unprecedented view of how America’s top diplomats view enemies and friends alike.

But, as Assange explained to me earlier this month, the Pentagon and State Department leaks are just the start.

Read it here.

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thomas friedman making out with china and other new york times obsessions

New York Times aficionados, past (like me) or current, will appreciate this: "Thomas Friedman: I Kinda Wanna Make Out With China" - and other classics, by Erin Judge.

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anti-immigrant government propaganda you can set your watch by

First think about Bill C-49, the bill the Harper Government calls anti-smuggling, which is actually anti-refugee.

Then read this. From CBC's Inside Politics blog, Hannah Thibedeau reporting.

So a news alert comes across on my computer screen saying, "Thai officials arrest over 100 Tamil migrants heading to Canada."

The newsroom jumps on the story and we try to find out if these people were about to get on a ship to come here.

A call into Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's office points us to stories in the Thai media.

The articles are all in Thai, but we use a handy-dandy translator on the internet to translate them into English.

The Thai media reports there was an arrest of over 100 people. So how do we know they were coming to Canada?

Kenney's office says, "We aren't going to get into details. All I will do is point you to the media articles."

The translated articles say these people were headed to a third country. Then there's a reference to the story of the MV Sun Sea, a ship that arrived on Canadian shores last summer carrying about 500 Tamil asylum seekers.

So all we have is information from the Thai media -- no concrete details from the minister's office.

The Thai embassy here in Canada says it has heard no word from its government about the arrested Thai migrants trying to come to Canada.

How do we know these people were heading to Canada? At this point, we don't.

However, Kenney's office did want to add how important it is that Bill C-49 passes Parliament. That's the Conservative government's proposed bill designed to crack down on human smugglers and illegal immigrants.

Just take our word for it. We're the government. We never lie.

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wikileaks founder assange walks out on interview with cnn

More than 300,000 documents leaked and all CNN wants to talk about is Assange's personal life. Nice try, CNN. We will not be distracted.

Update from redsock: If you want to hear information about the actual leaked documents and not about what Assange might or might not have done with his penis -- which is clearly what CNN has deemed the most important aspect of this event -- you have to go outside the United States. Here is a lengthy BBC report, featuring Assange and John Sloboda (Iraq Body Count).

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robert fisk: wikileaks reveal the u.s.'s shame

Robert Fisk in The Independent:

As usual, the Arabs knew.They knew all about the mass torture, the promiscuous shooting of civilians, the outrageous use of air power against family homes, the vicious American and British mercenaries, the cemeteries of the innocent dead. All of Iraq knew. Because they were the victims.

Only we could pretend we did not know. Only we in the West could counter every claim, every allegation against the Americans or British with some worthy general – the ghastly US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt and the awful chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, come to mind – to ring-fence us with lies. Find a man who'd been tortured and you'd be told it was terrorist propaganda; discover a house full of children killed by an American air strike and that, too, would be terrorist propaganda, or "collateral damage", or a simple phrase: "We have nothing on that."

Of course, we all knew they always did have something. And yesterday's ocean of military memos proves it yet again. Al-Jazeera has gone to extraordinary lengths to track down the actual Iraqi families whose men and women are recorded as being wasted at US checkpoints – I've identified one because I reported it in 2004, the bullet-smashed car, the two dead journalists, even the name of the local US captain – and it was The Independent on Sunday that first alerted the world to the hordes of indisciplined gunmen being flown to Baghdad to protect diplomats and generals. These mercenaries, who murdered their way around the cities of Iraq, abused me when I told them I was writing about them way back in 2003.

It's always tempting to avoid a story by saying "nothing new". The "old story" idea is used by governments to dampen journalistic interest as it can be used by us to cover journalistic idleness. And it's true that reporters have seen some of this stuff before. The "evidence" of Iranian involvement in bomb-making in southern Iraq was farmed out to The New York Times's Michael Gordon by the Pentagon in February 2007. The raw material, which we can now read, is far more doubtful than the Pentagon-peddled version. Iranian military material was still lying around all over Iraq from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and most of the attacks on Americans were at that stage carried out by Sunni insurgents. The reports suggesting that Syria allowed insurgents to pass through their territory, by the way, are correct. I have spoken to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers whose sons made their way to Iraq from Lebanon via the Lebanese village of Majdal Aanjar and then via the northern Syrian city of Aleppo to attack the Americans.

But, written in bleak militarese as it may be, here is the evidence of America's shame.

Read it here.

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a trio of smackdowns for canadian conservatives: the u.n., the citizenship guide and fox news north

Stephen Harper and his merry band of Canadian Conservatives suffered a trio of defeats in the past week - which is another way of saying that we, the people who want to reverse the damage the Harper government has done to Canada, enjoyed a series of significant victories.

First, the world said no to the Harper foreign policy agenda when the UN denied Canada a seat on the UN Security Council. Haroon Siddiqui has an excellent round-up of why the UN very rightly said no to Canada, and how the Conservatives are typically and lamely trying to spin their defeat.

It’s not just his pro-Israeli stance that made Canada a pariah at the UN. He:

• Sabotaged the UN climate accord.

• Decried the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

• Downgraded UN peacekeeping — to 160 Canadian soldiers out of 105,500 worldwide, placing Canada 57th, behind Yemen and Uganda. (Tuesday, the day we lost the vote, was the anniversary of Lester B. Pearson’s Nobel Peace Prize for inventing peacekeeping.)

• Diminished our role at the UN and its agencies.

• Diverted Canadian funds from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency to the Palestinian Authority, to boost Mahmoud Abbas against rival Hamas.

• Thwarted a probe into the alleged torture of Afghan detainees.

• Left Omar Khadr to rot in Guantanamo Bay, while defending the policy of indefinite detention as well as the American military’s kangaroo courts.

In many of the above policies, Harper copied George W. Bush. Whereas America has shaken them off, the Prime Minister is still pursuing them.

Of course, that last paragraph is completely wrong. Obama hasn't "shaken off" the policies of his predecessors; he has reinforced and extended them. This is typical of mainstream Canadian commentary: the US taken at face value. But the column is well worth reading, especially for the neat summary of how the Tories are trying to spin this defeat as a victory.

It was announced that new editions of the guide to Canadian citizenship will refer to legal same-sex marriage and the fact that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. This wouldn't be news if it hadn't been proven - thanks to Access to Information requests by the Canadian Press - that Jason Kenney himself had all mention of LGBT rights stripped from the citizenship guide.

Internal documents show an early draft of the guide contained sections noting that homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969; that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation; and that same-sex marriage was legalized nationally in 2005.

But Kenney, who fought same-sex marriage when it was debated in Parliament, ordered those key sections removed when his office sent its comments to the department last June. Senior department officials duly cut out the material, but made a last-ditch plea with Kenney in early August to have it reinstated.

"Recommend the re-insertion of the text boxes related to ... the decriminalization of homosexual sex/recognition of same-sex marriage," says a memorandum to Kenney from deputy minister Neil Yeates.

"Recommend the addition of 'equality rights' under list of rights. Had noted earlier that this bullet should be reinserted into the list as a means of noting the equality of all based on race, gender, sexual orientation etc..."

In the end, however, Kenney's view trumped that of the bureaucrats. The 63-page guide, released with fanfare last November, contains no mention of gay and lesbian rights.

Wmtc readers know that equal rights for LGBT citizens weren't the only good thing about Canada omitted from the new citizenship guide: peace, social justice and the environment were all cut, making for more room for war, distrust of immigrants and as many mentions of the Queen as they could stuff in. For more on that, see my comparison of the current citizenship guide with the previous version: short version here, full version here.

And finally, I hope you've all heard the good news about "Fox News North": Quebecor has dropped its bid for special treatment from the CRTC.

It was Quebecor's second shot at special treatment: first, in March, it applied for a rare licence from the CRTC, which would have required cable and satellite companies to carry Sun TV News on their services. That type of licence, known as Category 1 (soon to be Category A), is currently not being granted by the regulator, and it rejected Quebecor's application.

The company then tried again in July, asking for a much more common Category 2 licence to operate a specialty channel. But in that run-of-the-mill application, it included a request for "must offer" conditions – requiring distributors to offer the channel during its first three years, on at least one tier of their services. The company argued this was different from must-carry status because it let consumers decide whether to subscribe.

There can be little doubt that Quebecor was pushed into this retreat by public pressure. From Avaaz:

83,000 of us signed the petition, 25,000 sent letters to the CRTC and 4,000 donated over $115,000 - and last week SunTV, seeing they could not win, dropped their request to the government to force cable companies to carry them. A huge congrats to everyone on this amazing victory for Canada!

It wasn't easy -- the Sun media empire threw everything they had at us - smear pieces, legal threats, even insider knowledge of sabotage of our campaigns -- but our united voices proved more powerful than even a Harper-allied corporate giant.

I frequently hear progressive Canadian friends lament how Canada is "becoming the United States". I have a solid list of reasons why that isn't so, but this post points out a central difference: here, it's still possible to create change. Keep speaking out.

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at rabble: ezra levant vs. reality, prelude to fox news north

Anyone following The People versus Fox News North story, by now knows that Toronto Sun printed a retraction of some of the more egregious lies they had published about activist-philanthropist George Soros. [I know we can't expect proper grammar from a published newspaper, but the first sentence of the second paragraph is a whopper.]

Many bloggers have been chronicling the day-by-day blows of Chief Wingnut Ezra Levant and his attacks on Soros and the online activist group Avaaz, but this story by Alheli Picazo, writing on Rabble provides history and context. Excellent work, highly recommended.

Ezra Levant vs. reality -- a prelude to Fox News North
By Alheli Picazo

The battle between supporters and opponents of Sun TV News -- the Fox News style channel headed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's former communications director Kory Teneycke -- reached new heights when members of the ‘Fox News North' team took issue with a growing online petition urging the CRTC to reject Quebecor's (QMI) request to "make it mandatory for cable and satellite networks to provide access to the channel ‘for a maximum period of three years to effectively expose and promote its programming to viewers across Canada'."

In an article entitled Anti-Sun TV News campaign in U.S., Sun Media (QMI)'s Brian Lilley alleges the petition is the work of "a group of left-wing Americans supporting interests in Canada that don't want to see competition in news broadcasting ... backed by MoveOn.org a lobby group that has taken millions of dollars from currency speculator George Soros."

What followed is known as the "saga of the Great Sun TV Petition," in which Teneycke, fellow Sun Media (QMI) personality Ezra Levant, and Conservative blogger/activist and founder of the BloggingTories.ca Stephen Taylor, took to twitter to express their ‘outrage,' as ‘someone' spammed the petition with the names of journalists, actors, and fictional characters, and simultaneously penned an editorial about "why Canada needs Sun TV News."

In their co-ordinated effort, Teneycke, Levant and Taylor not only attacked Avaaz.org -- a global online advocacy community whose co-founder and Executive Director, Ricken Patel, happens to be Canadian -- as a foreign operation, but specifically, and repeatedly, refer to George Soros -- a progressive philanthropist who is despised by Right Wing America.

By connecting Soros to the Avaaz petition, Lilley, Levant, Taylor, and Tenycke aim to stoke fear in their followers who, more often than not, are avid consumers of extreme Right Wing media such as Fox News, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter, Andrew Breitbart (BigGovernment.com), Pamela Gellar (AtlasShrugs.com), WorldNetDaily.com, and Judi McLeod (Canadafreepress.com).

Soros can be found at the centre of nearly every conspiracy concocted by the aforementioned, widely discredited media sources, who've alleged...

Go here for full story and lots of great linkage.

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maher arar: muslims have nothing to apologize for

Maher Arar writing in the Ottawa Citizen:

Since the events of 9/11, imams and prominent members of the Muslim community have increasingly felt compelled to apologize for and condemn the acts of some Muslims who are arrested under anti-terrorism laws. They have usually done so even before finding out all the facts about the cases in question, and have mostly relied upon early information which, at best, has been selectively filtered by the security apparatus, or at worst, maliciously leaked to the media by "unknown sources." I see two clear problems with this apologetic reaction.

First, these apologies imply that the arrested individuals are guilty, not just before a fair trial, but before any clear details of the case are released, exchanging the presumption of innocence for the attitudes of a lynch mob.

Secondly, even if you were to accept guilt without a trial, what message is being sent by Muslims apologizing for such a terrible crime? Do Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, or Buddhists apologize for the actions of adherents who are alleged to have committed serious crimes? An apology suggests that there is fault to be found simply in being Muslim, when in fact, Muslims are no different than any other people: Muslims value the same peace and security, and have the same worries about the safety and well-being of their families.

So what is the motivation for these apologies? In a word: fear. Not just the broad fear that all Canadians feel when terrorism occurs, but the specific fear that affects just Muslims, the fear of being held personally responsible for the actions of others, due to a shared religious identity.

. . .

Another example that comes to mind is the coverage of the many priests who have been accused of sexual abuse of children. Despite the fact that these accusations are widespread, do we see terms such as "Catholic pedophilia" or "Christian pedophilia" used in the media to describe this crime? Of course to do so would be outrageous, since Christianity does not condone this heinous act. But time and time again, Muslims are compelled to immediately condemn any fellow Muslim who is accused of terrorism or security-related crime, in what seems to be a desperate, and perhaps even frightened, attempt to avoid being painted with the same brush. . . .

Read it here.

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canadians, beware your canoes. they are more dangerous than terrorists.

Here's another terrific column, this one thanks to David H.

Just think how frightened we should be of canoes
By Dan Gardner

I do not wish to alarm the public, but I must urgently report the discovery of a disturbing fact: It seems that in 2006 -- according to the most recent StatsCan data -- two Canadians were killed by lawn mowers.

As I said, disturbing. And there's more. Much more.

Also in 2006, nine Canadians were killed in accidents involving kayaks or canoes. Three were killed by dogs. Six by hot tap water. Thirty-two drowned in pools. Fifty-four were killed by falls from ladders, while three more died after falling from trees. One person was killed by contact with a thorny plant. Another died after being stung by an unspecified "nonvenomous insect." Medical "misadventure" claimed the lives of 18 more.

Four were struck dead by lightning. Forty-one were killed by accidents in bathtubs.

One Canadian was killed by "exposure to high and low air pressure and changes in air pressure." I don't know how someone can be killed by changes in air pressure. But I'm sure I don't want it to happen to me.

And I'm sure I find this all very terrifying.

After all, these figures mean the number of Canadians killed in 2006 by sloppy doctors, for example, was a staggering 18 times greater than the number of Canadians killed by terrorists. Well, sort of. The actual number of Canadians killed by terrorists in 2006 was zero. As it is most years. And 18 times zero is zero. But just to keep the math simple, let's pretend that one Canadian was killed by terrorists. Now, think of all the hype about terrorism, all the official hyperventilation, all the media shrieking, all the fear and alarm. And multiply it many times over: That is how frightened we should be about sloppy doctors, bathtubs, ladders, and lawnmowers.

Like I said, terrifying.

Or perhaps not. My analysis only works if the hand-wringing about terrorism is reasonable, which is to say that it is proportionate to the actual threat. It may not be. It may be exaggerated. Inflated. As pumped up and hollow as the Goodyear blimp. And, if that is the case, it may be that neither lawnmowers nor terrorists are a significant threat to the safety of the average Canadian.

Conservatives like to appeal to a deity they call "common sense" and I wonder which analysis is more appealing to that omniscient being: That ordinary Canadians should fear hot tap water, air pressure, lawnmowers, and terrorists? Or that we should all have a gin and tonic with a chaser of sang froid and calm the hell down?

I'd probably put my money on the latter.

Of course, this conclusion is rather at odds with recent events. Only last week, suspected terrorists were arrested! In Ottawa! They were going to make bombs! Bombs, I tell you! Nothing less than "national security" was in danger!

Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth! Every day, another "Japs Bomb Pearl Harbor" headline. Another talk radio host bellowing like an elephant as mice scurry over his toes. Another bug-eyed police chief warning citizens to be vigilant. Another terrorism expert peddling fantastic scenarios of Armageddon. Another politician promising to stand tall against the massed ranks of Evil.

And Gardner dares compare terrorists and lawnmowers? Outrageous! Terrorism may not have taken any lives in 2006. But it could. Any day now. And it might not be one or two lives. It might be a catastrophe. Why, it might be as bad as the London bombings of 2005.

Leaving aside the small matter of probability -- why bother with details? -- this is not quite the conclusive argument some think it to be. The London bombings were a horrible crime, to be sure, but they killed 52 people. That is less than half the number of Canadians who choked to death on their food in 2006, and I don't recall any official warning that the continued gagging of the citizenry would imperil the nation.

Please read more here. But be careful. Gardner's rational thinking and logic may be dangerous. Especially to the security state.

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petition to stop "fox news north"

Please read and consider signing this petition from Avaaz. I don't agree that a TV station is the cause of the US's poisoned politics and I don't believe that the proposed right-wing TV station threatens Canadian democracy. But democracy and media fairness is always worth defending, and we don't need the CRTC manipulated by government and corporate media, or the reverse. So while I would tone down this overheated rhetoric by half, I'll still sign the petition.

Prime Minister Harper is trying to push American-style hate media onto our airwaves, and make us all pay for it. His plan is to create a "Fox News North" to mimic the kind of hate-filled propaganda with which Fox News has poisoned U.S. politics. The channel will be run by Harper’s former top aide and will be funded with money from our cable TV fees!

One man stands in the way of this nightmare -- the Chairman of Canada's Radio and Telecommunications Commission Konrad von Finckenstein. And now, Harper is trying to get him out of his job. Sign the petition below to send a wave of support to von Finckenstein and forward this campaign to everyone -- we'll publish full page ads in Canadian papers when we reach 100,000:

To CRTC Chair von Finckenstein and PM Harper:

As concerned Canadians who deeply oppose American-style hate media on our airwaves, we applaud the CRTC's refusal to allow a new "Fox News North" channel to be funded from our cable fees. We urge Mr. von Finckenstein to stay in his job and continue to stand up for Canada's democratic traditions, and call on Prime Minister Harper to immediately stop all pressure on the CRTC on this matter.

Harper hatched his scheme in a secret lunch last year with media-mogul Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News. Harper's top aide Kory Teneycke also came to the lunch, and then left the government to head up Suncor Newspapers and the new "Fox News North".

Fox News fuels hate. While constantly claiming to be “fair” and “balanced”, it allows hysterical anchors like Glenn Beck to compare Obama to "Lucifer" and "Hitler". Bill O’Reilly, another anchor, has threatened to boycott Canada, and Anne Coulter says Canada is “lucky the US allows it to exist on the same continent.” The network has calculatingly spawned the tea party movement in the US, a mobilisation of the fringe right which threatens violence upon its opponents and wears guns to political rallies.

This is a fight for the soul of Canadian democracy. Our media is not perfect, but a ‘news’ network that slavishly serves a political agenda through mass manipulation and fear threatens the fabric of our democratic society.

The CRTC is part of our democracy -- it was made an independent commission precisely in order to protect against this kind of government manipulation of the media. Harper knows that he must bully his way through this institution in order to create "Fox News North". And there are dark rumours in Ottawa that if von Finckenstein will not leave his job, Harper will simply force him to give in. Konrad von Finckenstein is upholding the best tradition of Canadian democracy and civil service in the face of a full scale attack on that tradition. Let's show him, and Harper, that Canada stands with him.

"Fox News North" is Harper's long term strategy to make radical conservatism the political centre in Canada, tearing down the country we love to make us look like the U.S. Thankfully, Konrad von Finckenstein and the CRTC are standing in his way -- let's stand with them.

Sign here.

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Did the Brooklyn US attorney lie, use children to demonize marijuana growers?

A friend of mine pointed me to an article in the New York Daily News about a firefighter who was caught growing marijuana [link]. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love reading these stories because you can see where the person messed up. You can try to avoid those kinds of mistakes. In this case, it was an anonymous tip! You can't always tell with these kinds of tips. However, if police didn't pull off a raid and picked the guy up while he was there, they had to have been tipped off by someone who know about it personally. In other words, he broke rule #1 of marijuana growing, don't tell anyone! Even I'll go down by that one some day. But, what can human beings do but be human and trust their friends.

But, that's not really worthy of a whole blog post from me. What is worthy of discussion are the comments by Assistant Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Soumya Dayananda.

Patrick Murray was not only running an illegal drug operation, but he was also endangering three young kids living above the drug den, exposing them to harmful fumes from powerful chemical fertilizers and carbon dioxide gas, said Assistant Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Soumya Dayananda.

This is what we need to expose more - these government officials who use children and their position of authority to lie and demonize other marijuana growers. They create this air of danger around marijuana growing to discourage others from trying to grow. The more I expose these intentions the better others can judge for themselves the future of marijuana in the United States.

So, what's so bad about her comments? What do I, a marijuana grower, see that mainstream America may not see?

First of all, let's discuss these harmful chemical fertilizers. A typical chemical fertilizer, or PLANT FOOD, used in marijuana growing is General Hydroponics Flora Series. Go ahead and check it out. It's the stuff I use.
Is it dangerous? NO!
Is it harmful? NO!
Does it even give off any fumes? I can put my nose right in the bottle and I wouldn't smell a thing.. NO!

So what's in these chemical fertilizers? Look, I have a bottle right here of some GH FloraGro from the Flora series. 9% of the chemical includes nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous, and magnesium in salt form diluted in 91% water. How dangerous is it? Well, it's all the things you'd find a plant using for photosynthesis. I wouldn't drink the stuff straight. It's plant food and I'm more into steak and potatoes. Sorry PETA!

And, there are other brands of chemical fertilizers including MiracleGro, Advanced Nutrients, Botanicare, B.C. Hydroponic Nutrients, Dutch Master and many more! Just look for the N-P-K to see all the ingredients of these "child endangering" plant food formulas.

I hope that wraps up the mystery of the dangerous chemical fertilizer fumes. Where's Scooby Doo? I have a snack for him.

Wait.. there could have been fumes from some place else? Right?

It's possible that the fume claim isn't a complete lie but I highly doubt those fumes came from that grow operation. The clue here is the use of Carbon Dioxide. How are the children in danger from carbon dioxide use in marijuana growing? Well, they aren't but here's EXACTLY why that IS the case. Carbon dioxide is odorless and it's heavier than air. You wouldn't smell it and even if it were in use in the basement, it wouldn't have risen upward.

But, that's not the reason why I believe fumes did NOT come from that grow operation.

See, to use carbon dioxide in marijuana growing, you have to maintain the levels, measured in parts per million or PPMs. Normal CO2 levels in the air is around 300 to 500 PPMs which has always been good enough for growing plants. You'd need 1200-1500 PPMs in a grow room to be effective. Anything over 2000 PPMs has a negative effect.

To maintain these levels, you need an airtight, self contained marijuana grow room because CO2, being a gas, has a funny way of slipping through cracks really fast. Providing CO2 for 100 plants is expensive. I very much doubt that someone who would go through the trouble of setting up 100 plants and providing CO2 for all of these plants didn't think about sealing the room as tightly as possible.

You want more proof that the "fume danger" is a lie.. here it comes.

Marijuana stinks (in a good way). Growing marijuana stinks. Any marijuana grower worth his salt knows that marijuana is very fragrant (much better word). Even if you're new, you'll find out quickly that it is a definite giveaway. So, as a grower, you'd want to mask the scent or, what we learn to do, clean the air. Even in a sealed room, you have to get in and get out. You don't want that smell to get out. 100 plants gives off a lot of scent.

If Patrick Murray invested in CO2, he definitely invested in odor control FIRST. CO2 is the LAST thing you should consider when running a grow room. It's expensive and most growers consider it unnecessary. It isn't worth it! So, it would be outrageous to believe that this guy didn't invest in odor control?

So, WHERE IS THE DANGER TO CHILDREN?

These children were in NO danger at all! Those chemical fertilizers are possibly concentrated, not powerful. If it were concentrated, it would be pure salts, just add water (like Kool Aid for plants). Remember, it's plant food, not terrorist bomb making materials. Patrick Murray is not Timothy McVeigh or Osama bin Laden! He's just a marijuana grower who also happens to be a firefighter.

The greatest threat to the people of this nation doesn't come from marijuana growers. It comes from our own government officials who lie to the American people - "Weapons of Mass Destruction" is no different from the boogeyman which is no different than Patrick Murray, the child endangering marijuana grower. None of it exists.

Attorney Soumya Dayananda will have her day in court to prove the child endangerment story she told reporter, John Marzulli. But, if she's a smart attorney, she'll stay away from those charges and stick to what she knows she can win. However, the damage from her lying has already been done. Countless people will see that article and further demonize marijuana growers. They won't do the research. They won't ask the important questions. They won't get the truth. From now on, marijuana growers will be seen as dangerous because of her Republican-like fear-mongering comments. The worst thing Soumya Dayananda could have done to the people of New York City was make them fear nothing.

We have to be above THAT influence.

I look forward to keeping up with this case. I'll put up any updates I find. If I'm wrong about this child endangerment, I'll admit it here first because it's something we marijuana growers should keep in mind for today and future. We're not criminals or dangerous. I don't know any marijuana growers that want to hurt children.

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Boondocks: Mr. Medicinal..

Y'all know I love marijuana right?

Yeah, y'all know that.

Y'all know I am not just some pothead either, right?

Yup, I'm sure y'all know that.

I went from schwag smoke to growin some fine ass Princess Diesel [video]. When it comes to marijuana, I could probably run Oaksterdam. They should make me the dean or something.

Anyway, enough self-aggrandizing. I wanted to pay homage to this last Boondocks episode, Mr. Medicinal.

Let me get my beef out of the way first.

They should have put me in it. Instead, they put some ol' regular stuck up dude in there. They could have had the super laid back, chubby Black Buddha type such as myself. With my mellow flow and superior knowledge, I would have made the perfect Boondocks character to cultivate and distribute high quality marijuana in Woodcrest.

Anyway, without spoiling it too much for others who haven't seen it, I loved the way the episode went down. It pretty much covered all the bases - first time introduction to weed from Thugnificent, the rabid anti-marijuana knucklehead in Tom, the first smoke, being high, driving while high, trouble with the law, and so on.

But, most importantly, I think it caught a bit of that enchantment that people have with marijuana. We all know Granddad is an uptight ornery ol sumbitch that gets angry at the drop of a hat. But, when Granddad is high on marijuana, he's a completely laid back and relaxed individual. As he mentions, he isn't going to let the small things bother him. When you feel like that, you're not going to want to go back. You gain better perspective because when you can treat the small things like small things, you can concentrate on the bigger picture being your life, friends, and family.

Yes, everything looks better, tastes better, and feels better, especially sex!

Anyway, I tend to get long winded and I wanted to try to keep this short and sweet. But, I can't just leave it without spreading some knowledge.

"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."

- Harry J. Anslinger, testimony to Congress, 1937

After Anslinger's racist comments to the US Congress, which they ate up, marijuana became illegal through the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act of 1937. Basically, this act dictated that you have to pay taxes on marijuana. The catch-22 is that you had to bring the marijuana to get the stamp. However, you couldn't have marijuana without the stamp. The act was repealed in 1967 because a judge caught the catch-22 which was conveniently overlooked for three decades.

Everything was good until the US Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. What a lot of people don't know is that the CSA is a response to the United Nation's Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs Treaty in 1961. This is important because to ban drugs in the United States, there needs to be a Constitutional amendment. The best and only example of this is the 18th Amendment which prohibited alcohol in 1917 and was repealed by the 21st Amendment in 1933.

Now, let's tie this all together. How is it that the US needs a Constitutional amendment to prohibit alcohol but doesn't need one to prohibit marijuana use?

Article VI of the US Constitution answers that question.

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

In other words, if the US signs a treaty, whatever is in that treaty supersedes any and all laws in the United States including the US Constitution itself. So, there will be no legalization efforts at the federal level because of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs as well as some other treaties that were signed afterward.

What it all amounts to is someone using Article VI of the US Constitution to tell American citizens what they can and can't do with their lives.

If you think for a second that there isn't a racial motivation for this effort, at least in part, just look at marijuana statistics today. 70% of marijuana users are White compared to 15% of those users being African American. However, 60% of those incarcerated are African American compared to 20% White. Yes, there are people who would go through all of that just to get us!!

Check me on it. I always feel good about what I write, when I decide to write, for a reason.

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julian assange and wikileaks profile in the new yorker

I've posted this link before, but I want to highlight and recommend it again. In the June issue of the New Yorker magazine, there was a long, fascinating profile of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is the organization that released the "Collateral Murder," video, which showed US soldiers in Iraq firing on and killing civilians, including two Reuters journalists.

It's quite an amazing story, also the kind of meaty profile that makes me salivate as a writer, an assignment I could only dream of. But I'm glad somebody is getting paid for this kind of work.

No Secrets - Julian Assange's mission for total transparency, by Raffi Khatchadourian

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what the media ignored: 25,000 peacefully demonstrate against g20 policies in toronto

We can't expect the corporate media to tell us the truth. But we can tell them they are wrong, and useless. And we can speak the truth to each other and get it out there on our own.

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