Did anyone see this in the news? (I thought not)

Last week, News Corp head honco Rupert MURDOCK was quoted as saying that advertising sales appear to have bottomed out in the last few weeks of September (versus last year, at least) which triggered a bounce in a number of the remaining newspaper stocks (Tribune, New York Times) .

In Canada, Canwest was again given another reprieve, presumably based on the possibility for the upcoming CRTC hearings about CableTV "passthrough" to generate some revenue for Global, CTV and CBC broadcast operations.

As I am becoming more and more disgusted with many other newspapers (Mindy JACBOBS at Edmonton Sun, Antonia ZERBISIAS at Torstar plus many others at Globe&Mail and CBC) it struck me that "the rubber may finally be hitting the road" in regards to such upsetting fringe journalists, who only survive on the basis of being granted tenure by publishers who wish to seem "balanced" or are content to stir the pot by having such deranged individuals writing for them. The only reason for this has been the monopoly power of the major news media to finance such vanities by ad revenue. That revenue base is eroding - rapidly. With the growth and popularization of the web blogger, much of this power is transferred back to individuals. There is no need to support newspapers that do not provide a serive of value - like independently providing a "news service" rather than filtered ideology.

In this spirit, I fell across this story in the Daily Mail (2009Sep14 - A million march to US Capitol to protest against 'Obama the socialist') newspaper that I seriously DO NOT recall at all.

Here was another blogger comment on the event, referencing other blog sources.

Here is another blogger who feels the same.

Peace Crime!

George JONAS in the National Post has presented what I consider the final word on these outrageous charges made by the left against Israel. Among his main points:

• Judge GOLDSTONE's report was prepared by UN Human Rights Council - who's sterling members include Libya, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia!
• GOLDSTONE parrots the Arab allegations that Israel's defensive actions against Gaza in January 2009 was “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself and to force upon it an ever-increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.”
• No mention of what constitutes "a proportionate response" when one is being terrorized by "a belligerent intent on your destruction".
• where the international doctrine of "proportionality" existed before being brought up in his report (it didn't).
  
• failure to distinguish between aggressor and self-defense, ignoring the right and obligation of a state to stop rocket and mortar fire from reaching it's citizens and their children.
  
• if stopping rocket-launchers that target civilians is a war-crime, then criminalizing self-defense is a "peace crime".
• GOLDSTONE threatens to refer Israel's leaders to the International Criminal Court unless they investigate and punish some scapegoats. JONAS reminds us that Canada is a signatory to this UN legislation.
  

How disgusting.

[Update: This continues with the nattering opponents commentary are graciously given the space to hang themselves. Towit: Judy REBICK, Naomi KLEIN and Johanathon KAY]

The Onion News Network

These reports seem appropriate.


Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids


Precocious Youngster Sells Cookies To Buy Attack Ad


Police Slog Through 40,000 Insipid Party Pics To Find Cause Of Dorm Fire


Advocacy Group Decries PETA's Inhumane Treatment Of Women

I'd like to teach the world Sharia

If you remember the 1970's this will strike a chord. (It is sung the the old Coke a cola tune "I'd like to teach the world to sing"). These guys are hilarious.



Here are the lyrics:

I'd like to teach the world Sharia

Music by Coca-Cola, Lyrics by Laika the space Dog

I'd like to build the Jews a bomb And furnish it with nails Grow jihadis and martyrees And wake the Twelfth Imam Chorus: I'd like to teach the world Sharia In perfect harmony I'd like to crush it in my arms And show no sympathy (That's the song I hear) I'd like to see the world for once (Let the world sing today) All Muslim land to land And hear them fatwa through the hills For fear throughout the land That's the song I hear (That's the song I hear) Let the world sing today (Let the whole wide world keep singing) An Ayatollah ruling us And never goes away (Repeat 1st stanza and Chorus) Put your jiziya in my hand Let's begin today Put your jiziya in my hand Or we’ll chop your head away. (Repeat Chorus 'til fade)

Fearless Forcasts - held to account?

From "The Monkey Cage" blog I found this entertaining site, Wrong Tomorrow which is a semi-humorous website dedicated to ensuring those who are courageous enough to make "fearless forecasts" will be hopefully be held to account for their calls.

From a politicians view, this could be good or bad. Certainly for a market strategist/economist it will be death.

I will be make a point of being more careful in the future.

Computer & Laptop Security

I recently found this blog post detailing how a well known Canadian security program Computrace (created by Vancouver security group Absolute Software) describes how it could be turned against the owner. Here is Absolute's response.

Irregardless of the likelyhood of such a security breech (the point being that if someone steals your laptop and it has something worth stealing, they have alot of ways to discover them and can be sucessful) it only points to another obvious reason to develop security measures for PC use, including data drive encryption (which I can not stress enough) via open source programs like TrueCrypt. (Again, which I personally use and totally endorse!)

I hope these links help.

Female Serial Killers

I ran across a review of this book by Torontonian, Peter VRONSKY in a Criminology Journal and was surprised to find an interesting collection of eclectic topics covered - among them teaching The History of Nazism and The American Civil War at Ryerson University in Toronto (we used to call it Rye High).

I think he would be an interesting fellow to ask about 1) the outbreak of IPV murder-suicides that appear to have broken out recently and 2) Similarities between the Reichstag Fire which triggered a constitutional hijacking of Government by the National Socialists and last winters attempted "Unholy Alliance" between the Liberals, NDP and Bloc and 3) Similarities between the "Peoples Court" of the Third Reich and CHRC's attempts to remove our rights of expression as disclosed by Ezra LEVANT.

[here are notes on HST 603 - HISTORY OF THE THIRD REICH by Peter VRONSKY]

10 year old girl fined $50 for operating a lemonade stand without a license

10 year old girl fined $50 for operating a lemonade stand without a license.

Can it get any worse than this? (and with tomorrow - Aug 20 - being National Lemonade Day?). Sometimes you couldn't even imagine this stuff.

Perhaps it is a play on that good ole American maxim "If you got lemons, make lemonade (but ask the SEC first)?

Backup Madness

Ok, I do this alot. But with all the o/s upgrades and reinstalls I now have a mass of DC's and DVD's from previous efforts. Having used Backup software in the past (like the recently deposed Microsoft OneCare) I am now finding it a pain that I must reinstall the backup program to Restore! So I am looking for a new app that can "migrate" with me a little easier.

In the meantime I have decided to just use WinZip v12.1 - it can compress files as it Archives and I just write the password on the CD/DVD and store in a secure location. That is the simplest way for now. (plus I have been using WinZip forever so I don't have to keep learning it! Although I find I have to upgrade occasionally.)

However, in my "search" one program I really liked was Gmail BACKUP. I am running it now. It is true that one of the things that has bothered me about Gmail is I may never be able to leave the service as it holds EVERYTHING (and is becoming MORE ubiquitous) so this is a real find!

[here is MakeUseOf's summary]

Honour Killings in Kingston

Le point de bascule (tipping point) has another angle on this tragic story that has not been commented upon in the English language press (finally the walls are coming down!). Of course it is likely that it is natural waryness of the Quebec media to be rather, well - European - with the truth. Or at least that is the way anglophone reporters regard the fast and loose reportage in "La Belle Province".

Mohammad Shafia, the father of the 3 girls (his daughters) and 1 women (his first wife) may be able to recieve compensation from the Quebec No-Fault Auto Insurance Society SAAQ (la Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec) in the order of $200,000.

Here is the (English) post featuring an interview with the former Minister responsible for SAAQ.