Sept.12: The journalistic culture of lying by omission.

When Obama was first campaigning, he often quoted Martin Luther King's ringing words of the 1960s to end racial discrimination in the US. The words were "I have a dream..." What Obama did not say, and what the news media have never said in the more than 40 years since King spoke those words, is that FBI immediately mounted the biggest operation in its history. The purpose of the campaign was to discredit King, to smear, and to spread the impression he was a communist agent. And the man who ordered that that was smiling, cute, and cuddable Bobby Kennedy, the brother of John F. Nor has the TandT mentioned recent disclosures that the share of the wealth going to the top 1% im the US have reached its highest level since 1928. (The figures are much the same for Canada.) And the greater part of food stamps in the US no longer go to the slums of cities. They go the suburbs, to the homes of the shattered middle class. The TandT seems also to have missed the story that a Russian guided missile cruiser has entered the Mediterranian, and is headed toward Syria. It is designed primarily to sink aircraft carriers, the major weapons in most of America's overseas wars are aircraft carriers. So it should be no souprise that the TandT has still not mentioned yesterday's announcement that Irving Oil misrespresented the danger of the type of oil it was shipping, that such misrepresentation is illegal..And that 47 people died because of it. There is not a word about it in the paper. Got an explanation for that, Norbert? And will you now write one of you patent rants, but this time about the Irvings? There is still no mention of what is now an old story, though new information has been added the an original story that was bad enough. Prof. Lapierre, the man the shale gas industry used to discredit the warning of the province's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Cleary, the man who has been named chair of committee to oversea Shale gas safety, the man praised by the TandT for his learning, has 'misinformed' his university and us about his qualifications. This man, whom the TandT described as a man or towering achievement and insight in science, does not have the doctroate in science he claimed to have. We know now --- sorry, we don't know now because lying Brunswick Press doesnt tell us....he does not have a doctorate in science. He has a doctorate in teaching from a university nobody has ever heard of. Yessirree. The man in charge of our health, perhaps our lives, and the safety of the land we walk on and the water we drink, has a teaching degree from some place in the boondocks. (For that matter, even a doctorate in ecology, if he had one, would scarcely justify favouring his word over that of a medical doctor on issues of threats to health.) Day after day, the TandT lies by omission. Everyone who works for that propaganda rag should be profoundly ashamed. The owner should be profoundly ashamed. (But I don't think he is. He seems to live by a beilef in that perversion of a real capitalism that says the capitalist should look after himself with no regard whatever on the effect it has on others. That's not capitalism. That's just greed, ignorance and irresponsibility. Preachers at the irving Chapel must have to do some considerable censoring of The Bible before their sermons.) _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Section A, as usual, has almost nothing worth reading. Their is a story about the problems facing our lobster fiehery. But from there, it's a huge story about a sidewalk cafe in Sackville being closed, a free ad disguised as a story about a new shop in Moncton - and lots of pictures - such as a man psying golf with a hockey stick, and a big picture of two men who are organizing a brakfast to raise money for a worthy cause. A picture should add something to a story. a shot of two men in suits tells us nothing. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ NewsToday has a story about how Canadian troops were victims of the first chemical attack in history,when Germans released poison gas on them. It's true that Canadians were major targets of the first GAS attack. It's also true that they handled it with a courage and discipline that saved the day for a whole section of the Allied front. But the first poison gas attack was not the first chemical attack. The poisoning of water and food has been going on for millenia. So has the deliberate spread of disease. The ancient Greeks used chumicals to make a weapon called "Greek Fire". And just three years after the poison gas attack on Canadians, Winston Churchill happily used it to bomb defenceless Kurd villagers. Inicidentally, in the international rules against chemical weapons, one of the offending weapons is tear gas. So all North American police forces are breaking the law. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The front page of NewsToday, almost the only news we get of the world beyond Miramichi, features a story about New Yorkers gathering in memeory of the 3,000 killed by terrorist on the day of 9/11. No one could possible find fault with that. But have you never noticed that we never hear of the millions of Vietnamese killed by US terrorists? The half million killed in the bombing of a defenceless Cambodia? The native peoples killed in Guatemala? the more than a million killed in Iraq? The two hundred thousand killed so far in a Syrian war begun, financed and supplied by the US and its allies? The tremendous slaughter and abuse of native peoples in Canada and the US? The injunction to love one's neighbour does not refer simply to the people who live next door, and who look and talk like us. Syria makes it in a brief article that tells us nothing we didn't already know. Then there's a big story (with a blurry picture) about how jungle apes make their travel plans. A must-read. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The editorial is the usual gush about any development project in Moncton. This time, it's about a plan to install, among other things,a restaurant in the old Moncton High. It will, says the editor, attract people after games at the "events" centre. Right. I can see it now, thousands of people walking from Highfield Square, passing all the restaurants on Main St., then turning for the walk up to Moncton High for a meal. Look. This is trivial crap. Could we have an editorial on the Lapierre situation? Norbert continues on yesterday's rant - all politicians are stupid - but this time the focus is on Liberal leader Gallant. This is just childish. Way beyond childish. Of course, Gallant has nothing to offer. Neither does Alward. Neither did Graham. Typically, a premier of this province is owned and directed by Irving and other corporate bosses. Let that sink in, Norbert. The problem with this province is not dumb politicians. The problem is that they are owned by greedy and short-sighted corporation leaders. You should be able to understand that, Norbert. After all, these are the people who own you and your wretched newspapers - and who own wretched you. The great virtue of the other parties is that they have NOT been bought off - and are not likely to be. Rod Allen is Rod Allen with a quie pointless story that wildly overstates the role of the Cape Jouriman lighthouse in confederation. The only good stuff in the paper is Alec Bruce and Beth Lyons. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I'm starting to enjoy letter to the editor by "Skip" Wallin. I've never seen letters that are so wildly illogical. Today's letter features an argument that Canada is just as dangerous with guns as the US is. A major piece of evidence? Nunavut has a higher rate of gun violence than Louisiana does.Think about it. This is, I believe, the same writer who proved conclusively that shale gas is absolutely harmless. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sept. 11 1/2: This is simply a footnote to the blog for Sept. 1 - but quite a footnote.

The Canadian Transport Safety Board has announced that the crude oil that killed 47 people in Lac Megantic was NOT properly classified. It had been listed to authorities as a type of crude that was less volatile than it really was. Far from being relatively safe, it was as volatile as gasoline, and therefore far more likely than most crude oil yo explode in a collision. And who was responsible for listing the category of oil it was? Irving Oil. Will the Brunswick News carry this story tomorrow? Time to lay your money down.

Sept 11: the propaganda buildup to attack Syria has begun.

First, though, let me pass on a web site which was sent to me by a reader. It's a superb interview on the decay and collapse of journalism. It's by a person more knowledgeable in the field than I am. And it paints a picture even worse than I had thought in my gloomiest moments. http://www.youtube.comwatch?v=F17Nt9fCGz --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As to Syria, check "Syrian weapons plan bogs down". Pay close attenttion to the sub-head (the smaller headline under the large one). It reads "As U.S., France seek UN resolution, Russia rejects threats of force to ensure Syria disarms." That's very cleverly written. In the sub-head, the US and France are good guys who are seeking a solution. Russia is the bad guy trying to wreck it. The reality is that Russia is the country which proposed the solution in the first place - not, as most reporting has implied, the US. The reality is that Syria, not the US or France, was the first to accept it. (Another unrevealed story is that German intelligence says that Assad had specifically ordered his troops NOT to us chemical weapons.) If you read the news report, the impression is that the US and France want a peaceful solution - and Russia and Syria are blocking the way. That comes from The Associated Press, oen of the world's biggest press services, and a regular in the pages of the TandT. It even quotes the French foreign minister as saying it's all a trap. Really? A reporter with any brains would have asked him. "What trap? What are you babbling about? How could agreeing to hand over its chemical weapons be a trap? Are they going to hide Syrian soldiers in the gas tanks then, when they get to storage, have them break out and conquer the US and France?" It's stupid statement. But it achieves what it's supposed to. Millions of readers who have never even seen a Syrian will nod wisely, and tell friends, "Them Syrians is some sly. Ya gotta watch 'em'." The reality is that France and the US are putting forward a UN resolution to threaten Syria with attacks and legal sanctions if it doesn't hand over its chemical weapons. The purpose of that is to make it impossible for the Syrian president to turn them over without profound humiliation for himself and Syria - amd quite likely to destroy his government - with no replacement in sight.And even if he does accept those terms, the US and France will find another reason for bombing. You think it's no big deal to hand over all your chemical weapons in the middle of a war? So where were you when the US was burying Vietnam under napalm and Agent Orange? When it supplied Saddam Hussein with Sarin? When it littered Iraq with depleted uranium? Under the smokescreen of the news, what has happened is that Syria has accepted a peaceful proposal. The US and France are trying to make it impossible for Syria to accept it. They want to bomb. And they are going to do it. The why I can only guess. So here goes. A 'rebel' win would make Syria an al Quaeda state.Not good for the US or Israel. A win for the Syrian government, but not for US oil companies or for Israel. The US solution may be simply to destroyed an organized society in Syria, to turn it into a chaotic hell on earth. That's what they did in Libya. As a leadup, think of a possible next step. Supply the 'rebels' with gas to be fired into Israel - then claim it was Assad who did it. Incidentally, an enquiring press might make some effort to find out whether Canada has chemical weapons. It it doesn't, it's one of the few developed countries in the world that doesn't. The US has huge stocks of chemical weapons. Think they'll offer to turn theirs over to the UN? ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Quebec Charter of Values (p.C 3) is one hell of a dangerous and socially corrupt piece of legislation. It allows government to decide what our "values" must be. Unless my values lead me to be a danger to the lives of others, they are none of the government's damn business. (And I note that though turbans will be forbiden. there will still be a huge crucifix in the Quebec Assembly. and a monstrously ugly cross overlooking the city from Mount Royal.) What has happened is that the Parti Quebecois has run out of things to do - and it once put forward some badly needed social legislation. So it has fallen back on the old, Quebec tradition of racism, collecting a charter of the values it decides the Quebec race has. It reminds me of Harper's attitude to native peoples.And brings back the memory of the day I visited a lake for rich anglos north of Montreal. Since I was directing a camp for the YMHA that summer, I wore a T shirt with a Star of David on it. That led to a stormy meeting of of the lake's wealthy, anglo cottagers to ask who had invited "the Jew" to this sacred spot. Both the Conservatives and the NDP in Ottawa have opposed it. Section A tells us that a man in Guelph is happy to have a heart transplant. This story is twice the size of the story on Syria. And it is so trivial as to be utterly brainless. Much of the rest of section A is full of free ads. "Rankin to play at casino----Margaret Trudeau to visit Miramichi." Who bloody cares? Why do we pay to read this? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Kurt Peacock continues to act as a stenographer at the top of Section C to quote people who have nothing to say. Alec Bruce's column is well written - but on the light side. Norbert rants about how our politicians are incompetent. He dismisses the lesser parties, though he gives no evidence he knows anything about them at all. Certainly his newspaper never tells us anything about them. I agree that the Conservatives and Liberals are incompetent. But they don't run the province, Norbert. Read your own newspaper. Two years ago, the great one himself got a flunky to write a column that he was in coalition with the government. Yes. Mr. Irving said in that column that he was a member of the government. And at a high level. He appointed the official advisers to the Minister of Finance. That's the budget (and the deficit) among other things. In other words, Norbert, you are suggesting that Mr. Irving is an incompetent ass. I have some sympathy for that view. But are you sure you want to go there? He also criticizes the public for not following events more closely. Where are they going to do this following, Norbert? In you contemptible newspaper that prints only lies, trivia and propaganda? Oh - in column 3 of your essay, Norbert, you say "neither are enough". Norbert - neither is singular. So,"Neither IS enough." You also say "gotten". Well, it is commonly used, Norbert. But it's wrong. In column 4, your write "...we'd at least have gotten a hint..." Not only is the gotten sort of, you know, lower class - but "have gotten" is using two words that mean the same thing. You should have written, ...we'd at least have a hint.." Keep trying Norbert. There's a good boy. Brian Cormier and Eric Lewis have nothing to say. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ A "must read" is a letter to the editor "outraged by movie role for Fonda". it's from a reader who was disgusted when Jane Fonda visited North Vietnam during the Vietnamese war. She spoke in favour of the North in its war against the US, even though he says she must have known US prisoners of war were being tortured. She "lowered" herself to side with the communists". She was a "peacenik" Ugh. I see the writer's logic. In World War Two, there were Germans who opposed Hitler. Some escaped to Britain and North America. We should have condemned those traitors. those people who betrayed their government and its wise leader. They were unpatriotic. The people we should have supported were those who were loyal - Hermann Goering, Goebbels, Himmler. These were the patriots. And the North Vietnamese tortured some prisoners? Oh, my goodness. Our side would never do such a thing. (Incidentally, think of the US presidential candidate who claimed he was tortured after being shot down. In fact, he was terribly injured when he crashed into a lake, and was saved only by the courage of a North Vietnamese who swam out to save him. He was then taken to the Hanoi Hilton where his torture consisted of doctors treating his many, serious injuries, and saving his life. On the US side, American troops killed millions, mostly civilians, using some of the most brutal means known, including vast quantities of chemical weapons. The war was also illegal under international law. The US claims it was okay because France had asked the US to join it. That's nonsense. Picture this. A friend is robbing a bank. You agree to help him. You get caught. You tell the judge it was okay because your friend asked you. Let me know how it comes out. The American government threw away 60,000 Americans on a war that should never have been fought in the first place. The rich kids, like George Bush II, survived because rich daddies kept them safe in the National Guard. Why is the letter writer so bitter? First, he got his information from the news services - places like Brunswick News. And it was heavily propaganda. Yes, the "Hanoi Hilton" had a terrible reputation. But the writer learned about that only from our news services, and from a propaganda movie. We have to read more widely than that. We have to learn not to believe propaganda. As to torture, the US is scarcely the country to point the finger. It operates the largest and most shophisticated torture apparatus in history. And, finally, WE DO NOT OWE OUR FIRST LOYALTY TO OUR GOVERNMENTS. Our first loyalty is to our faith, our sense of morality, to our common sense. Anyone whose first loyalty is to any government is a zombie slave. Anybody can kill. Anybody can cheer the parades. Anybody can pay taxes to maintain torture camps all over the world. The poliical and economic leaders of any country are commonly so greedy and murderous as to satisfy anybody's definition of evil. Goering and Himmler were loyal. But they were not heroes. The heroes were the ones who were disloyal to the Third Reich. And many paid a heavy price for it. Oh, there's also another factor at work here. Prejudice. What our troops do is never bad - not really - because they're our kind of folks. What those foreigners do is always bad. Prejudice. And, I'm afraid, we all have it. And our governments and our economic leaders and their puppet news media know how to use that for their propaganda. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Section A isn't worth commenting on.

Sept. 10: And the big story of the day is...

...headline, page 1...Riverview man is new, national president of Ducks Unlimited. Wow! Get your paper fast before this one sells out. Now, I certainly don't intend to suggest that the choice of a local person for president of Ducks Unlimited is not newsworthy. Of course, it is. But it's not front page stuff, not when theh person in charge of developing out gas regulations is being investigated for faulty credentials, not when our premier, who told us our railways were perfectly safe is now urging premiers across Canada to take action to make them safe, not when we don't know whether crude oil is still being sent here by rail, not when we have no word of any search for the cause of the Lac Megantic disaster, not when we have a prime minister who supports a US attack on Syria but will not commit this country to it, not when the situation in Syria is already one of the major events of modern history. But Dear Abby, Ducks Unlimited, the governor of Maine approving the pipeline and suchlike get more coverage than any of the above. That fits the pattern of an American survey of US newspapers showing they gave three times as much coverage to Miley Cyrus as to Syria. The role of the private news media has become not to inform us but to keep us ignorant with page after page of trivia scattered with propaganda. The TandT may be the worst and most insulting of the bunch; but its general style is no exception to the rule. The editorial slobbers all over premier Alward's new chief of staff as the greatet man since Adam. But it's not clear why. The result is an editorial that looks like, and is, brainless propaganda. Norbert offers a column about Maritime migration, giving us information we already know - and then going nowhere with it. His one suggestion is his usual half-wit one tbat the government is too big, and spends too much money. There is no mention that perhaps big busines is what is too big, so big it runs the government. It also takes too much and gives too little. Government is the only institution we have that gives us power. Destroy that power, and we destroy ourselves. And that is preccisely what we are doing. Alan Cochrane writes a column on how it's not nice to fight on Main St. Something to think about. There's a good column by Suzuki, and a mostly good, partly puzzling one by Alec Bruce. Most of harper's piece is about an essay that appeared in Harper's Magazine. That part of it is excellent. He talks about the great recession triggered by big business on Wall St. which ran wild because of lack of government controls. (Read that, Norbert, and think a little bit.) The leading capitalists behaved not only irresponsibly but even criminally - and then got rewarded with so much tax money that millions of Americans have been impoverished. (One in six now live on food stamps.) The essay is no exaggeration. Indeed, it's really far worse than the essay suggests. That mix of greed and power (combined with the greed and power of the "defence" industries) has created a national debt so great that it can never be paid - not even if the American economy improves. And it's not going to improve. There's nothing to improve with. All those lost American jobs did not cease to exist. Those jobs still exist - in foreign countries where big business can hire people dirt cheap. That's what free trade is all about - cheap labour and freedom to pollute combined with low to zero taxes for the super wealthy. Most new jobs in the US are at the lowest possible pay. Occasionally, employment figures seem to improve slightly. But that's a statistical illusion. Those who give up any hope of finding a job or who cannot find one within a certain time-frame are no longer counted as being unemployed. For purposes of statistics, they cease to exist. And so - whoopee - we can all pretend that employment rates are improving. As well, the American debt is so high that the dollar is really worthless. But government keeps big business happy simply by printing more paper every year - and then forcing the rest of the world to use the US dollar as the unit of international trade. How do they enforce that? By invading countries that won't play by their rules. Thus the endless wars of the last dozen years, each of them costing even more money the US doesn't really have - and each of them forcing the nuclear powers, including the US, to consider using nuclear weapons before it's too late. According to the Yale Journal of International Affairs, the US already has a plan for a pre-emptive strike on China. Of course. Big business has to dispose of China as a competitor before it's too late, before China calls in its loans or dumps its American dollars or simply drops the dollar as a unit of exchange. But a US military which cannot defeat even Vietnam or Afghanistan with conventional warfare, certainly cannot defeat a China. Thus the need for a pre-emptive strike. That's part of the reason that an attack on Syria could have terrible consequences. So I don't disagree with what Alec Bruce says or with what the article in Harper's said. Indeed,I think they could have gone a lot further. So, why does Bruce, in his last paragraph, seem to trivialize it? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Speaking of Syria, the TandT has two stories on it. One, on page C3, is a propaganda piece which gives itself away with loaded language. I have no coubt that Assad of Syria is not a nice guy. But he did not invade anybody, and he did not begin the civil war, and he did not murder Christians. That war was started by the US and it middle east allies. And the people fighing against Assad are not 'rebels'. They are foreign mercenaries paid and armed by the US and its friends. The other story is on the proposal that the quarrel with the US be settled by Syria turning over its chemical weapons for storage. That places Obama in a tough spot. The US suffered its greatest diplomatic defeat ever when most of the world rejected its proposal to attack Syria. Now, it is Putin, of all people, taking centre stage as the "good guy". Now, Obama will be damned if he does attack - and damned by American big business, by Israel, by Saudi Arabia if he doesn't. My guess is he will attack. It will be interesting to see the propaganda buildup in our newspapers for the coming week. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ On the positive side, there is a hell of a simple but good and intelligent letter to the editor, "Final solution for Main Street?"

Sept. 9: Let's start on a light note because ....

...the rest gets pretty heavy. On Saturday, Aurelle Pare, who always writes an excellent column on health, wrote one on an ear problem called tinnitus. It causes ringing in the ear, or a buzz, and it's annoying. It develops when the ears are exposed to excessive noise - like very loud music or machinery. Mine developed, probably, out of firing thousands of rounds of pistol ammunition in a concrete firing range, and wearing no ear protection. But it's not all bad. I get ringing, of course. But I also get music, some of it quite good. I've had opera, symphonies, folk songs, school songs - music that I thought I had long forgotten. Apparently, our minds have a big hard drive just packed with stuff we think we've forgotten. And each morning I wake up to a broadcast of radio news read by a newscaster who I was on with every day for many years. But, yes, generally it's a nuisance. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The headline today is that Alward is going to push for rail safety at a premiers conference. But why? Remember Lac Megantic? He told us right after the disaster that our railways were perfectly safe. Is he now retracting that? And could we now have a statement on whether Irving Oil is still shipping crudeto St. John by rail? At least, though, this is a real, news story. The rest of section A is filled with trivia. For example,a Moncton-based frozen yogurt store is expanding to three more provinces. I really needed to know that. Now for the heavy part. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The only big news in the paper is that Obama wants to attack Syria. Secretary of State Kerry has been foaming at the mouth about it. "This is our encounter with Muhich." "Can we stand by and watch the slaughter?" In fact, there is no resemblance between this crisis and Munich - which was an attempt by a British p.m. avoid a war. As for standing by to watch a slaughter, the American government stood by while its own forces slaughtered millions. As for the possibility that chemical weapons were used in Syria. The US has made claims, but has made public no evidence they were used, and no evidence they were used by the Syrian government. Most of the world, including most of the West, has told the US to get stuffed. Its only supporters are the usual stooges like Canada, South Korea, and Japan - none of which has shown any desire to take part in an attack. As for the use of chemical weapons being a horror, it is. However, the US has used chemical weapons for a century. It still does. It dumped 20 million gallons of Agent Orange in Vietnam. It still infects thousands of American veterans of Vietnam, causing horrible birth defects to their children and great grandchildren. It used napalm in Japan, largely against civilians. It also used napalm in Vietnam. (Napalm is a forbidden chemical weapon under international convention.) Israel used phopshorous in Palestine just four years ago. The US didn't even report it. The US supplied Saddam Hussein with Sarin, among other chemical weapons, for use against Iran. It used depleted uranium lavishly in Iraq, causing high rates of cancer that persist. And, oh yes, how soon we forget, It experimented with poison gas in the 1950s. It spread poison gas over the poor (African-American) districts of St. Louis. The result was a high rate of cancer in those districts. For at least sixty years, the US has been the world's largest maker, supplier and user of chemical weapons. Now, it demands the world support it in attacking Syria for (maybe) using it. Then there's the historical background you won't get in any news report. During and after World War I, Britain, France, Spain, Italy interfered massively with the middle east and north Africa. They took over vast oilfields, installed phony royal families (as in Saudi Arabia), stooge dictators in some, and direct rule in some. And so began years of brutal exploitation. When, after 1945, the European empire collapsed, the US began its move to take over, and create its own empire in the region. Britain and France have grabbed onto US coattails hopeing that, by joining in, they can get some bits of their old empires back. Libya was a part of that takeover. That's why Canada sent bombers. Libya was getting too independent. So the leader was killed, and the country plunged into a chaos of violence and hunger from which it has never recovered. But the US has the oilfields. Syria is another part of that takeover process. The so-called "civil war" in Syria was begun, paid for, supplied with mercenaries, weapons and money by the US and its allies like Saudi Arabia, the emirates and Turkey. The US HAS BEEN in this war from the start. There is no civil war in Syria. There is an invasion of Syria, largely by foreign mercenaries. and with the US pulling the strings from the start. I don't know the cause of this recent decision by Obama to get involved directly. It may be his fear that the so-called rebel forces will win - and then establish an extreme Moslem state in Syria. It may be his fear that the Syrian government will win. But why should we worry about Obama's reasons? Obama is a stooge for big business just as much as George Bush was . He always has been. It was evident, or should have been, in his first presidential campaign, that he was nothing but a smiling face and a chant of "we can do it." Obama is simply the US equivalent of a Justin Trudeau - or a Brian Gallant. In short, since 9/11, the US has continuously fought expensive, extremely brutal, and largely unsuccesful wars to satisfy the big business dream of "The American Century" of world dominance. The G20 has been its biggest diplomatic defeat in history as only a very few toadies like Canada, France, South Korea, Japan offered support - and most of their support was moral. But no teeth. Where will this take us? That's anybody's guess. Three of the biggest countries in the world - Russia, China, and India - have a stake in blocking American big business. So do almost all of the people in South America, Africa, Europe and Asia. At best, the American strike would lead to a long and extraordinarily brutal war - and perhaps even a losing one. The US military has shown serious limitations over the past 60 years. But even those outcomes are the ones we will get only if we're very lucky. This is one hell of a serious time we're facing. That's why the TandT gave the story almost as much coverage as the expansion of a local, frozen yogurt shop. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The best of the editorial and op ed are Alec Bruce and Steve Malloy. As well, Craig Babstock has a good column on bail in courts. It's must better and more important that that description sounds. Norbert writes an essay on statistics. Alas! He doesn't appear to understand anything about them. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Now, I shall sit back, and listen to the bells tolling in my ears.

Sept. 7:...oh, my....oh, my...oh my...

...oh, my... If you will check yesterdays' blog, you will find a comment from a reader at the foot of it. The note says that yesterday, CBC news reported that U de Moncton has released the news that it is opening an investigation into the qualifications of Prof. Lapierre. You my remember him. He is the man who was praised to the heavens by Brunswick News when he squashed the report of Chief Medical Officer Cleary, and said that developing shale gas was quite safe. Prof. Lapierre then removed his lips from the read ends of shale gas executives, and lowered his own pants to receive the kisses of Brunswick News. In those pages, he became a scholar of world distinction, highly qualified. Alward, after pulling up his pants, made him official front man for going ahead with shale gas. And now the university is examining his credentials, and doing it openly. It's rare to have such an examination of credentials in any university - though it should be more common. And I have never before heard of a university announcing it publicly. University credentials are maintained by professors in a personal file called a Curriculum Vitae (CV) which lists educational credentials and professional activities such as publication, speaking, committtee service.... Many of them are inflated. But examinations are few. And public examinations almost unheard of. Reporters can't be faulted in this case. A Brent Mazerolle may describe a Prof. Lapierre as eminently qualified - but the reality is that Brent Mazerolle is not qualified to make any such judgement. He has no idea what he's talking about. But still, Brunwick News should have had the story today that the CBC had yesterday. On any news medium there is an assignment editor whose job it is to keep in touch with all news developments so that he/she can then decide which stories are important, and who should cover them. It's possible, I suppose, that the TandT (and all the other Brunswick News) assignment editors are stunningly thick. But this is something of a record. We have a front page story that maritimers are going to Alberta (gee. who would have guessed). Another is about baloons in Sussex - which means we'll have to pay for whole pages of pictures of baloons on Monday. A big story that there are lineups for simming classes. But not a word about Lapierre, the man who is in charge of our shale gas future. It could be simply stupidity. But I would surely be rude if I were to publicly say such a thing about Brunswick News' assignment editors. So let's not say they're stupid. No. Let's be Christian and forgiving about this. Let's say they're liars whose main task is to make sure New Brunswickers are kept in ignorance of how they are daily manipulated and lied to. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Faith Page has the usual bland porridge for its message, this time about how gentleness has more power than force. It's examples are nice, safe ones, guaranteed to offend nobody. Rev. Morehouse - Would it even occur to you to deliver that message to foreign minister Baird and to Obama, both of whom want to bomb the daylights out of Syria (and on a case that is not yet, by a long shot, proven)? Would you care to deliver it to American governments which have murdered millions of people all over the world in the last fifty years? Would you care to use these people as examples of the misuse of power? Would you lecture the New Brunswick government on its use of force in dealing with anti-shale gas protesters? Lord, this Faith Page have makes Christianity in a soppy, soggy puddle. The church eventslisted are the usual pancake breakfasts and pie sales. Jesus often spoke of the importance of pancake breakfasts and pie sales. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ In NewsToday, we are told that Harper is talking tough on Syria, and saying Russia should not have a veto on UN action. There are two, odd things about that. 1.Most of the world, and especially the western powers, want nothing to do with an attack on Syria. It is not simply Russia that is holding them back. And one of those leaders who has refused to take part is.......Stephen Harper. So what is all this foot-stamping and self-righteousness? And why didn't we see it when the US smothered Vietnam in Agent Orange, then murdered over a million in Iraq? 2.And if he thinks Russia shouldn't have a veto on UN action, why has he never said a word about the US having (and using) a similar veto? ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The editorial is fun in a wacky sort of way. The editorialist notes that the Alward government is dropping in the polls. Then, it decides this must mean the Alward government is not moving quickly enough on cuts to the civil service. Now, that is a bizarre conclusion - and I have seen no evidence whatever to support it. And to ignore the effect of the shale gas issue completely? I don't know where Brunswick News finds these clowns. Only one part of it is right. It says Brian Gallant is doing better by saying nothing and doing less. Quite so. And that gives a hint to the real story of why he is rising in the polls. New Brunswickers are being suckers again. They're playing the old Conservative/Liberal shell game. And in that game, it doesn't matter whether Alward or Gallant wins. Mr. Irving will still run the province. Long live the king. Norbert has a good column on the Senate, on the need to reform it or abolish it. It would be nice to see him write a similar column about King Irving. Brent Mazerolle contributes a righteous deunciation of St. Mary's University students' association for it's childish and very bad taste songs about child molesting. Thanks, Brent. None of us readers is smart like you, and we would never guess that such behaviour is unacceptable. Good column by Gwynne Dyer on Russia's Putin. This guy is every bit as ruthless as he looks. Maybe he could replace Professor Lapierre as Irving's pitchman for shale gas.

Sept. 6: The problem of New Brunswick...

It's all summed up on page 1. "Support rises for Grits, poll suggests." New Brunswickers, who kicked out the Liberals in the last provincial election are poised to vote them back in for the next one. Why? The Liberals have shown nothing in leadership or policy. They are financed by much the same money that finances the Conservatives. That means that for all practical purposes, Liberals and Conservatives are the same party. And both are simply fronts for the Irvings and big business in this province. Both have exactly the same policies. There is something very, very dumb about all this. How can such nonsense happen? 1. Most of the news New Brunswickers get is trivia and propaganda. And they have now found a "columnist" in Kurt Peacock who can write both trivia and propaganda at the same time. 2. New Brunswickers have almost no open discussion of the news and, certainly, no open discussion of the interference of big business and the domination of big business in government. Why not? Because they're scared. They've been running scared for generations. And so long as that lasts, there is no hope whatever for this province. If this is the future, I would certainly advise all young people to get out of a province dominated by a greedy and ruthless business leadership, a servile government, and a general ignorance of politics fostered by a hopelessly unethical press and a population lacking the courage to insist on its rights. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Meanwhile, the rest of section one is typified by a story of a donation of $9,000 to a youth group. I applaud the donors. But this is not a half-page news story. Read all of section A closely. Notice how you're going brain-dead? Oh,though the TandT seems not to notice it, a certain railway has decided to resume freight train services with two-man crews, the system that the regulations used to call for. That railway is the MMandA, the one that killed 47 people in Lac Megantic. Aren't they sweethearts to be so generous and thoughtful? And it's only been two months since it happened. Boy. Talk about fast thinking. Now... ...that seems to still leave ine place the old regulation requiring only one driver. Why hasn't government moved to deal with that? Isn't Mr. Baird outraged by 47 deaths? And where's the big investigation? And where's the tough Irving news team to dig up the story of whether Mr. Irving is still running crude oil into this province and, if so, under what safeguards? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The TandT has found a real gem of a propagandist and idealogue as a sort of columnist for the NewsToday front page. He's Kurt Peacock - and he makes the editorialst look like an anti-Irving revolutionary. He preaches a propaganda line with a sincerity which suggests to me he really doesn't know any better. He quotes a former president of Atlantic Institute of Market Studies just as if he didn't know that AIMS is a propaganda front for big business. (Though, surely, he can't be that dumb.) He constantly quotes highly biased sources, ignores all others, then uses sloppy logic to come to conclusions. This is the kind of malignant, kissup crap that makes Rod Allen's columns seem almost intelligent. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The same page also has a story that a Christian village with two of the world's oldest, Christian monasteries was attacked by "rebels" (more accurately listed by the US as a terrorist group)who also killed people in the streets. They didn't use gas, though. So Mr. Baird isn't outraged. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Not a bad editorial on Via Rail. But the editorialist has an unclear picture of the ownership of Via Rail, and where the power is. Much of Via Rail's problems arise from the fact that private industry and conservative governments have been pretty hostile to it. Mpt a bad column on Syria by Norbert. Just a couple of qualms... 1. There is evidenceas Norbert say, that gas was used. There is no evidence who used it or on whom. The only side that gains from the use of gas is the "rebel" side because it now gets added support from the US. It is, of course, terrible that civilians, including women and children, were killed. Odd, though, that so many are shocked by that when, in fact, civilians, including women and children have been the major casualties in just about every war of the last century. That was true of both World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Guatemala, Iraq, Afghanistan - and Syria. Amazing how selective our outrage is. Chemical weapons are horrific? Norbert - could you write us a list of weapons that aren't horrific? He also suggests that people are getting fed up with a region that cannot get its affairs in order. Maybe so. But almost all the turmoil and killing in middle east is the result of over a century of our constant interference in and abuse of that region. Indeed, the first ones to use poison gas on civilians in that region were the British about 1920. The gas bombing of Kurdish villages was ordered by Colonial minister Winston Churchill, supported by Colonel Lawrence - the same one who appeared in film as Lawrence of Arabia. These quibbles aside, this is a pretty good column which ends in a quite justified pessimism. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Alec Bruce contributes a column that leaves us in the dark - or maybe the light - or... well...he doesn't come to any conclusion. But he does raise a troublng question. Cole Hobson writes on the regulations for mixed martial arts fighting (a variation on throwing Christians to the lions in Ancient Rome). My uncle was a boxing coach, director of amateur boxing for Canada, and an Olympic coach. His daughter was Canada's first female boxing judge - and also judged at the Olympics. I had lots of free tickets to the fights going back to my childhood. I saw what boxing does to the fighters as they get older. Mixed Martial Arts is worse.The only regulation I would ever vote for is one to ban it. Brian Gallant, our Liberal leader, writes a column that any politician of either could write (and which most have written.) His ideas are vague. They touch on none of the crucial questions. And we know he'll be an Irving stooge just like the Alward and his predecessor and his.... And this is the man New Brunswickers are picking as the leader in the polls.