F-35 Lightning II goodies to chew on

Search and search and search and still I could find nothing public about which of the three variants of F-35 Canada is intending to purchase. A friend called and told me but, like me, he had no particular source. Neither the defence minister nor the "military analysts" appearing at press conferences and on TV and radio provided anything beyond the words F-35, after which they had to wipe the drool from their chins.

Infuriating, or what? The government, the pundits, falling all over themselves to tell us how cool this is and they won't tell us which one.

So... check out another source. Aha! We're buying the cheap one! That makes me feel better. That I had to dig it out of the company that's building them and it wasn't offered at the announcement makes me wonder how much people like MacKay care for you to know.

The version the Canadian Air Force is buying is the least expensive of the three variants and in today's dollars it will be around $60 million per aircraft, said Lockheed spokeswoman Kim Testa.

That would be the "A" variant.

And then there is the issue, as the article above points out, that this is a sole-source contract. Commenters have suggested there was no other way. Maybe... maybe not, but the Defence Minister certainly promised that there would be an open and transparent competition, and he emphatically stated that there was more than one contender:

The joint strike fighter is one of the two aircraft, and there may be others. But I think those are the two main contenders that we are looking at.

Uh oh. Then he said this:

I just want to be very clear on the record that the reference to the next generation of fighter aircraft does not preclude a competition, and an open and transparent one.

So... anyone notice smoke coming out of MacKay's ass? Did we miss that little bit of Harper government transparency?

It isn't as if this whole project has been a bed of roses either. It's had its own share of plagues, not the least of which was the US Secretary of Defense firing the program manager back in February. Oh... oops.

So far, that performance has “not been what it should” Gates said. Total costs have ballooned by more than 45% since the program’s inception. According to some reports, the stealth jet isn’t even that stealthy. Its engines run the risk of burning holes in the decks of the ships its supposed to lift off from. Final tests for the plane could be pushed back until as late as 2016, a two-year delay.

And I will remind readers that it is now July - that happened almost five months ago.
Looks like Gates got on the case and fixed things... maybe. There is a niggling rumour that Major General Heinz lost his job because he wanted an alternative engine brought into the program - to reduce overall costs. Gates didn't agree and it is suggested his hesitation had more to do with politics than cost.

Although a congressional aide said he was not “surprised” by Gates’ decision, the aide also made clear that he thought Heinz was a fall guy. “He is not the first to provide his best professional judgment and be fired for it because it is contrary to White House and Second Gates’ politics,” the aide said in an email. The aide wrote back speculating that Gen. Heinz may well have ticked off Gates with his quiet but persistent support for a second engine for the F-135. Heinz told me and others several times that a second engine could well result in lower costs and provide operational benefits by lessening the program’s dependence on a single engine. “Gates does not like this kind of thinking, no matter how much sense it makes. Heinz wasn’t in lock step with the politics — he is interested in future fighter force readiness and affordability,” the aide said.

Interesting. (Don't get carried away. This is an alternative to the Pratt & Whitney F-135; not a 2nd strap on.)

What is being discussed is the GE/Rolls Royce F-136 which could be made considerably more efficient with an upgrade in the future. And there's a good reason to have a fleet with two different brands of power plant.

The F-35 programme chief, Brig Gen David Heinz, has said he supports the DOD's decision, but he also believes that dueling JSF engine programmes could yield cost savings and reduce operational risk of a fleet-wide grounding caused by an engine problem.

You can get fired for that kind of thinking.

It remains to be seen if Airshow MacKay can follow the logic.

Scenario 2028

IT'S STILL NOT SAFE TO DRINK THE MILK, but that's about the only caution these days. Of course, it all started with the collapse of the Chinese economy in 2024. Who'd a thunk it? The Asian powerhouse imploded, and it was a horror show. The signs had been there, and some had forecast such problems, but they were ignored. Blame the weather: Drought came to roost in the Middle Kingdom, and agriculture collapsed, with three successive crop failures starting in 2022. The big coastal cities were the first to collapse, and the Party and the Red Army found themselves helpless in trying to contain the rising chaos.

The Politbureau of the CPC was scared, and scared people do rash things. The first was an invasion by the Chinese Red Army of the south-east: Viet Nam, Burma, Laos, to seize farms and food, and Taiwan, while they were about it.

While the Chinese wound up trashing Taiwan, the Taiwanese, supported by two Nimitz-class American carrier groups, decimated the Chinese invasion force, and, most important, the surface units of the Chinese Navy, which made it impossible to seize Haiphong and other ports to the south.

The battle in the Taiwan Straits was the first use, by the US Navy of the McDonnel-Douglas F-47, the first RPV with built-in AI, or artificial intelligence, for faster-than-human reaction, specifically designed for air superiority. The craft, capable of close to Mach 3 and almost 20-g turns, made short work of anything that didn't squawk the right IFF code. The Chinese versions of the MiG 29 never stood a chance.

But the real stupidity was the invasion by the Chinese Red Army of "the Stans", the Russian-controlled republics, in a desperate drive for oil. Unfortunately, Putin's Russia had never been able to get the Russian economy to turn from its decades-long slide into alcoholism and corruption.

This meant that the army that Zhukov had flattened Berlin with, had turned into a bumbling, stumbling cohort with obsolescent equipment and indifferent logistics — and unable to stop the Chinese advance into the oil fields of central Asia.

The Russian Airforce, whose Sturmoviks had gutted the German panzers in 1943, was a shadow of its Cold War self, with just a handful of SU-35 strike fighters that looked marvellous on paper, but just didn't have the range (and the Russian airforce had woefully neglected its aerial refuelling capability) or the ordnance capability, so the brunt of the defence had to be handled by the few Blackjack and Backfire medium bombers in the inventory, as well as the venerable old turboprop Tupolev "Bear". It wasn't pretty, but American stealth surveillance RPV's gave a clear picture of the desperate struggle in the summer of 2025.

With the Rodina in peril, the orders were given, and missiles were launched, somewhere around two dozen. As near as American satellites could resolve, half of them irradiated the Chinese army units invading, and half of them took out Beijing plus select Chinese military targets with multiple MIRV's. The Chinese never got much happening in the way of a counter-strike, for a number of reasons, and the missiles that did get launched were all targeted on Moscow, which was annihilated.

The end result was that strontium levels has meant a boom in export of South American dairy products and beef, while we wait for things to cool down.

A new world flight record

It's not a hot new stealth fighter but it is one impressive aircraft in its own right.

The UK-built Zephyr solar-powered plane has smashed the endurance record for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

It was launched last Friday and it's been flying for over 7 days non-stop.

So, why don't they want a comprehensive cesus?

Let's face it. The census is a pain in the ass. It's not like filling in the boxes on a tedious income tax T1 because at the end of it there isn't even a faint hope of a monetary refund.

We don't like it because it's boring. And, as we start to fill it out, it seems to get into aspects of our lives we would rather not discuss publicly.

Except that it's never public. You will never be revealed. You become a statistical factor; Anonymous beyond any level you could imagine.

So, why wouldn't a government want those statistics? Easy.

Every so often you are asked to wake from the bliss of your Canadian existence and physically present yourself at a polling place. There you are asked to select the person you think would best represent your life desires, wishes, pipe dreams, etc. You expect them to report back to you what they've done. With the pencil provided, you exercise supreme power by making an X in a little circle.

That X represents a huge power. You have a part in determining who will manage this country on your behalf. That includes the use of the money you send as an investment into the continued running of this country.

You expect, and are entitled to know, exactly how that money is spent. You expect and are entitled to know, what laws are passed which affect the entire community, known as a country.

When the government you helped choose opts to spend some of the money you sent to promote that community you expect them to justify that expenditure. Likewise, when that government decides to remove funding from some aspect of the community, you expect them to articulate their reasons for doing so based on some solid evidence. The census comes to mind.

The only reason a government would choose to eliminate the statistical record of the country is so they can, with a bald face, tell you, the person with the power of the X, that there is no statistical evidence to support the things they do not ideologically support.

Thus, government becomes less transparent, less accountable and much less responsible to the person holding the ballot box pencil. You have to accept their ideology because you have nothing in terms of official statistics to defend your position.

In short, your vote and the power it carries, becomes worth a whole lot less. And a government, instead of having to defend its direction, tells you that there is nothing to prevent them from pursuing their ideology.

We used to call them Trotskyites. Now, we just call it Harper's democracy.

Bonus! Chet gives a different and very important analysis.

I am now watching for three wise men approaching from the east

Jeffery Simpson wrote this?

Last fall, Prime Minister Stephen Harper decided his government would oppose the mandatory long-form census. Since then, nothing has changed his mind. His right-wing ideology and political instinct combined to make a policy that’s being denounced by almost every leading institution and commentator in Canada.

His decision was also opposed inside the government by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and by Industry Minister Tony Clement, who’s responsible for Statistics Canada, the agency that administers the census.

Both wrote to the Prime Minister, underscoring the importance of the mandatory long-form census to compile the most accurate statistics on which so much public policy and private-sector decision-making depends. The issue went back and forth inside the government, but, as with everything in Mr. Harper’s Ottawa, the Prime Minister decides.

His is a government in which most ministers are reduced to silence, except for those kept on short leashes, and in which everything, down to astonishingly small details, are decided by the Prime Minister, and only by him. His mind can be changed, but only occasionally and usually only after the passage of time between his initial decision and a new one. In this instance, despite internal discussion, his initial decision has stuck.

Wow!

I have rare moments when I actually agree with any pundit, let alone Jeffery Simpson, but Jeebus H on a Popsicle stick, he nailed that one.

Finally.

Question? (Hopefully, Jeffery can assist with the answer.) Why are Flaherty and Clement still in cabinet? Shouldn't they resign as a matter of protocol? We do still have conventions of leadership in government, do we not? If a minister is opposed to the decision of cabinet do they still enjoy the confidence of the prime minister?

Or, is it different with an uber-right-wing government?

BP buying up Gulf scientists

"For the last few weeks, BP has been offering signing bonuses and lucrative pay to prominent scientists from public universities around the Gulf Coast to aid its defense against spill litigation.

BP PLC attempted to hire the entire marine sciences department at one Alabama university, according to scientists involved in discussions with the company's lawyers. The university declined because of confidentiality restrictions that the company sought on any research.

The Press-Register obtained a copy of a contract offered to scientists by BP. It prohibits the scientists from publishing their research, sharing it with other scientists or speaking about the data that they collect for at least the next three years."

And yeah, at $250 an hour there reportedly have been a few takers.
$250 an hour to shut up about relevant research at a publicly funded research facility.

The Narrow Moose of Moose Narrows

Once upon a time, I was not only a newspaper reporter, but a columnist. This cautionary tale for campers  is one of my favorite columns from those days. I have not, despite desperately wanting to, made any changes.


From the September 27, 1989, edition of the Port Dover Maple Leaf:

Beware the Narrow Moose
Now that camping season is ending I suppose I can tell my story without causing undue panic and fear among the general populace.
It all started a few summers ago , on Labour Day. I had gone camping on Moszbong Lake, up north of Sudbury.
I was to meet up with a pair of friends who were returning from two weeks of camping and canoeing along the north shore of Lake Superior. The three of us were going to  go on a short thirty mile canoe trip over the course of a week.
After a quick breakfast of trail mix and beef jerky, we launched our canoes for a spot on the long lake called Moose Narrows, on the map.
Well, when we got to Moose Narrows, as it was called on the map, we found just what we were looking for; an island for a nice breezy point for a campsite.
We lit a small fire and cooked some bacon and eggs for lunch. Then we decided to go out and explore the rest of the island.
When we came back a few hours later. we noticed the area around the fire smelled like urine and all the canned goods were gone. All around the campsite were large footprints that looked as if they had been made by a man in swimfins, except that the man would have to had four legs and weighed 900 pounds.
We relit the fire and sat around drinking hot tea with sugar and rye whisky, smoking a few hoarded cigarettes and being more or less mystifyed. (sic)
The next day , we discovered a further clue inthe mystery of Moose Narrows. While we were out hiking down a deer trail we came across an an abandoned logging road. At the end of the road was a camping trailer. It was turned on one side and the rust testified to the the number of years it had been sitting there. The side of the trailer that was pointing skyward was half caved in, as though it had been struck by a very large, heavy, fast-moving object of some kind. There was also the distinctive odor of urine, the same as back at our campfire.
Then Mike noticed the licence plate on the rusted out trailer. The top half had rusted away, but we could tell it had been issued in 1986. The trailer was only a year old.  Even a bashed-in wreck like this could not have rusted out like this. The trailer looked like it had been there twenty years. "Curisourser and curisourser" as Alice used to say.
As we paddled back across the lake to our campsite, we heard the disgusting roar of an outboard rip through the silence of the deep north woods. We scanned the horizon and saw a boat approaching so we put down our paddles and waited.
As the boat came closer we saw the driver and passengers. There was a far, bald man in a camouflage hunting jacket, a New York Yankees baseball cap and loud plaid Bermuda shorts. He was driving with one hand and drinking beer from a brown glass bottle that he held in his other hand. In the front of the boat was a teenage boy listening to heavy metal on a gigantic ghetto blaster. He was throwing the empty bottles overboard and then trying to sink them by shooting at them with a pellet rifle. As they passed, the boy held up a string of trout, all well under the legal size.
We watched as they sped by, then Graham spotted it.
Following just behind the wake of  the big fiberglass speedboat was about a dozen humming birds swarming around a pair of brown sticks that were moving along in the water behind the boat. We just assumed that the boat was dragging something, maybe a log, behind it. Then the sticks changed course and headed on a course perpendicular to the  course of the boat.
We pursued frantically in our canoes as the sticks and humming birds went around one side of an island and the motor boat went around the other side. We followed as best we could.
When we reached the end of the lake a few hours later the scene of carnage that greeted us was incredible. On the beach was what was left of the fiberglass boat.
It had been smashed, much as the trailer we found earlier in the day, all around it were the footprints we had found at our camp, flipper prints with the front pair of feet being only about a foot and a half apart, same for the rear prints except that from the tracks the two sets of legs were nearly ten feet apart. Near the boat was a partially collapsed  tent trailer.
Then I heard it, the bloodcurdling honking of a bull moose. We followed our ears and crept quietly up the trail.
About thirty feet away was big green Cadillac Coup de Ville. On top of the Caddy stood a fearsome beast.
It was almost a long as the car and had one huge webbed hoof planted on each corner of the car. Long legs  as thick as tree trunks led up to a sort of odd parody of a moose's body. It was as though, somehow, the moose had been flattened like a coin left on a railroad track. He was six or seven feet from breast to shoulder, but a mere foot and half wide. The head was also narrow, with a pair of long wattles on either side of his muzzle that gave the impression of a sinister moustache. The antlers were the same as those of a normal moose except that they pointed straight ahead instead of out to the sides. There seemed to be small breathing holes in the tops of the highest points. Hummingbirds buzzed around the antlers, picking out bits of bloodstained camouflage fabric.
The creature opened its horrible jaws and let out a furious roar that sounded like a foghorn in pain. Then it jumped high into the air and came down, crushing the Caddy. The beast stomped on the car a few more times while we stood rooted to the ground in fear. Then it came down off the vehicle, lifted a leg against the car and let loose a stream of fluid that ate its way through the metal of the car much like a strong acid.
We quietly backed down the trail to our canoes and shoved off into the lake. From behind the screen of some nearby bullrushes we watched as the dreadful Narrow Moose ate the entire boat and then piddled on the leftovers, causing them to dissolve. When we left, the Narrow Moose was eating the beer bottles and other assorted trash.
And that was how we discovered the legend of the caretaker of the wilds, the fearsome Narrow Moose.

Crossposted from the Woodshed.

The history of nuclear weapons testing. 1945 - 1998

Done in a way which might give you a whole new perspective. Of course, these are the verified tests. There is at least one country missing. (Unless a couple of those bursts off the coast of South Africa aren't really US bombs.)



It's worth reading the observations made by Dave Noon over at Lawyers Gun$ & Money to fill out the picture.

Via the CTBTO.

Hmmm. If I were cleaning up the worst oil spill in history...

In the Gulf of Mexico, I would be keeping a real close eye on this rather large tropical wave off the Cape Verde Islands.



They wanted a weeks notice? There's their friggin' week.

Rev.Paperboy and Dr.Dawg discuss...

G20 Ten Most Wanted and their control group

At yesterday's presser, the Toronto Police media guy announced their "G20 Most Wanted Individuals" list :

"They are individuals who are not suspects - they are people who are wanted for criminal offences and the only difficulty that the investigative team has is at this point we don't know who they are so we're seeking the assistance of the public to identify them to us ."

He further advised they have "over 14,000 still images of individuals and over 500 videos", which they will be sharing with the Canadian Banking Association to run through their facial recognition software. Keep those citizen CDs and vids coming, he said.

So after ignoring the rioters for an hour and a half on June 26th in favour of taking their pictures, and then rounding up, photographing, and IDing over a thousand hapless random citizens the following day, you will now use the banks' software tools to look for a match between the two groups.
Got it.
Well at least we know the point of the Sunday bucket detainments now - they're to be the control group.

Sometimes, you get lucky . . .

JALOPNIK  Sure lowers the resale value, though.

Preying on the fearful and naive

A local Tea Party billboard in Mason City, Iowa comparing Obama to Hitler and Lenin boasts the amusing slogan : "Radical leaders prey on the fearful & naive."

Not everyone likes it however.

Shelby Blakely of the national Tea Party Patriots says :

"It's not going to help our cause. It's going to make people think that the tea party is full of a bunch of right-wing fringe people."

and that would be just so unfair.

Ha, ha, stupid Americans. Oh, wait ...

If you use ATM's and such . . .

COMPUTER WORLD reports that "Bluetooth at heart of gas station credit-card scam in Southeast":

Thieves are stealing credit-card numbers through skimmers they secretly installed inside pumps at gas stations throughout the Southeast, using Bluetooth wireless to transmit stolen card numbers, according to law enforcement officials.

Keep your eyes open: some enterprising sociopath should have 'em available in your neighbourhood before long. Skimmers, or shims, are bleeding-edge hi-tech in circuitry fabrication. NETWORK WORLD has some details, with an article by Jamey Heary, "Newest Attack on your Credit Card: ATM Shims":

Shimming is the newest con designed to skim your credit card number, PIN and other info when you swipe your card through a reader like an ATM machine. The shim is the latest attack being used by criminals to steal your credit card info at the ATM or other Pin Entry Device. According to Diebold, " The criminal act of card skimming results in the loss of billions of dollars annually for financial institutions and card holders. Card skimming threatens consumer confidence not only in the ATM channel, but in the financial institutions that own compromised ATMs as well."

Christie Blatchford vs "real" journalism

First, go read this piece by the Globe and Mail's Christie Blatchford from last week.


Then read this excellent dissection of Blatchford's  arguments by Fillibluster.


I find that on a logical and factual basis, there is little need to add to what Fillibluster said in commenting on Blatchford's petulant, nonsensical bloviations, but since I have earned my living in the newspaper business for most of the last 20 years, I feel compelled to comment.


Now, stand back and give me room to swing. You may want to get a drink, this is going to take a while.


To borrow a phrase, virtually every word Blatchford has written is wrong, including "and" and "the."

Sez the Blatch:

"First, journalism is not merely a collective of the self-anointed."

Yes, it is. Very much so. There are no licences, or government permits required to be journalist. Bill O'Reilly calls himself a journalist, Geraldo Rivera calls himself a journalist. Walter Cronkite, Hunter S. Thompson and even Christie Blatchford have never had or needed licences. You don't have to be a full-time employee of a major media outlet -- many journalists, especially in print media, freelance for most of their careers. And being self-published is hardly a disqualifier either. Journalism icon, I.F. Stone published his own work for most of the latter part of his career, as did George Seldes.

For all that it may not be a regulated profession, neither is it just a coming together of people with cellphones, video cameras and blogs as receptacle for an apparently endless stream of unfiltered, unedited consciousness.

Well, perhaps my initial criticism was unfair --even a broken clock is correct twice a day and some of Blatchford jumping off points are factually correct: I agree, journalism is more than a bunch of people with cellphone and cameras, but journalism is often unfiltered and unedited. Most live television feeds for example are, by definition, unedited. That is why we were treated to the moving spectacle of the likes of CNN's Anderson Cooper and even FOX-hole Sheppard Smith freaking out on location in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and demanding to know why something wasn't being done. You want to know who edited the work of Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow when they were at the height of their network careers? Surprise, trick question - they were their own managing editors.


In other words, just as you are not a physician or a lawyer merely because you say you are, much as you may want to believe it so, neither are you a journalist because you and your friends say you are or because your “writings” appear on a website.


This is a completely bogus comparison, physicians and lawyers being regulated professions. You are not a doctor or lawyer until the appropriate professional association and the government say you are. Being a journalist, like being a clergyman or an artist, is a calling, an avocation - not a profession - and there is no set criteria for calling yourself any one of those three. Grandma Moses or Andy Warhol or Banksy can decide they are artists. The pope, Jim Jones and Jerry Falwell are free to declare themselves holy men. Amy Goodman, Paul Wells, George Stephanopolus and Bob Woodward can all call themselves journalists. It is up to their audiences to decide whether they are any good at it, but they are free to identify themselves as they choose.

You will have heard reports of various independent/alternative journalists who claim to have been illegally detained and threatened by the police.


Again the blind squirrel finds a nut. This is objectively verifiable truth.

Four of them, for instance, have formally complained to the office of the independent police review director, and as the insufferable Lieutenant Horatio Caine says ad nauseam on CSI: Miami, let us follow the evidence on that.


Oh yes, let's!

I am all in favour of their complaints, and anyone else’s, being investigated, and I reserve my opinion on how well they were treated by the authorities, or not, until that verdict is in.

Uh, that would be you hedging, Blatchford. If you are "all in favour" then why are you writing this transparent smear piece? Where is this evidence you mentioned?

But let us not pretend that these folks are working journalists or that they are the equivalent. They aren’t, for the most part.

Ooooh, bold statement, other than the "for the most part" weaseling. And nice attempt at a  qualifying statement with "working" -- as any journalist knows, one is always "working" because if there is a news story happening in front of you, you are working, whether it is your day off or not. And no one is pretending, they are working journalists, but more about that later. Now, about that evidence...

Their work isn’t subject to editing or lawyering or the ethical code which binds, for example, the writers at The Globe. The websites on which they appear don’t belong, as do most reputable newspapers in this province, to the Ontario Press Council, a body which hears complaints against traditional journalists and publications.

First, since Blatchford refuses to produce any actual evidence or even name the media outlets involved, let's look at her claims and how she weasels them.
One of the complainants, Jesse Rosenfeld, is a freelancer for The Guardian, one of the world's leading newspapers, which comes complete with layers of editors and a legal department. The attack on him by police was witnessed and described by TVO's Steve Paikin, who was also manhandled by the cops, though not arrested. (Let's see Blatchford explain how he's not a journalist either.)
Another, Amy Miller, who alleges that the police threatened to rape her, is an independent filmmaker (like Michael Moore and Robert Greenwald and many people who film news reports for media outlets overseas) who also writes for The Dominion, a web magazine that covers news from a left wing perspective, but certainly has editors and appears to be at least as reputable as the Toronto Sun or CFRB radio.
The Guardian is a British newspaper and The Dominion is based in Montreal, so neither are members of the Ontario Press Council. Neither are the Napanee Beaver or the Picton Gazette, the oldest community newspaper in Canada, both which I used to work for. Neither is the CBC or any other broadcast media. It also bears pointing out that the Ontario Press Council, while I think it is a very fine organization, is very much a self-anointed  collective and membership in the council and adherence to their codes of conduct and ethics is entirely voluntary.
As to the other two complainants, according to Canadian Journalists for Free Expression:

Lisa Walter, 41, an indie magazine writer for Our Times, said she was thrown to the ground and cuffed as she and another independent journalist covered the same group that was being arrested in downtown Toronto on Sunday afternoon, according to her complaint.  She said officers mocked her, saying her credentials were "fake," questioned whether she was a man and the sergeant who ordered her arrest called her a "f-ing dyke" and "a douche bag," her complaint states.

According to McIsaac's complaint, he was covering the same protest as Amy Miller for the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. He said he was with Miller when he was assaulted and arrested by police. He was taken to a hospital after telling police that he had a pacemaker and then later transferred to the detention centre. The 27-year-old was also released later without being charged."

McIsaac's case may blur the line between journalist and activist in that he was not there on behalf of a news media outlet but was covering events for a website run by an advocacy group, but Our Times is unquestionably a legitimate publication, however since it is a magazine, it - like MacLeans and Time and The Economist - is not a member of the Ontario Press Council either. So much for Blatchford's contention that "for the most part" the four are not working journalists and for her attempt to discount the media outlets they were working for as mere "websites" as though they were blogging out of mom and dad's basement for an audiences made up entirely of their family and friends.


We in the mainstream media make plenty of mistakes and bad calls, even given the safeguards (layers of editors and other sets of eyes reading our copy; lawyers too, in some instances; established standards) that are in place.


Golly, "we" sure do Christie, and by "we" I mean "you" --like the other day when you swallowed hook, line and sinker the story put forth by Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair that masked black-bloc anarchists had disrupted the repatriation ceremony of the remains of a Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan, despite the fact that other eyewitness accounts and video taken at the event show that no such thing happened. But a man in uniform told you the story and so you ran with it.


Why should an alternative journalist (self-anointed, often with a demonstrable political agenda) be automatically assumed to be an infallible truth-teller or always accurate?


They shouldn't, but sworn legal affidavits attached to an official complaint to the official police review are a little different from something some guy said on some blog somewhere. And let me ask you this: Why should a mainstream journalist or columnist (paid by a large corporation, often with a demonstrable political agenda and history of being completely wrong) be automatically assumed to be an infallible truth-teller or always accurate?

Second, the press pass doesn’t grant even traditional journalists carte blanche access everywhere.

Stop the presses! Visually-impaired bushy-tailed tree rat finds second hard-shelled edible seed! For more on this earth-shaking statement of the incredibly obvious, see "No Shit, Sherlock" page 17.

In the midst of a riot, it is not a shield that can be waved to keep either police or rioters at bay. It is neither an avoid-jail nor get-out-of-jail-free card.

Which is clear from the fact that people with press passes got arrested. That isn't the point. Press passes have nothing to do with any of this. The complaint is that people who were observing the protests were arrested simply for being present. The possession of a press pass serves to explain why that person is present and indicates that they are an observer, not a participant. That's why we carry press credentials. Didn't they cover this is in employee orientation at the Globe?

One doesn’t get to cross the yellow tape at a crime scene in order to have a really good look at the dead body even if one has a press pass. One doesn’t get into cabinet meetings because one has a press pass. One doesn’t get to march into the judge’s chambers and sit in on the lawyers’ private discussions that go on there because one has a press pass. Etc., etc.

Media accreditation sometimes allows reporters to go where the general public can’t, such as sports dressing rooms and backstage at concerts and the like; it may give us better seats (as in a courtroom, where there may be a press row, or at a sports event, where there is a press box); it may get us closer to the action or the participants in the action.

Period.


Oooooh, she said "period" and even made it a one-word paragraph. I guess this discussion of irrelevancies is over. 


Thus, in the G20 protests, journalists, real or self-appointed, traditional or otherwise, had no special rights to go where we wanted and no special badge of protection against arrest.

No, journalists didn't have any special rights, but in Canada we have this thing called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that promises certain inalienable civil rights - perhaps you've heard of it? Last time I checked it said something about the police not being to arrest people without reasonable cause.

Third, I would point out that the area north of the Ontario Legislature was indeed designed as a protest area during the summit.

It was never, however, meant to function as a no-go zone, to which the darling practitioners of the Black Bloc arts could retreat unchallenged and un-interfered with by the police to change clothes so that they might blend back with the regular crowd.

Indeed, it might have been better for the police to arrest the vandals and miscreants while they were running amok instead of standing around Queens Park hassling the non-violent protesters. May the police should learn to obey the law, to wit:

Criminal Code of Canada - Neglect by peace officer

69. A peace officer who receives notice that there is a riot within his jurisdiction and, without reasonable excuse, fails to take all reasonable steps to suppress the riot is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

R.S., c. C-34, s. 70.

Speaking of the criminal code, Blatchford might want to keep this one in the back of her mind:

C.C.C. - Spreading false news

181. Every one who wilfully publishes a statement, tale or news that he knows is false and that causes or is likely to cause injury or mischief to a public interest is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

But back to her so-called arguments:


Fourth, since with the wisdom of hindsight it is now apparent that everyone knew that the anarchists/Black Bloc types would try to wreak havoc on the city, why are the organizers of the legitimate protests not being questioned about their accountability? They too presumably knew – as did police and security forces – that their peaceful demonstrations likely would be disrupted; what steps did they take to stop such a hijacking?


So in hindsight why didn't the organizers demonstrate their foresight and stop the black bloc from joining their protest? How would they have done that? If "everyone knew" why didn't the downtown merchants board up their windows for  the weekend? Why didn't every single resident south of the 401 leave town for the weekend? 
The protest organizers were not being paid a billion dollars to provide security, the police were. It is not the responsibility of the protest organizers to vet everyone who joins a demonstration. It is the job of the police to stop crimes in progress.
I think better questions might be "Since the police bragged about having infiltrated the Black Bloc and having monitored their communications, why didn't they stop them from running amok?" and "Does Christie Blatchford not realize that organizing a political protest is akin to herding cats and that the organizers have no authority to make anyone do anything -- is she really that stupid or is she just being incredibly dishonest?"

Fifth, in Toronto Star lingo, since “the sweeping powers” granted the police via the “secret” law saw them, according to Toronto Chief Bill Blair, arrest exactly one (1) person under the temporary regulation to the Public Works Protection Act, isn’t the angst-ridden, hyperbolic debate rendered, as someone brighter than me remarked recently, nothing but an intellectual exercise?

"Toronto Star lingo?" Really, Blatchford? Well, I suppose this will let you play victim for your conservative audience if the scribes at The Star decide to hit back or fact check anything you write. From now on any and all criticism of the Globe or yourself can now be attributed to people at The Star not being able to take a little joshing, right?

And I guess if you haven't been arrested, just searched, yelled at, possibly beaten or otherwise abused under a law that doesn't actually exist, well your civil rights haven't really been violated.  I guess us angsty, intellectual eggheads should stop worrying about the rule of law and abuse of authority in civil society and just shut up, is that it?

It would quite one thing if the 1,000 folks who were detained on G20 weekend were detained under the temporary regulation. The discussion would be meaningful.

But when it’s all said and done, it will turn out that most of those detained were arrested for breach of the peace or to prevent a breach of the peace, which is an arrest authority, not a criminal charge.

So discussion of abuse of that arrest authority is meaningless?

In my view, it’s a vile authority too, generally speaking easily misused by police, and it may have been misused here as well.

So giving the police the authority to arrest people for breach of the peace is vile and you agree that such authority may have been abused, but talking about that is meaningless?

But the point is, it wasn’t under the new secret sweeping power, which was only partly secret and not very sweeping. It was under long-established common-law police authorities, such as arresting people for breach of the peace or to prevent a breach of the peace that has yet to take place, that most people were picked up.

You want to be angry about something, be angry about that.

We are, that's why people are complaining to the police review board. But we can be angry about more than one thing at a time. Don't you even read your own paper?  And "partly secret?" Is that like "sort of confidential" or "a little bit pregnant" or "slightly illegal" -- or is it sort of like "kind of a hack as a writer?"

Finally, how amusing it is to see Toronto, press and public alike, whip themselves into a frenzy of outrage over alleged police inaction and then alleged police overreaction, when all of this, in terms even more stark, happened in Caledonia, Ont., from 2006 onwards, and no one gave a fig.


Plenty of people, especially in Caledonia and on the Six Nations Reserve have been giving more than a fig for quite awhile, since well before 2006. I used to work there and trust me, the dispute goes back a lot further than that. You and the rest of Toronto just haven't noticed because it didn't happen in Hogtown.


Honestly, the Globe should be embarrassed by this ill-considered, poorly-written screed of a column.
Blatchford just doesn't get it at all. The point of the complaint is that the police were unlawfully attacking, abusing and arresting people for being observers at a demonstration that they forcibly (and quite possibly illegally) broke up. Their status as journalists strongly supports their contention that they were observers, not bystanders. Blatchford's attempt to smear them as some sort of lying amateur wannabes just because they don't work in her office is dishonest and dishonorable. Real journalists everywhere should be disowning this police mouthpiece as a colleague.


crossposted from the Woodshed

Correction

Harper sends in the lightweights

If you haven't listened to CBC's The Current today it's well worth the time if only to realize that Barry Cooper, one of the Calgary School feeding Harper-government policy, is still peddling a line which flies in the face of rule of law, shows a distinct lack of respect for established convention and thinks people are worth wasting in the name of, what he described as, "foreign policy".

It doesn't matter what you think of Omar Khadr or his family. The question put before the Federal Court of Canada was, "Did Canada participate in the violation of rights of the individual as protected by the Charter of Human Rights and the Constitution of Canada?"

The court said "Yes," to that question and, for the sixth time, ordered the Government of Canada to present a plan to remedy the violation in which Canada actively participated.

When questioned about the Federal Court decision on today's The Current, Cooper, dismissed rule of law and tried to make it a foreign policy issue in which he says the courts have no jurisdiction. That would be egregious enough, but then he played his Karl Rove by stating that Justice Russell W. Zinn, the Federal Court judge who issued the order and the deadline, was an activist judge who should keep his opinions to himself.

Really?

Either Cooper thought he could pull one over on the listeners or he simply wasn't prepared to be speaking in such a public place because Nathalie Des Rosiers of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association nuked him on the spot.

Justice Russell W. Zinn was appointed to the Federal Court on 20 February, 2008 - by Stephen Harper.

Throughout the rest of the piece Cooper did little more than duck and weave in an attempt to turn a legal matter into something it isn't.

Listen to the whole thing. It's really worth listening to Cooper make himself irrelevant.