Brief news

I still have little time, but I just couldn't resist putting these up.


Ferry sinks off B.C. coast -- off B.C.'s Queen Charlotte Islands "At least 96 of the 102 people aboard were rescued" NatPost, Mar. 22, 06

Ottawa man 'vital' to U.K. bomb plot, court hears -- Momin Khawaja Ian MacLeod, NatPost, Mar. 22, 06


Do you suppose these have any element in common?

Gang rivalry cited in student beating -- Crips and Bloods Vivian Song, Mar. 22, 06, via newsbeat1

Police arrest 26 people in Quebec and Ontario in marijuana trafficking ring CP, Mar. 21, 06 -- or Major drug trafficking ring busted in Ont., Que. Mar. 21 2006, CTV.ca News Staff

[....] the Montreal-area of Quebec

[....] Cornwall, Toronto, Hamilton and Guelph.

[....] generating approximately $80 million in revenues on a yearly basis [....]

By the end of the day, police had raided some 30 homes and 9 businesses, and seized $600,000 in Canada and U.S. currency.

Also seized were 375 pounds of marijuana,one kilogram of hashish, a bulletproof vest and several weapons, including five handguns, three rifles, 16 Tasers.

Bingo! Newsbeat1: In Canada that would be 2 years? suspended sentence? house arrest? get to teach an ethics course?

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A former suburban mayor was sentenced Monday to more than 15 years in prison for funneling millions of dollars in city contracts to a sham consulting company he secretly controlled.

In Canada would he be involved in politics? running a department? .....



Prospects of Terror: An Inquiry into Jihadi Alternatives -Part 1

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5345




FBI headquarters supervisor says he was largely unaware of Moussaoui case before 9/11 Michael J. Sniffen, Mar. 21, 06

The headquarters supervisor of the FBI's international terrorism operations section testified Tuesday he had never read an Aug. 18, 2001, memo in which an agent proposed a full criminal investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui as a possible terrorist airplane hijacker.

The now retired supervisor, Michael Rolince, was questioned by defense attorney Edward MacMahon during Moussaoui's sentencing trial. He was asked whether he had ever heard that Harry Samit, the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui while he was taking pilot lessons in Minnesota, concluded the 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent was a terrorist planning to hijack a commercial jetliner. [. . . . ]

David Warren: Woman in trench -- re Oriana Fallaci, "She tells a true story that would not require the rage, were it not bound up in so many signal acts of betrayal, of the West and of its values, by our decadent, spineless, and venal ruling classes." March 19, 2006 via newsbeat1



The media credibility gap.... via Nealenews.com / newsbeat1

Perhaps more worrisome, however, is the increasing tendency of supposedly straight news stories to carry, overtly or not, and consciously or not, editorial commentary.

.... But, knowingly or not, the "facts" presented or not presented, or the spokespeople for each side chosen or not chosen, can skew the overall even-handedness of a piece.

[....] That’s not to say that a report can’t challenge inaccuracies or highlight conflicting "facts," but there shouldn’t be an agenda to favour a particular point of view that corresponds with your own.

[....] the omissions, loaded structuring of a particular story or at times glaringly obvious bias in the wording of headlines, story placement or even the choice of photos to accompany the news. [....]

Take the CBC on politics: it is time for the CBC to be politicized on their own private business dime ... not being political on the backs of the taxpayers of Canada.

My visceral hatred of CBC bias is now so strong that I cannot watch their news without becoming apoplectic. Peter "reporting" from Afghanistan? A hoot! He could have had a photograph behind him, for all the difference his being there made. He did not interact with Canada's military that I saw -- wouldn't want to let a message out other than "Bring home the troops" -- "Let's get out of Afghanistan" with which the leftist types want to beat PM Harper. Mansbridge's job was simply to announce someone else which could have been done from Toronto; not one memorable thing was said. The forays into the North? Same. Taxpayer dollars for a trip.

It is too bad. I have enjoyed some programs (The Passionate Eye) and some films (Tommy Douglas, though it was inaccurate about Douglas' opposite, Gardiner, according to a National Post article this week.) but CBC is turning non-Liberal Canadians away in droves -- not that CBC types who live off taxpayers' money care. Once a news medium is funded by taxpayers, the employees have only to support that political party most likely to fund it, in order to keep their jobs ... in Canada the Liberal party, so CBC spreads its propaganda and leftist bilge. They do not have to, and don't, care about journalism, imho.




Links on China's censorship

Maybe I posted them; maybe I didn't, but the links are incomplete now. FHTR Oct. 2-8, 05 This post Oct. 6, 05, "Jackie Jura: Orwell Today -- China Secrets -- They aren't as careful about Canada's" AsiaPundit.com

Open Democracy: The future of dissent: hacking Chinese censorship by Giovanni Navarria, 20 October, 2005

The website froze as soon as I started reading it; you might have better luck.
www.opendemocracy.net/ conflict-edemocracy/internet_china_2945.jsp

You might try the following also -- found in a Google search: shi tao, "Yahoo! provided state security with Shi Tao's user information"

www.opendemocracy.net/content/articles/PDF/ compendiums/edition78.pdf?redirect2=/other_content/compendiums.jsp

AsiaPundit: censorship index

AsiaPundit: thursday links
www.asiapundit.com/2005/09/thursday_links_1.html

a profile of Shi Tao
http://www.asiapundit.com/2005/11/a_profile_of_sh.html

Microsoft: keeping state secrets secure
http://www.asiapundit.com/2006/01/microsoft_keepi.html