News at the Speed of Light

Opinion

2006-07-03T18:59:00.000-07:00

More News: Top Developing News Stories, Opinion, Science, U.S., World, Technology, Business, Politics, Sports, Health, Odd and Humorous, Entertainment, Middle East

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More News

2006-07-03T05:36:00.000-07:00

Science...

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U.S. News

2006-07-03T05:35:00.000-07:00

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Middle East

2006-07-03T05:33:00.000-07:00

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Odd and Humorous

2006-07-03T05:32:00.000-07:00

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World News

2006-07-03T05:31:00.001-07:00

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Political News

2006-07-03T05:31:00.000-07:00

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Business News

2006-07-03T05:20:00.001-07:00

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Sports News

2006-07-03T05:19:00.000-07:00

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Health News

2006-07-03T05:18:00.001-07:00

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Entertainment News

2006-07-03T05:18:00.000-07:00

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The Iraq War

2006-06-30T21:43:00.000-07:00

Related links: iraq

2006-06-30T05:37:00.000-07:00

Off The Wall

Sports News

Entertainment News

Business News

Technology News

Internet News

Categories: news, in the news, current affairs, opinion, rants, ramblings, news and politics, politics, political, terror, terrorism, terrorist, london bombing, middle east, society

NASA and Space Shuttle News

2006-06-29T21:39:00.000-07:00

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Improved RSS Newsfeeds

2006-03-02T10:13:00.000-08:00

For your viewing pleasure we have improved our RSS newsfeeds. The feeds should be more readable and now come in three flavours.

You have three options to choose from:

1. Full Feed (the entire post);

2. Excerpts Only (a short intro to the post); or

3. Just Headlines only (self explanatory).

Cheers!

Top Canadian News

2006-02-05T17:24:00.000-08:00

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Ward Churchill Transcript

2005-02-09T13:47:00.000-08:00

Like most of you, until recently the Bloke had not even heard of Ward Churchill. Churchill's recent comments lit a firestorm of controversy in the blogospshere, making him a household name synonymous with the words Nazi and Terrorist sympathizer.

Blog Bloke concedes one imperceptible truth that can be drawn from all this hoopla. And that is - any fool can become a university professor in Colorado. Oy!

Read the full transcript of Ward Churchill and Governor Bill Owens' comments at Political Gateway.

Putin, Yushchenko Meet

2005-01-24T10:55:00.000-08:00

Russian president Vladimir Putin expresses desire for relationship with Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yushchenko, and denies accusations - “Russia has never worked behind the scenes at the territory of former Soviet Union, including the work with opposition. This fully concerns Ukraine, too.”

Tonight Show King Johnny Carson Dies

2005-01-23T18:55:00.000-08:00

There Goes... Johnny!

Johnny Carson, the man who shared more of our bedrooms than any other late night entertainer has died from emphysema - an unfortunate result of smoking all those years. Recent photos showed him looking overweight because he finally kicked the smoking habit, but apparently it was too little too late (although he did live to a ripe old age of 79).

So here's the paradox. You stop smoking to avoid dying of cancer or lung disease, but you get fat and run the risk of stroke and heart disease. What a conundrum. Death sucks.

I recall watching Johnny as a young child. Sitting on the family sofa and watching my parents laugh, not quite understanding the jokes myself, but joining in the laughter just the same. When I became an adult I watched the show occasional out of curiosity (or insomnia), but not really becoming a steady fan. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but like the man and I am sad to see him go.

Watching the news interviews of those who knew him, some would say the man was a saint. While others (like Dick Cavett who worked for him as a writer) say he could be tough. The truth I'm certain lies somewhere in between.

What I recall the most about the man and his humour was his telepathic turban-toting character known as "Carnac The Magnificent", who could divine answers to questions sealed in envelopes. If the audience booed any of Carnac's responses, he would fight back saying something like:

May a love-starved fruit-fly molest your sister's nectarines.

May a diseased yak squat in your hot tub.

May you get your first French kiss from a diseased camel.

May a desert weirdo lower his figs into your mother's soup.

May the Shah of Iran seek refuge under your sister's skirt.

May your prize bull hate cows.

May a crazy holy man set fire to your nose hair.

May your only daughter take up with a yak of another faith.

May a crazed lizard unravel your underwear.

May your Perrie water be secretly bottled in Tijuana.

May a desert nomad do a desert no-no to your sister.

May a diseased Holy man soil your shelf paper.

May a weird holy man with a rash play with your face.

May a queasy camel freshen up your mother's evening bath.

May your platform shoes fail you in a camel pasture.

May a sick yak leave a gift in your sock drawer.

May Orca the Whale relieve himself on your carpet.

May a camel with a weak kidney condition find your Hope Chest.

May a weird Holy man use a Black & Decker tool on your only sister.

May the winds of the Sahara blow a scorpion up your sister's caftan.

May a nearsighted sand flea suck syrup off your short stack.

A typical skit would open with announcer Ed McMahon stating "I have in my hand an envelope, a child of four can plainly see these envelopes are hermetically sealed. They've been kept since noon today in a mayonnaise jar on Funk & Wagnalls' porch. No one-but one!-knows its contents. In his mystical and borderline way, Carnac will now ascertain the answers having never heard the questions." Carnac then placed the white envelopes to his forehead to sense the answers to the questions within. The following are some examples of the answer/question exchanges:

Answer: The Moonies.
Question: Name the religion that drops its pants?;

Answer: The Zip Code.
Question: What do CIA agents have to remember to go to the bathroom?

Answer: A pair of Jordache jeans and a bread box. Question: Name two places where you stuff your buns?;

Answer: Ovaltine.
Question: Describe Oprah Winfrey in High School;

Answer: Fondue.
Question: What do you get on your Fon if you leave it out all night?;

Answer: Ben Gay.
Question: Why didn't Ben Franklin didn't have any children?

When the announcer Ed McMahon said, "I hold in my hand...the last envelope." The audience usually cheered, as if to say "Thank God this skit is over."

Like yours truly, you also must have your own cherished memories of Johnny Carson. Whatever they are no doubt you will share my sense of loss as we reflect on the passing of a TV icon. There goes Johnny.

...via Blog Bloke and the Bloke Report.

Iraq the Model

2005-01-19T20:47:00.000-08:00

Strangely enough, a weblog detailing the more positive aspects of the US-led occupation of the country, is one of the most popular Iraqi sites on the web.

A pro-US blog by three Iraqi brothers has become the unlikely setting for a huge web spat after conspiracy theorists alleged it was a fake.

Written by Baghdad-based brothers Mohammed and Omar, who are dentists, and doctor Ali, the site first surfaced in November 2003 a few months after the war in Iraq ended.

Some anti-war activists said it was a CIA-sponsored propaganda tool. The brothers have strongly denied the claims but the ruckus has created quite a confab in the online Iraq community.

Is it for real or just a hoax? Why not take a look for yourself and join the fray.

Tsunami Disaster: How You can Help

2005-01-05T11:50:00.000-08:00

Global aid organizations have launched urgent appeals for donations to help survivors of Sunday's Indian Ocean earthquake disaster

More than 140,000 people are confirmed killed by the waves and millions more are homeless.

Many governments and organizations - including the US, Canada, Australia, the EU and UN are sending aid.

The UN has warned that supplies are urgently needed to support the survivors and to try and prevent disease which could double the death toll.

Find more info at BBC News and a list of organizations where you can give aid.

Tsunami Earthquake: Natural or Created?

2005-01-03T08:49:00.000-08:00

Journalist Andrew Limburg for Independent Media TV reports a series of events that led up to the 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Indonesia which suggests that it could have been man-made.

"This all could be an enormous coincidence, but one must look at the information and choose for themselves whether there is anything to it. What is interesting about this is that the same place where the whale beachings have been taking place over the last 30 days is the same general area where the 8.1 Australian earthquake took place, and this is the same area where they are doing these seismic tests. Then 2 days after the Australian tectonic plate shifted, the 9.0 earthquake shook the coast of Indonesia."

...More at Independent Media TV

Satellite Images Tsunami's Path

2004-12-29T16:33:00.000-08:00

Satellite Images Depict Killer Tsunami's Path and Devastation

New amateur video from Indonesia

Maps of disaster area

Videos from the scene

How you can help the disaster victims

Tsunami Carnage

2004-12-28T17:52:00.000-08:00

Photos of the Tsunami aftermath.

Stunning Tsunami Pictures

2004-12-27T23:49:00.000-08:00

Stunning pictures show a tsunami crashing into a beach on Thailand's Phuket Island.

My Way or the Highway

2004-12-01T15:10:00.000-08:00

With unprecedented security George W Bush visited Canada to make his first formal speech (since the presidential election) outlining his foreign policy.

Beneath all the niceities, backslapping and smiley faces his message to the world was loud and clear. When it comes to Iraq - 'it's my way or the highway'.

CBSNews.com Wins Online Award

2004-11-17T16:32:00.000-08:00

CBSNews.com (the Internet service of CBS News) was awarded first place in the Online News Association's 2004 "Enterprise Journalism" category for its participation in the 60 Minutes exclusive on the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal. BBC Online was the winner of the Overall Exellence award for large Web sites.

Coincidentally, CBS also gets top honours for the lesser known Flub of the Year award. I guess it all evens out in the end (not).

Internet is the Future of News

2004-11-14T12:15:00.000-08:00

The Bloke has seen the future of News... and it's called the Blogosphere

It seems the Blog Bloke isn't full of hot air after all, so please pardon me while I shamelessly pat myself on the back.

Obviously the head of the Associated Press reads my posts, and he's confirmed what I've been saying all along -- that the future of news is online, and traditional media outlets must learn to tailor their products for consumers who demand instant, personalized information.

The growth of high-speed broadband connections is leading to a future in which computers are always on "and so are the users," Tom Curley, president and chief executive officer of the world's largest news organization, told the Online News Association conference in Hollywood.

The Internet is picking up the readers and viewers that newspapers and TV news shows have been losing, said Curley. It also has changed the balance of power from news providers to consumers, who use Web-surfing programs and video recording devices to control what they want to know and when and where they'll learn it.

Curley offered a scenario in which a "news enthusiast" would download bits and pieces of news - sports scores, headlines, financial reports and analysis - from a variety of news sources to various electronic devices.

In the world of personalized news, "the content comes to you; you don't have to come to the content," Curley said. "So, get ready for everything to be 'Googled,' 'deep-linked' or "Tivo-ized.'"

That will make the expensive packaging of news in TV broadcasts, newspapers and fancy Web pages less important.

"You have to let the content flow where the users want to go, and attach your brand - and maybe advertising and e-commerce - to those free-flowing 'atoms,'" Curley said.

That already is leading to changes in how news is covered. For example, Curley said AP is furnishing bureaus with cameras to provide domestic video and is increasing coverage of news of interest to young audiences.

News media also will have to provide services that their online customers want. Curley noted one site in Kansas already offers a Web cam service local college students can use to see how long the lines are at a pizza parlor.

Media also will have to learn how to make money from the Web, where many consumers are used to getting their news for free. The market is out there, Curley said, citing a recent study that found 29 percent of Internet users - about 43 million people - go online to get news three or more times per week.

Stephanie Busack, 22, a journalism student at Ohio University who attended the conference, said she gets most of her news online.

"I just go to the Web sites, basically ... it's right there, everything you need to know," she said. "I don't like reading newspapers."

Curley also touched on Internet users who disseminate news and ideas through Web logs, citing one recent estimate that there are 4 million "bloggers" making 400,000 posts per day.

"That works out to roughly 16,000 posts an hour, or about as many stories as the AP sends out in an entire day," he said. "It will get even tougher to be heard above the roar of the Internet crowd, and the business bets will have to be for greater stakes."

Still, Curley predicted current news giants will survive.

"The bloggers need a baseline of facts and professional analysis on which to base their work," he said. "Imagine Drudge without somebody to link to, or Wonkette without somebody to poke fun at."

Re-Electing Kerry

2004-11-13T11:16:00.000-08:00

Tell CBS the Blogosphere Doesn't Count

Go ahead... I dare ya. John Kerry may have conceded his loss in the presidential election but the blogosphere is still abuzz with charges of e-voting machine fraud and other conspiracy theories claiming that President Bush didn't fairly (or actually) win.

One of my main criticisms of the blogosphere is that it can a haven for crackpots and conspiracists galore. Mainstream media and most reasonable Bloggers dismiss these charges, distinguishing the 2004 election's outcome from the actual hanging chad mess of 2000. Nonetheless, as blogs became a more influential voice in the run-up to this year's election, it's interesting to note how bloggers and the Internet in general continue to play a huge role in parsing through the results of this year's campaign. Wacky or not, the back-and-forth online chatter about alleged election fraud is a sign that technology's impact on democracy continues to play out.

A number of influential news organizations, including The New York Times, made it a point to delve into the online rumor-mongering: "In the space of seven days, an online market of dark ideas surrounding last week's presidential election took root and multiplied. But while the widely read universe of Web logs was often blamed for the swift propagation of faulty analyses, the blogosphere, as it has come to be known, spread the rumors so fast that experts were soon able to debunk them, rather than allowing them to linger and feed conspiracy theories. Within days of the first rumors of a stolen election, in fact, the most popular theories were being proved wrong -- though many were still reluctant to let them go." The article cited postings on CommonDreams.org and BlackBoxVoting.org.

"Ground zero in the online rumor mill, it seems, was Utah," the Times said, noting that Kathy Dopp, armed with a master's in math, posted a table of data on her www.ustogether.org Web site "comparing party registrations in each of Florida's 67 counties, the method of voting used and the number of votes cast for each presidential candidate. Ms. Dopp, along with other statisticians contributing to the site, suggested a 'surprising pattern' in Florida's results showing inexplicable gains for President Bush in Democratic counties that used optical-scan voting systems. The zeal and sophistication of Ms. Dopp's number crunching was hard to dismiss out of hand, and other Web users began creating their own bar charts and regression models in support of other theories. In a breathless cycle of hey-check-this-out, the theories -- along with their visual aids -- were distributed by e-mail messages containing links to popular Web sites and Web logs, or blogs, where other eager readers diligently passed them along."

Traffic to Dopp's site jumped from 500 to 17,000 and her findings were highlighted by some in Congress calling for a probe into voting machines, the paper said. "But rebuttals to the Florida fraud hypothesis were just as quick. Three political scientists, from Cornell, Harvard and Stanford, pointed out, in an e-mail message to a Web site that carried the news of Ms. Dopp's findings, that many of those Democratic counties in Florida have a long tradition of voting Republican in presidential elections. And while Ms. Dopp says that she and dozens of other researchers will continue to analyze the Florida vote, the suggestion of a link between certain types of voting machines and the vote split in Florida has, at least for now, little concrete support."

• The New York Times: Vote Fraud Theories, Spread By Blogs, Are Quickly Buried (Registration required)

The Washington Post weighed in with its own piece on the post-election online rumor-mongering yesterday, and like the Times, the Post made clear that "each of the claims is buoyed by enough statistics and analysis to sound plausible. In some instances, the theories are coming from respected sources -- college engineering professors fascinated by voting technology, Internet journalists, election reform activists. Ultimately, none of the most popular theories holds up to close scrutiny. And the people who most stand to benefit from the conspiracy theories -- the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee (news - web sites) -- are not biting."

• The Washington Post: Latest Conspiracy Theory -- Kerry Won -- Hits the Ether (Registration required)

The Philadelphia Inquirer weighs in today with it's own look: "Armed with thousands of reports of malfunctioning voting machines, lost ballots and suspicious vote counts, they are filling the Internet and the airwaves with arguments that President Bush's victory was a fraud. Web sites and blogs are streaming headlines such as 'Votescam: The Stealing of America' and 'Evidence Mounts That the Vote Was Hacked.' Groups such as stolenelection2004.com contend that electronic voting machines were tampered with to tip the election in Bush's favor." A report in Tuesday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution said: "None of the conspiracy theorists has provided proof of widespread errors that might have changed the outcome of the election, which official tallies say Bush won with a 3.5 million popular vote margin and 286 electoral votes, 16 more than needed. Independent groups that monitored the voting found problems scattered around the country, but nothing decisive, and election officials have generally dismissed the Internet chatter. Even so, Doug Chapin, executive director of Electionline.org, a nonpartisan research group set up to study the nation's voting system, is not surprised that doubts are surfacing. After the 2000 election, he said, 'any problem is going to get noticed, no matter how small.'"

• The Philadelphia Inquirer: Some Still Fighting Election Outcome (Registration required)
• The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Election Conspiracy Theories Persist (Registration required)

Sometimes conspiracy theories can actually influence public policy. Earlier this week, a Boston Globe noted that "with reports swirling on the Internet, six Democratic members of Congress have asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate. Leading academics have joined the fray as well, saying that the integrity and future of the nation's voting system demand a vetting of all claims."

• The Boston Globe: Internet Buzz On Vote Fraud Is Dismissed

Post-Election Online Therapy

The Washington Post's Hank Stuever wrote an essay today about how Kerry supporters have taken to Internet postings and e-mails to mourn their candidate's loss: "Forty-eight percent of the nation is still sad and upset about the defeat of John Kerry, and you know so because they won't stop forwarding the same few links, cartoons and manifestoes to you, over and over again, as if it were 1998 and the Web were still new and you cheerfully opened every e-mail you received," Stuever wrote. "The post-electoral mass CC'ing seems to reflect a new stage of grief, a regression into the old-fashioned Internet of yore: Maybe if I forward this Jesusland map along to all my friends, the election results won't feel so bad." Stuever particularly cites SorryEverybody.com, a Web site that, well, takes self-flagellation to a new level.

• The Washington Post: Post Election Blues Driven Ever FWD Into the Past (Registration required)

The San Francisco Chronicle said debunking the election conspiracy theories "isn't likely to change the minds of those on the Internet claiming election fraud, said David Emery, a San Franciscan who debunks rumors and urban legends on the popular Web site at urbanlegends.about.com. 'Any discussion of a rumor or conspiracy -- even when people debunk it -- seems to help its longevity,' Emery said."

• The San Francisco Chronicle: If It's Too Bad To Be True, It May Not Be Voter Fraud

Wired News offered some analysis of how the online discussions can have a positive and negative impact. "The academics say the intense scrutiny has been good for democracy and has highlighted the need for instituting mandatory election audits that would help catch anomalies with voting machines and restore voter confidence in results. But Stanford University professor of government Jonathan Wand said the analysis can be harmful if done improperly. 'It's important that when allegations are made that people bring to bear the correct evidence and statistical analysis to actually back it up,' Wand said. 'What is destructive is when the allegations are made and they are misconceived or implausible. That's not helping anything. But the general process of people paying attention is a very good one.'"

• Wired News: Florida E-Voting Fraud? Unlikely

Blogging The Next Race

Blogs certainly edged closer to joining the mainstream media in 2004, but that doesn't mean politicians are likely to take up the online communications form any time soon. Lest we forget that the ultimate online candidate -- Howard Dean (news - web sites) -- proved that getting buzz on the 'Net does not necessarily translate into real votes. As Wired News notes, "Many of this year's major campaigns, including both Kerry's and President Bush's, had active blogs. But to many observers, few candidates at any level used their blogs effectively to make much of a difference in reaching their constituents. Many in the blogosphere are acutely aware that most political campaigns, like most companies that have started to publish corporate blogs, have yet to discern a way to incorporate blogs in any meaningful way. And at last weekend's BloggerCon at Stanford Law School, many bloggers bemoaned the fact that most candidates are missing the boat on what could be a powerful political tool. One issue raised at BloggerCon was whether candidates' blogs need to be written by the candidates themselves to be effective. 'It's very important for campaigns to have a voice,' said Cameron Barrett, the author of the blog CamWorld."

CBS Revisited

2004-11-10T13:14:00.000-08:00

Douglas Kern fisks former CBS News correspondent Eric Engberg's diatribe bemoaning Bloggers during the 2004 presidential election.

According to Doug "It's an uncommonly terrible article, even by CBS standards."

So let the fisking begin. More fun at TechCentral...

Troops find 'hostage slaughterhouses' in Falluja

2004-11-10T11:08:00.000-08:00

Iraqi troops retaking the city of Falluja have found hostage "slaughterhouses" where people were held captive and beheaded, an Iraqi military official said Wednesday. More at CNN...

CBS Taunts the Blogosphere

2004-11-05T17:20:00.000-08:00

Must be remnants of sour grapes from the Rathergate debacle. Frank Barnako vice president of CBS MarketWatch had this to say:

"Bloggers Blew It: Much posting, little impact. No one reads blogs. Oops! I did it again. Better get under my desk before the e-mail flames arrive... Bottom line: Political blogging is like Ralph Nader. Nobody pays attention.

Despite all the anti-Bush screeds on Web logs, the frequent priming of wordy bonfires with Bush's National Guard duty records, the rush to judgment about missing explosives in Iraq ... it just didn't matter. All those opinions. All that Internet buzz. So little impact. Could it be not even bloggers trust what they read on blogs?

It's just that after the presidential election, it appears to me that the only readers of blogs ... are bloggers! They are a good group. Educated and engaged. But they're also like mice in a rotating cage: running in place, bumping into the same old people."

Frank even went so far as to blame Bloggers that posted early exit polls for a dive in the Dow Jones. Sounds more like professional envy to me because Bloggers aren't subject to the same rules as mainstream media.

Nevertheless, the jist of Frank's argument was this. Bloggers don't get the same volume of users as mainstream media. Hence, Bloggers are not as important because they only speak to other Bloggers, and the numbers don't add up to be of any influence.

So according to Frank's profound logic, millions of mindless minions sitting on the couch clicking a TV remote amount to more than educated, motivated Bloggers simply because there are more of them than us. Hmmm. Go figure.

Ok Frank, tell that to Dan Rather. BTW, has it not occurred to you that in order to read a blog one must also have a computer (or at least some sort of internet enabled gizmo). Last time I checked there were more people with TV's than computers. And everybody that has a computer doesn't necessarily have a Blog or even heard of it for that matter. So please explain how that somehow diminishes the Blogosphere? I mean really Frank, this isn't rocket science.

You see Frank, what you don't understand is Blogging is not a one-way monologue like most mainstream media types such as yourself. Blogging enables people to engage, participate, express and influence ideas at an unprecedented level. Never in the history of mankind and Johann Gutenberg's invention of the printing press has a technology empowered so many. And the Blogosphere will only continue going to grow in numbers and influence.

So the question begs to be asked - why then does Frank even bother to write about Bloggers if we really don't count? The short answer is we do count, and it's only a matter of time before the mainstream media snobs will have to give the blogosphere kudos it deserves.

Frankly, (pun intended) your mockery of the Blogosphere only belies your ignorance of the technology and its formidable capabilities. So have fun taunting us Frank, but mark my words. As more people get computers with internet connections and Blogs become even more popular, come next election we will be driving the news. Dinosaurs like you will find yourself left behind merely 'reporting' it or sitting on the sofa with the rest of them. Join us or be obsolete.

Below is Blog Bloke's response that he sent Frank Barnako via email. It remains to be seen if he will post it (probably not considering he doesn't have a commenting feature).

```
Hi Frank. That was a rather terse comment for a 'professional writer' don't you think?

This is not a flame, but rather a shameless self promotion. I am the only one that I am aware of (mainstream or the blogosphere) who accurately called the election for Bush.

I wouldn't call that blowing it!

```
Update: Eric Engberg comes out of retirement to spew his hostility on the Blogosphere.

Rumours Abound Arafat's Death

2004-11-04T11:14:00.000-08:00

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was determined to be clinically dead on Thursday in a French hospital, Israel's Channel Two television said citing French sources.

President Bush responded to reports Yasser Arafat may have died saying "may God bless his soul" moments before a French official said Arafat is still alive.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie denied the report, saying: "I have just spoken to the officials in Paris and they say the situation is still as it was. He is still in the intensive care unit."

There is no denying however that his health has deteriorated, and unless there is a dramatic change his death will no doubt be imminent.

It's Official! Bush Wins

2004-11-03T08:33:00.000-08:00

Retreat with Dignity

Kerry phones the president and concedes the election saving the nation weeks of further turmoil.

Bush in turn thanks Kerry and calls him a "worthy opponent".

It's time for healing America.

Bush Wins (I think)

2004-11-02T23:58:00.000-08:00

The Bloke hates to say he told you so - BUT it’s beginning to look like he told you so

So there you have it folks. Blog Bloke called it right on the money. Barring weeks of recounts, 11 day wait for provisional Ohio ballot count, overseas military ballots, huge lawsuits, small riots, lost electronic tapes, and 58,000 missing absentee ballots in broward....Bush will have won the 2004 Presidential Election!

I’m going to bed now as the numbers are still coming in. Kerry and Edwards are putting on a brave face saying that “every vote will be counted” before conceding, but the handwriting is on the wall.

All estimates give Bush the lead in Ohio, New Mexico, Nevada et al. But the clincher was when I saw Dan Rather point out to everyone’s “surprise” that Americans are coming out in record numbers and voting according to “moral issues”. I knew then that Bush had it in the bag. So good-night, sleep tight America and see you tomorrow. We’ve got work to do.

Bloggers Publishing Early Exit Poll Data

2004-11-02T16:49:00.000-08:00

Some bloggers with apparent access to early exit-polling data are publishing numbers they say are based on exit polls. They are "scooping" mainstream news organizations that are participating in the National Election Pool (NEP). The NEP participants are bound by an embargo to withhold the data until polls close. The Associated Press has said, "NEP will make every effort to track any violations (of the embargo) and cut off access to its website for any abusers."

Though there's scant documentation of where the numbers come from, you can find these reports on: Wonkette, Daily Kos, MyDD, Atrios, PoliticalWire, Instapundit, Powerline, and The Drudge Report.

Slate is also carrying exit-poll numbers and promoting them on its homepage. Slate editor Jacob Weisberg told the New York Times he doesn't want to put his website "in the paternalistic position of deciding that our readers aren't mature enough to react in the proper way to truthful information we possess."

What will mainstream news organizations do now? The cat is out of the bag in terms of early exit-poll estimates. They're spreading quickly through the blogosphere and the Web. Should traditional news organizations continue to hold the data, even though it's all over the Web? Or should they link to the data? What do you think?

Blogging for Politics

2004-11-01T13:38:00.000-08:00

Both President Bush and Senator Kerry use their blogs to publish campaign information, quick statements, and opinions on events more or less as they happen. Both campaigns have given up having their candidates actually write the blogs, choosing instead a group-blog format with authors identified on each post.

Kerry has launched the Dbunker blog as a means of quickly pushing rapid-response team info onto the Web. Though the name is a little odd ("bunker" conjures up images of despots hiding in holes), the tactic has a lot of merit, especially in times of corporate scandals and crisis communications. Information (and rumors) have never moved faster. E-mail, IM (define), and blogging can spread bad stuff way faster than old-school crisis communicators can counter it in traditional media.

By framing it as a blog and tapping into a format in which people expect a constant stream of news and opinion, the Kerry campaign is able to respond with "official" statements that somehow don't seem as much like spin as a traditional press conference, news release, or more "formal" methods do.

For e-marketers, the method is worth careful analysis. It works because it uses the Web for something that can't be done any other way: broadcasting information the moment it's necessary, in a format designed for just that. Many corporate blogs have devolved into informal press-release postings. Companies have forgotten blogs aren't just news; they're timely, opinionated news. That's why we read them.

If you want to use blogs in your corporate communications, take the time to analyze why ("because everyone else is" isn't good enough) and how you'll use them. If blogs don't fit expectations, they just feel hokey. They can work, though. Ask Rep. Ben Chandler.

Another, funnier online tactic is a painful lesson in why you must think before posting neat-o interactive tools on your site for users to "experience." The Bush-Cheney campaign created the Sloganator, a nifty tool allowing supporters to create their own campaign posters. Users could type custom slogans into the Sloganator and were rewarded with their very own PDF campaign poster, suitable for posting or sending to friends.

No one had the forethought to realize allowing people to add their own messages might have unintended consequences. The link flew around the Web. Pranksters (and Democrats) had a grand ol' time creating posters before the site was shut down, modified with canned slogans, then relaunched.

The lesson is people will use your online tools for purposes you may never have dreamed of. Just as misusing blogs can have negative consequences, so can not thinking through all the angles before launching that nifty interactive tool. For great examples and commentary about unintended online consequences, read Doug Simpson's Unintended Consequences blog.

The moral of this story? Nobody's figured it all out. Though as the campaign heats up and money's poured into the Net, the fallout should make interesting pickings for anyone interested in how to use -- or not use -- the Internet.

New bin Laden Video

2004-10-29T14:31:00.000-07:00

Bin Laden Sends Chilling Message to Americans:

Bin Laden justifies 9/11, and warns the US to not mess with him.

"We decided to destroy towers in America," bin Laden said, referring to the World Trade Center.

"God knows that it had not occurred to our mind to attack the towers, but after our patience ran out and we saw the injustice and inflexibility of the American-Israeli alliance toward our people in Palestine and Lebanon, this came to my mind," he said.

He accused President Bush of "misleading" the American people since the 2001 suicide airline hijackings that hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"Your security is not in the hands of (Democratic candidate John) Kerry or Bush or al-Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands," bin Laden said.

"To the U.S. people, my talk is to you about the best way to avoid another disaster," he said. "I tell you: security is an important element of human life and free people do not give up their security."

"If Bush says we hate freedom, let him tell us why we didn't attack Sweden, for example. It is known that those who hate freedom do not have dignified souls, like those of the 19 blessed ones," he said, referring to the 19 hijackers.

"We fought you because we are free .. and want to regain freedom for our nation. As you undermine our security we undermine yours."

More at USA Today...

Bloggers Criticize Mainstream Journalists

2004-10-29T13:50:00.000-07:00

Practicing cheap and dirty politics, playing fast and loose with the facts and even lying: Accusations like these, and worse, have been slung nonstop this year.

The accused, in this case, are not the candidates but the mainstream news media. And the accusers comprise an ever-growing army of Internet writers, many of them partisans, that reaches hundreds of thousands of people a day.

Journalists covering the campaign believe that the intent is often to bully them into caving to a particular point of view. They insist that the efforts have not swayed them in any significant way, though others worry that the criticism could eventually have a chilling effect.

Many of the Internet writers say they have been empowered by the Web to begin serving as a long-needed real-time check on mainstream outlets and reporters who they say wield too much power, sometimes irresponsibly and often with hidden partisan motives.

"The traditional players, including the press, have lost some of the control or exclusive control they used to have," said Jay Rosen, chairman of the journalism department at New York University, who keeps his own Web log, or blog.

But, he added, "I think there's a campaign under way to totally politicize journalism and totally politicize press criticism."

"It's really an attack, not just on the liberal media or press bias--it's an attack on professionalism itself; on the idea that there could be disinterested reporters," he said.

The criticism comes from both sides of the political spectrum and from an array of perspectives: middle-of-the-road independent critics like those at the Columbia Journalism Review; unabashedly partisan blog authors; and even from within the mainstream news media. ABC's political Web site, The Note, frequently critiques individual reporters.

The harshest criticism comes from sites with openly political leanings. More at News.com...

Political Jihads and the Blogosphere

2004-10-29T13:19:00.000-07:00

Charles Cooper reasons that a blogger might be the first to announce the winner of Tuesday's election. More at News.com...

Presidential Election 2004

2004-10-28T13:56:00.000-07:00

Religious Right vs. Anti-Religious Left

Why the Debates don't mean Diddly

The Bloke is known for cutting through the rhetoric and getting to the bottom line, and so he is going out on a limb here. The truth of the matter is in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter who won the debates, what the polls say, Iraq or whatever.

This election all boils down to a simple common denominator - the religious right vs. the anti-religious left. The deciding factor will be if Bush will be able to rally the religious-right to come out in force election day. And if he is successful, Bush will be the prez again.

As much as the broadcasters try to play it up like a horse race to sell the news, everything else is moot - really.

So all you armchair pundits out there, rant all you want. After it is all said and done the Bloke will be right here to say he told you so.

Political Blogs Getting the Most "Buzz"

2004-10-27T18:55:00.000-07:00

Iraq consistently ranks as the most-discussed issue in political blogs, and blog-related discussion has spiked with key political events and issues, sometimes waiting for mainstream media attention to catch up.

With less than one week until the Nov. 2 election, these findings emerge in data from Intelliseek's Campaign Radar 2004, a web site that tracks and analyzes political blog content daily from more than two million blogs.

"Clearly, bloggers' influence on political discussion and the election is evident and growing," said Intelliseek CMO Pete Blackshaw. "The web-enabled public is relying on a variety of sources, including blogs, traditional media and other web sites, to inform themselves, find unfiltered opinions, and to guide their votes. And bloggers, in some instances, are pushing the envelope in defining the political agenda and news coverage."

More at Business Wire...

Presidential Election 2004

2004-10-22T11:20:00.000-07:00

All the ranting you could ever hope for... and more. With the recent Rathergate controversy, more than ever bloggers are proving they can hold their own for breaking news and opinions.

Blogcritics has put all of their political posts into one convenient page for your reading pleasure, and you can find it here. So read on and find out what the blogosphere is saying about the presidential election.

A word of caution though. This site is not for the faint-hearted. Writers can be extremely virulent, so don't expect moderate opinions here.

Euorpeans Study American Politics

2004-10-22T11:18:00.000-07:00

Latest Euro Study Looks at Americans' Current Attitudes Toward Political Participation and How They View the Media

In a nutshell:

1. Most Americans are Not Frustrated with Politics;
2. Most Americans Want to Learn the Candidates' Agendas;
3. The Majority of Americans Feel It's Irresponsible Not to Vote;
4. Most Americans Say News Matters even More Now.

More at PR Newswire...

Canadian Task Force to fight Cyberterrorism

2004-10-19T19:37:00.000-07:00

A high-level national task force is being assembled to help Canada steel its defences against potential cyberattacks by terrorists.

Communications Security Establishment chief Keith Coulter noted Washington has already begun moving to protect its own key grids and networks.

The head of Canada's electronic spy agency said the panel of private- and public-sector officials will help the country catch up to the United States in securing cyberspace.

Bob Novak's Debate Blog:

2004-10-18T16:47:00.000-07:00

Nationally syndicated columnist Robert Novak is providing a view from the right on the third presidential debate through this CNN.com blog. Follow along as he shares his observations and send us your own by typing them in the "Share Your Comments" box to the right. More at CNN...

Kenneth Bigley Murdered

2004-10-08T07:29:00.000-07:00

Abu Dhabi Television in the United Arab Emirates reports it has been "informed" by sources in Iraq that British hostage Kenneth Bigley has been brutally murdered by his captors.

Blog Bloke is outraged by this monstrous act and remains adamant that no pictures of the beheading will be linked to this site.

Last Minute Deal Saves Liberals from Defeat

2004-10-07T22:02:00.000-07:00

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin narrowly averted a political crisis by changing the wording of a Bloc Quebecois sub-amendment that threatening to topple his Liberal minority government.

The Bloc's original sub-amendment to the government's throne speech asked Ottawa to respect provincial jurisdictions and take into account that its greater taxing power lowers provincial revenues.

Obviously the Politicians decided they weren't prepared for another election - YET. Now if only they would get off their pompous duffs and do what they were elected for - i.e. get some work done. Until next time. Adieu.

Canada In Crisis

2004-10-07T14:23:00.000-07:00

Liberal gov't may fall if Bloc amendment passes

Amidst embarrasing reports of a broken-down second-hand submarine killing one crewman, Prime Minister Paul Martin is now headed for his first high-stakes political showdown in a vote that could trigger the collapse of his minority government.

In response to the government's throne speech, the Bloc Quebecois has tabled a sub-amendment that will be put to a vote around 6 p.m. ET Thursday.

Expected to receive the Conservatives' full support, the amendment asks Ottawa to respect provincial jurisdictions and take into account that federal taxing powers weaken provincial ability to raise revenues.

According to Liberal House Leader Tony Valeri, the Bloc proposal would hand control of the federal treasury to the province. And that, he says, is a change the government simply cannot agree to.

"This is a fundamental issue. Fundamental to how this country is governed, fundamental to how, in fact, we work with provinces across this country," Valeri told reporters in Ottawa.

"This sub-amendment dramatically changes that relationship and we cannot support it."

Matters of such vital importance, Valeri said, are by their very nature votes of confidence. That means if the amendment passes, the government could fall.

Speaking moments later, Prime Minister Paul Martin acknowledged the stakes, but said he cannot be moved.

"It is the responsibility of Parliament to control the public purse, and not see that responsibility delegated to a third party," he said. "That's what the Bloc motion essentially says it will do.

"I can tell you I will not except that kind of abdication."

Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe and NDP Leader Jack Layton were surprised that the government was taking the sub-amendment vote so seriously.

"I don't find it logical," Duceppe told reporters after Question Period.

Layton agreed when one reporter suggested Martin was playing a political game of chicken, waiting to see which side would flinch first. "Canadians want us to work and not to engage in political games with other parties," he said.

Martin told reporters that, "this is such a fundamental issue that if the government does fall on that point, we would go to the polls."

Clearly fired up by the chance to defend his authority, the prime minister made it clear his resolve is firm.

"If you want to be prime minister, you've got to stand up for the prerogatives of Parliament and the prerogatives of the national government.''

But when reporters pressed Valeri to explain what precise steps the Liberals would take if they lose the vote, he wouldn't be pinned down.

"This is a vote of confidence, and ultimately on issues of confidence they are dealt with in the manner that they are dealt with," he said.

If the Liberals are defeated, the Governor General Adrienne Clarkson would likely consult with Conservative Leader Stephen Harper to see if he could form a government. She could also be forced to call another election.

Duceppe denied he had an type of coalition agreement with the Conservatives, and said that "even based on divergent interests, we may have common goals."

The Conservatives have also proposed their own amendments, which will be put to a vote on Oct. 18. A vote on the government's entire 15-page blueprint will be held two days later.

In the June election, the Liberals were reduced to a minority government with 135 seats in the 308-seat House. The Conservatives have 99 seats, the Bloc have 54 and the NDP have 19.

That means if all the Bloc and Conservative MPs turn out to vote down the Liberals, all it would take is the one vote from Conservative-turned-Independent Chuck Cadman to reach the 154-vote threshold needed to defeat the government.

How the Media Helps Terrorism

2004-09-23T13:41:00.000-07:00

A War of the Mind

All of us by now have heard news of the three hostages in Iraq. Two of whom have already been beheaded (Eugene Armstrong, Jack Hensley), and Kenneth Bigley who may be in the process of being butchered as I write. Horrific thought isn't it? But that is the point.

When the first beheading of Nick Berg took place, like many of you in a fit of emotion I rushed to take a peek at the video. My thinking was no matter how awful it may be it would be a good dose of reality to see the horrors of terrorism for myself. Well, I have to admit that I had to turn it off. And after reading the posts of others who saw it, most agree that they wish they had never viewed it.

Although I'm ashamed to admit, I had even offered a link for my readers to download it. I could not believe the tens of thousands of hits I was getting just to see that video. Very soon however my mood turned into sadness and shame and I immediately removed the link.

My initial reasoning for linking to the video was that it would be good for the public to see first hand the reality of Iraq. I thought that it might help deter the war mongers. In fact at the time Blog Bloke had been riding the fence, but after viewing the video it convinced me all the more that it was an unwinnable cause.

The next morning when I awoke I was deeply troubled, and not just from the horrific images that I had seen the night earlier. I realized that I made a mistake. I had played into the terrorist hands and was now a partner in distributing and promoting their monstrous agenda. And what if a young child had viewed it? Just think of the consequences.

Think about it for a moment. It is because of technology that terrorists are so effective in organizing and promoting their evil agenda. They use cell phones, GPS, internet chat lines and email to communicate their terrible plans. It is technology that gives them a public platform to offer digital videos for viewing or downloading from websites.

It is a war of the mind and these are the real weapons of war - not guns or bombs. Take away that technology and they would be back in their tents tending goats.

So how do bloggers help the terrorist agenda? By visiting their websites and providing links to view or download their videos. Terror is only effective if it can create terror. And they do that by providing horrific videos to intimidate and influence public opinion and government policy.

Take away an audience and the circus animal will cease to perform. If nobody will look at their horrible videos they simply won't make them any more. Make sense? It does to me. So I’m challenging all of my fellow bloggers to not help these monsters.

Mainstream media can also help by not promoting their news broadcasts to increase ratings with tantalizing clips about their monstrous deeds. So long as the media gives it a soap box, the terrorists will continue its grisly murdering spree.

Terrorism is like wildfire. It only exists under ideal conditions so long as it is fed by oxygen and heat. It feeds on itself until it is starved and the fire will die. Likewise, if we deny the terrorists their platform they will cease. Is it a total solution for terrorism? Of course not, but at least it's a start and something that we bloggers can actively help.

And so my fellow bloggers, the Bloke is asking that you not play the terrorists game. I am also asking my mainstream media cousins to do the same. Accordingly, Blog Bloke will NOT be offering any links or images of the terrorists' murderous deeds - period.

Rathergate, The Real Story

2004-09-22T13:31:00.000-07:00

Bloggers Gain Influence

These are exciting times fellow bloggers. The Bloke woke up over his morning coffee to find the news still abuzz over the blogsphere's torpedoing CBS and Dan Rather's story about President Bush's military records.

News sources are finally acknowledging what Blog Bloke has said all along. That blogs have elevated from a cyber-niche of lonely geeks into a powerful political tour de force:

"This is an exceptional case study of the power of the blogs," said Daniel Drezner, a political scientist at the University of Chicago and co-author of "The Power and Politics of Blogs," a research paper published in July. "A couple of the blogs raised factual questions -- it was like firing a flare. Then the mainstream journalists did the heavy lifting. It was highly symbiotic."

Drezner's study reports there are between 2.4 million to 4 million blogs, a number that is expected to explode to 10 million in 2005. Most are idiosyncratic and apolitical, but those with a pronounced political bent have repeatedly triggered real-world news events.

Bloggers are already credited with keeping afloat the story of Sen. Trent Lott's admiring comments about the now-deceased Sen. Strom Thurmond and his 1948 segregation-based campaign for the presidency, until the mainstream media swarmed all over it. They also nurtured controversy about Kerry's Vietnam record alongside veterans opposed to Kerry. But the CBS story is the biggest coup to date.

"This was a story tailor-made for bloggers," said Henry Farrell, the co-author of the research paper. "They're not investigative reporters and don't have the resources of the media. But there are lots of talented people out there who can work on the story for 20 minutes. It was distributed intelligence in which a story can be unpacked into thousands of little bits."

"I don't think this story is comparable to any other I've seen," said Tom Johnson of Power Line. "A major news story, produced by a gold-standard news operation in the midst of a presidential campaign, turns out to be a complete and utter fraud. As recently as five years ago, it would have stood up."

"We can't be too quick to equate the bona fides and journalistic chops of a blogger with that of any mainstream media organization," says Christopher Klein, a former executive vice president of CBS News. "The bloggers do not have any system of checks and balances. My issue is simply when we start elevating these journals of opinion to the level of newspapers of record, so to speak."

Other critics have complained that blogs can traffic in rumor, such as a claim in February that Sen. John Kerry had had an affair with a former intern.

Responding to the criticism, Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee behind the Instapundit blog, says the online community acts as its own ombudsman to sift fact from allegation.

"The check on blogs is other blogs," he says. "Because blogs operate in a reputation-based environment, nobody minds a bias. But they expect you to be honest about your facts. And if you get a reputation for not being honest about your facts, people pay lots of attention to you."

Jimmy Orr, Bush's Internet director, last summer called blogs "very instrumental. They can lead the news. And they've been underestimated." Bush campaign communications director Nicole Devenish last week told Time magazine that "blogs are what talk radio was a few years ago."

But Drezner and Farrell said the bloggers' moment in the sun may be brief, as the novelty of what they do fades and they become co-opted by mainstream journalists and politicians. "They're going to get sucked into the system," Farrell said. "Politicians are figuring out how to absorb them, so they may eventually fade a bit."

*Blog Bloke takes this one step further. Rather (no pun intended) than being absorbed, what you will find is a convergence of blogging and journalism. Simply because the technology is too powerful to be ignored by industry, and too empowering to be abandoned by the public as a passing fad.

Dan Rather and CBS Apologize

2004-09-20T23:42:00.000-07:00

Chalk this one up for the Blogosphere

CBS News and Anchorman Dan Rather have finally come clean and made a public apology . They acknowledge the authenticity of documents used in a recent "60 Minutes II" story about George W. Bush's National Guard service can't be confirmed.

Rather and CBS News have both said using the documents was a mistake. CBS also said it was deliberately misled by a key source in its "60 Minutes" report questioning President Bush's National Guard service.

CBS added former Texas Guard official Bill Burkett "has acknowledged that he provided the now-disputed documents" and "admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents' origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source."

Blog Bloke is not going to join his headline seeking peers who are demanding the public lynching of a news icon. There is no evidence Mr. Rather intentionally misled the public, and any conjecture in this regard is preposterous. For to even entertain such a notion would infer that Mr. Rather was in collusion and prepared to jeopardize an impeccable career.

I don't think so, and unless there is concrete evidence produced to the contrary I am satisfied with the apology and he has been redeemed as far as I'm concerned.

There is no denying that Dan jumped the gun and screwed up big time. A man with his experience should know better and he will always suffer the humiliation of this episode on his record. But he also did what was needed to rectify the matter.

The mark of a man (or woman) is not how many mistakes he didn't make - but rather how he handles those mistakes. Everybody messes up and his exemplary career to date demands absolution. As for CBS' handling of the matter, I'm not so sure.

Will that be the end of it? Not by a long shot. Already rumours abound the document was leaked by Kerry's bunch. Was it partisanship? Who knows.

But if there is anything we can learn from all this right here and now, it is exactly what your Momma has always told you. Don't believe everything that you read, or hear, or... chalk this one up for the blogosphere folks.

CBS Gets a Black Eye from Bloggers

2004-09-20T12:59:00.000-07:00

This in from the Washington Post:

Scott Johnson, a lawyer in Mendota Heights, Minn., put up his first post at 7:51 a.m. on Sept. 9. By the time he got to his Minneapolis office, he had dozens of e-mail responses.

One of them was from Charles Johnson, a Web designer in Los Angeles, who promptly posted his own thoughts on the subject.

Scott Johnson, 53, writes for a Web site called Power Line. Charles Johnson, 51, posts on Little Green Footballs. They were among the bloggers who blew the cyber-whistle by charging that the documents used by "60 Minutes" in its report on President Bush's Air National Guard service appeared bogus.

It was like throwing a match on kerosene-soaked wood. The ensuing blaze ripped through the media establishment as previously obscure bloggers managed to put the network of Murrow and Cronkite firmly on the defensive.

The secret, says Charles Johnson, is "open-source intelligence gathering." Meaning: "We've got a huge pool of highly motivated people who go out there and use the tools to find stuff. We've got an army of citizen journalists out there."

With Bush telling the Manchester, N.H., Union Leader that "there are a lot of questions" about the documents "and they need to be answered," the pressure has intensified on CBS. The network hopes to finish its investigation early this week of whether the memos said to be from Bush's Guard commander 30 years ago are forgeries -- a debate that has been driven by America's e-mailers.

In the last two years, the blogosphere -- a vast, free-floating, often quirky club open to anyone with a modem and some opinions -- has been growing in influence, with some one-man operations boasting followings larger than those of small newspapers.

Many sites are seething with partisan passion, often directed at the media. But they are also two-way portals for retired military officers, computer techies, former IBM Selectric salespeople and just about anyone else to challenge and fact-check media claims.

Not everyone is a fan. Former CBS executive Jonathan Klein complained on Fox News that "these bloggers have no checks and balances. . . . You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing."

The pajama brigade pounced. After all, they had found problems that CBS had missed or minimized -- and had done it by downloading the memos from the network's Web site. "One of the things about a blog is we sometimes act as a clearinghouse for information from readers with an interest in an esoteric area," says Scott Johnson.

Bloggers also have the advantage of speed. Several major newspapers quickly began questioning the Guard documents, but they lagged behind the online critiques.

The first known posting came on the hotly conservative Free Republic site at 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 8 -- less than four hours after the story aired -- from a man dubbed Buckhead. The Los Angeles Times says he is Harry MacDougald, an Atlanta lawyer with GOP connections.

Conservative Web commentators are overjoyed. "I don't want to overstate the extent of my glee over the Dan Rather imbroglio now known as 'Memogate,' " wrote National Review's Jonah Goldberg. "But it may well be the Greatest Story Ever."

Blogger Andrew Sullivan now calls for Rather to be canned. "This is the blogs' breakthrough moment," he says. "Dan Rather is a much bigger deal than Howell Raines," who resigned as the New York Times' top editor after the Jayson Blair debacle. Some liberal columnists and editorial pages have ripped CBS as well.

Anonymous attacks thrive on the Net. The Chicago Tribune reports that the site Rathergate.com is run by Mike Krempasky, political director of a Virginia advertising firm run by conservative direct-mail king Richard Viguerie.

Were the bloggers politically motivated? Charles Johnson says he's a lifelong Democrat who plans to vote for Bush. Scott Johnson is a Republican activist who views Rather as an "intensely partisan liberal" and "quit listening to CBS News 20 years ago."

*Blog Bloke says calling for the resignation of one of journalisms' icons is out of line. Nevertheless, I'm still waiting for Dan Rather to come clean on this. After all, he would have expected nothing less from Nixon, or Reagan, or Clinton, or... more at BlogBloke.com.

Emmys 2004

2004-09-19T23:13:00.000-07:00

Sopranos `Angels' wins big at the Emmys, HBO takes home 17 of the 27 Emmys, Kelsey Grammer wins his fourth Emmy for best actor, Jessica Parker accepts her prize and Britney Spears' day-old marriage was the talk on the Emmy red carpet.

Hurricane Photo Gallery

2004-09-19T17:42:00.000-07:00

With Rathergate taking most of the headlines these days it seems that the wrath of the hurricane season has taken a backseat. A picture is worth a thousand words they say and so the Sun-Sentinel has put together a photo gallery of the devastation.

Apprentice Bradford Cohen Fired!

2004-09-18T15:48:00.000-07:00

"It Doesn't Get any Better Than This"

Although Blog Bloke hates to admit it, he watches 'The Apprentice' from time to time (it's the only reality show that he really likes). The Bloke has been in a state of shock and only now can he bring himself to comment on it.

The Don has definitely trumped himself this time. In show-stopping style he gave us a glimpse of what the big, bad world of biz is really all about.

Perhaps like me you were dumbfounded by the Donald’s decision. But in case you missed it, in a fatal moment of bravado, lawyer Bradford Cohen waived his protected status and came into the board room to face the music with the rest of his peers.

After brutalising the losing team, pushing every button he could muster with all the gusto of a shark tenderizing its meal, the Donald suddenly turned on Bradford and uttered those terrible words "Your Fired".

And to add insult to injury, only moments earlier the Don complimented him several times saying that he was his favorite apprentice. Astonishing!

Don justified his decision by saying he couldn’t allow anyone who could make such a “stupid” gamble to head one of his companies. Somehow it makes sense, right? Well, I guess so... but nonetheless it was a real shocker and the Bloke didn't see it coming.

Trump said it best. At the end of the show he leaned back in his chair and said "it doesn't get any better than that". Can you spell P-O-W-E-R F-R-E-A-K?

So the Bloke says to Donald. Ok, maybe you were justified in being a little peeved, but if Bradford really was the best of the bunch wouldn't a spanking and warning have sufficed? But then again, that’s why Trump is the Donald, and the Bloke is, well...

So what was the message the Bloke received? Big business is nasty stuff and the Donald revels in it - and it makes for great television.

(P.S.: Bloke only watches the show because it represents everything that he despises about the human condition - greed, betrayal, climbing the corporate ladder, boardroom knife fights and backroom chicanery... and for a few brief moments it makes the Bloke feel a little smug and good about himself.)

Some day I can only hope to see the Donald receive the same treatment that he enjoys meeding out (like cancelling his show perhaps?). "Donald, you're fired". Somehow it has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

Bloggers Declare War on Spam

2004-09-15T22:31:00.000-07:00

But Can We Win?

The doom and gloom naysayers are predicting that comment spamming will mark the end of blogging, (or at least as we now know it) and are advocating the removal of commenting altogether.

According to the Online Journalism Review spammers are forever creative in finding ways to gain Google search results. One method they use is to post links in the comments sections of popular blogs. But not for long because the makers of blogging software are banding together to keep interactivity alive in the blogosphere.

Just what the heck is "comment spam" and how did it get so many prominent bloggers up in arms? Basically, spammers have been using blogs to help boost their standings in Google searches by posting massive numbers of comments that include links to their pornography sites, scams and get-rich-quick sites. If your site is linked by a top-ranked site or blog, then Google will often raise your site's ranking - at least that's the thinking of spammers.

But Google and other software makers have decidedly put the kybosh on that:

Now, Google's Blogger software puts links in comments through a redirected URL, taking away any PageRank boost. And Six Apart's latest TypePad service and Movable Type software include multiple ways to stem comment spam, including Jay Allen's MT-Blacklist and the TypeKey registration system.

Dave Winer has taken it even further by advocating getting rid of commenting altogether:

More recently, the godfather of blogging Dave Winer, former CEO of UserLand, told me that comments are not an intrinsic part of a Weblog and have basically failed after a brief honeymoon period in the early history of blogs. "I think a blog is a publication, and publications have proven that letters to the editor are useful," Winer said. "But blogs with comments are not letters to the editor. Letters to the editor are edited, they're selected, and that selection process is a very important aspect of it."

The Bloke thinks that is radical surgery to cure a minor pestilence, for it is the interactivity of blogging that renders its appeal. Nevertheless, here are some of the more effective strategies that have been employed so far - along with its possible side effects:

1. Turn all comments - or at least old comments off:
Not everyone agrees with Winer's view on comments not being essential for blogs. But if they're causing more trouble than they're worth, it makes sense to simply turn them off. Popular group blog BoingBoing turned off comments, and readers started their own discussion group on Tribe.net. Another option is removing or freezing comments on old blog postings, where spammers like to strike. There's even a program called MTCloseComments to do just that within Movable Type blogs.

2. Don't allow links in comments:
This would make it impossible for spammers to score any links on your site. However, turning off links in comments means that any person commenting on your blog would not be able to include links to stories they mention, their own blog postings or other important sources of information online. If links are the currency of the Web, then this idea might bankrupt your discussion.

3. Try a blacklisting service:
If you use Movable Type, the new version 3.1 includes the MT-Blacklist plug-in. That means comments that include links to known spam sites will be automatically blocked. Of course, no blacklist is perfect, and the universe of sites to promote via spam is seemingly endless. But this method will at least keep some repeat offenders off your comments.

4. Redirect all links from your blog comments:
If comment links all are redirected through a special URL, then the offensive URL will get no boost in search engine results. Google's free Blogger software includes such a redirect via the link: http://blogger.com/redirect/?r=[URL to be linked]

5. Include registration steps or a comment preview page:
Any extra steps for comments takes away automated spamming techniques. Some bloggers have tried a "captcha" where people need to retype letters and numbers in an image before writing their comments. Others force every commentator to preview their comments before posting them.

And Six Apart created the TypeKey registration system so that commentators would have a universal log-in for every blog they want to comment on. Plus, Six Apart is providing code so that other software developers can implement TypeKey into their applications, making it a more universal service. Movable Type also has "comment throttling," limiting the number of posts someone (or some robot) can make in a certain time period.

Six Apart co-founder Ben Trott told me that people running high-traffic blogs will start requiring registration for comments. "This can be of benefit," he said, "since it has the dual effect of reducing comment spam and improving the general quality of the conversation because it tends to form a community of visitors around a Weblog."

The downside of registration is that spammers could simply register first and then spam. Plus, registration sets up a barrier for people who want to join the discussion. Usually, there's an e-mail verification for first-time commentators. But most bloggers would rather put a small burden on commentators than bearing the huge burden of fighting comment spam themselves.

6. Spell out the law:
One Irish blogger, Antoin O Lachtnain, was so upset after spending hours removing comment spam that he decided to post a special disclaimer for anyone who wanted to comment on his blog:

"Relevant comments are very welcome, whether you agree or disagree with what I have to say. However, advertising of goods or services is not permitted on this forum without payment of a fee. The fee per advertisement is 500 Euros, which is payable immediately by bank draft. If you post an ad but do not pay the charge immediately you have corrupted data on this Web site without my permission. As such, you are guilty of criminal damage under the Criminal Damage Act, 1991 and subject to a prison sentence of up to 10 years and a fine of up to 12,700 Euros...Please note that posting on this forum will have no effect whatsoever on the PageRank of any links that you post.

So the question, is will commenting on blogs survive the onslaught of spammers? Duncan Riley, editor of the Blog Herald in Australia, thinks the dynamic will likely shift in the blogosphere, with mid-tier bloggers abandoning comments altogether.

"Blogging will survive comment spam, however the blogosphere as we know it today will not be the same as a result of it," he told me via e-mail. "The ability to comment on blogs has been a large part of the phenomenal success blogging has had over the last few years. Expect a correction in blog numbers as the industry suffers from burnout, suppliers fold, are bought out or merge, and as the novelty for some wears off from newer distractions, less time and intolerance of comment spam."

Blog Bloke has a slightly different take on the problem. Interactiveness is what sets blogging apart from the old school static websites of yesteryear, and commenting is a big part of that success.

Spam will always be a problem, but remove commenting from blogs? The Bloke says no, for that would surely kill the communal appeal of blogging and in so doing lose it's power and intimacy - something that has made blogging special. And what about group blogs such as Blogcritics.org that have created huge communities from the use of commenting? Removing comments would certainly sound their death bell.

The Bloke sees a brighter outlook for the blogosphere. Just as email hasn't waned in the onslaught of spam, neither will blogging. Enact tougher laws, better technology to stop them or track and prosecute the culprits... whatever.

The bottom line is blogging is an empowering technology that is too important to slip beneath the cracks because of a few rotten apples. Once the spammers realize they are wasting their time they will (hopefully) disappear and move on to more lucrative mischief. And besides, if you are being spammed that means your blog is popular and is perhaps the price we will just have to pay.

CBS Experts didn't Authenticate Bush Memos

2004-09-15T01:35:00.000-07:00

Rathergate Continued

CNN reports three document experts who were asked by CBS News to examine memos alleging President Bush received special treatment during his service in the Texas Air National Guard told CNN Tuesday that they did not authenticate the documents - and one said the network "ignored" her reservations about them before a "60 Minutes" broadcast last week.

Marcel Matley (who appeared Friday on the CBS Evening News during anchor Dan Rather's lengthy defense of his reporting on the memos) told CNN that he could only verify that Lt. Col. Jerry Killian's signatures on the documents in question were from the same source.

The Kansas City Star also reports that a detailed comparison by the Washington Post of memos obtained by CBS News with authenticated documents on President Bush's National Guard service reveals dozens of inconsistencies. They range from conflicting military terminology to different word-processing techniques, the newspaper reported.

The former secretary for the Texas Air National Guard colonel who supposedly wrote the memos critical of Bush's Guard service told The Dallas Morning News that the CBS documents are fake, but that they reflect real documents that once existed. And CBS News President Andrew Heyward said yesterday that his network will not reveal the source of disputed documents

The plot thickens...

Bloggers Scoop Mainstream Media

2004-09-12T10:02:00.000-07:00

Bloggers have long been the brunt of criticism and ridicule from mainstream journalists. They look down on us like so much rabble - a bunch of misfits and amateur would-be, wannabes deserving of their scorn and disdain.

Well it seems that bloggers have finally gained the upper hand this time. Why? Because unlike our conventional cousins we are free spirits not encumbered under the thumb of corporate bosses and political influence.

Bloggers don't need to wait for an editor's approval to run with a story, and that gives us a distinct advantage. So much so that in the future bloggers may very well end up becoming the preferred voice of the public, because we ARE the public and on the bleeding edge of the news.

In fact, recently we became the news - making us an emerging technological tour de force that can no longer be ignored. The recent Dan Rather controversy is a perfect example of this.

In case you've been living in a vacuum, Rather came under scrutiny when the validity of his source was challenged for his 60 Minutes news story about Bush's National Guard service.

Bloggers went even further to lay claim that Rather's sources were fabricated and in fact fraudulent. Whether or not the documents are a fraud is secondary. The real story is that bloggers were the first who broke the story, and openly challenged mainstream journalism turning it on its ear.

The claims made by bloggers against Rather may very well end being proven, or they may not. That is not the point (at least for the purposes of this post).

This is an example of bloggers (i.e. the public) challenging mainstream journalists and forcing them to take notice. It is clear evidence of the influence that bloggers now have, and down the road I predict a convergence of blogging and journalism.

That is exciting news and an impetus for bloggers, but with power comes responsibility. This story also demonstrates the need for bloggers to adhere to high standards of professionalism. Something that is clearly a problem no matter which side of the fence you are sitting on.

This marks a remarkable milestone for the blogosphere. These are exciting times dear bloggers, so the Bloke says the next time you think you're wasting your time talking to yourself - think again. Because Dan Rather just might be reading.

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Update: It seems that Michelle Malkin agrees with the Bloke

9/11 Remembered

2004-09-12T09:04:00.000-07:00

In Memory Of Those

Three years after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, people across the United States and the world paused to remember the 2,973 people who were killed that day.

Judge throws out Child Porn Law

2004-09-11T19:06:00.000-07:00

In his infinite wisdom a federal judge throws out a Pennsylvania law requiring Internet service providers to block Web sites containing child pornography, saying the tools also cause "massive suppression" of constitutionally protected material.

The 2002 law was aimed at forcing companies like America Online to block customers from viewing Web sites with sexually explicit images of children. No one challenged the state's right to stop child porn, which is already illegal under federal law. But lawyers for the Center for Democracy and Technology and the American Civil Liberties Union had argued that the filtering technology used to block such Web sites is too clumsy.

Over two years, the groups said, Internet service providers trying to obey blocking orders were forced to cut access to at least 1.5 million legal Web sites that had nothing to do with child pornography or even legal pornography, but shared Internet addresses with the offending sites.

U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois agreed the law could not be enforced without also blocking protected material. "There is little evidence that the act has reduced the production of child pornography or the child sexual abuse associated with its creation," DuBois wrote. "On the other hand, there is an abundance of evidence that implementation of the act has resulted in massive suppression of speech protected by the First Amendment."

Don't you just love lawyers?

Dan Rather Update

2004-09-11T12:23:00.000-07:00

That's My Story and I'm Sticking to it

Following the Dan Rather controversy, CBS News Reports:

"The network is adamantly defending the authenticity of the memos, which were obtained by CBS News' "60 Minutes," saying experts who examined the memos concluded they were authentic documents produced by Mr. Bush's former commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian.

This report was not based solely on recovered documents, but rather on a preponderance of evidence, including documents that were provided by unimpeachable sources, interviews with former Texas National Guard officials and individuals who worked closely back in the early 1970s with Colonel Jerry Killian and were well acquainted with his procedures, his character and his thinking," the statement read.

"In addition, the documents are backed up not only by independent handwriting and forensic document experts but by sources familiar with their content," the statement continued. "Contrary to some rumors, no internal investigation is underway at CBS News nor is one planned."

Critics claim typewriters didn't have that ability in the 1970s. But some models did, Rather reported. In fact, other Bush military records already released by the White House itself show the same superscript – including one from as far back as 1968.

Some analysts outside CBS say they believe the typeface on these memos is New Times Roman, which they claim was not available in the 1970s.

But the owner of the company that distributes this typing style told CBS News that it has been available since 1931.

Document and handwriting examiner Marcel Matley analyzed the documents for CBS News. He says he believes they are real. And he is concerned about exactly what is being examined by some of the people questioning the documents, because deterioration occurs each time a document is reproduced. And the documents being analyzed outside of CBS have been photocopied, faxed, scanned and downloaded, and are far removed from the documents CBS started with. More at CBS News...

Dan Rather in the Hot seat

2004-09-10T19:29:00.000-07:00

One of my all time respected journalists Dan Rather is in the hot seat over the possibility documents that he aired on 60 minutes relating to Bush's National Guard service were fabricated. Sites that have been following this story include the Drudge who reported that Rather and CBS News' reputations are on the line.

The fiasco centers around superscripts that Microsoft Word automatically inserts, which were found on the memos obtained by CBS. In simple english that means the alleged forgery was computer-generated on documents that were supposedly created before the technology even existed.

So far, Rather is reported to be holding steadfast to his belief the docs are genuine, and CBS is apparently standing behind him. Nevertheless, undisclosed sources who asked not to be named, have described the CBS NEWS anchor and 60 MINUTES as being privately "shell-shocked" by the increasing likelihood that the documents in question were fraudulent.

"The reputation and integrity of the entire news division is at stake, if we are in error, it will be corrected," a top CBS source explained late Thursday. At this time however, CBS News states with absolute certainty that the ability to produce the "th" superscript mentioned in reports about the documents did exist on typewriters as early as 1968, and in fact is in President Bush's official military records released by the White House.

Blog Bloke's take on this is simple. The story was a non-story and only serves to denigrate the election into a mud-slinging campaign that should be beneath the dignity of all sides. It seems such a silly waste to ruin reputations over. The Bloke recommends growing up boys and girls and stick to the real issues, rather (no pun intended) than selling the news.

BUSH 'TOOK COCAINE'

2004-09-07T15:03:00.000-07:00

The Mirror reports that President George W. Bush snorted cocaine at Camp David and his wife Laura also allegedly tried cannabis in her youth.

Author Kitty Kelley says in her biography The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, that the US President first used coke at university in the mid-1960s.

She quotes his former sister-in-law Sharon Bush who claims: "Bush did coke at Camp David when his father was President, and not just once either."

Other acquaintances allege that as a 26-year-old National Guard, Bush "liked to sneak out back for a joint or into the bathroom for a line of cocaine".

Personally the Bloke couldn't care less what Georgy did 20 years ago when he was young and foolish. What I do care about is what he does in office and that should be the bottom line.

Watch out for that Hospital Food

2004-09-04T02:40:00.000-07:00

Former President Bill Clinton admits that he feels "a little scared" as he waits to undergo life-threatening heart bypass surgery scheduled for early next week. He tells Larry King "Republicans aren't the only people who want four more years here", and Hillary says he's in good spirits killing time playing cards with the family. It looks like all that fast food has finally caught up with you Bill. But watch out for that hospital food - it can kill.

Blogger Navbar Update: Quick Fix

2004-08-19T14:07:00.000-07:00

Things have been moving a little faster than I can keep up with. Google has obviously been busy fixing the damage it created with it's new "Navbar" and it is no longer practical for me to edit my previous post. Hence, the reason for this new post which I hope will explain things a little better.

I have still not received any replies from my (3) inquiries to Google regarding problems with the Blogger Navbar. Obviously they have been preoccupied with damage control and counting their IPO money.

Coincidentally (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) a Blogger help file has miraculously surfaced shedding more light onto the navbar problem. I originally posted a quick fix, but found myself having to edit it after discovering Google's which is similar to mine but a little more refined. You will find the fix below or in my previous post under "Editor's Note".

So, if you have a banner on your website that was being covered by the Blogger Navbar this should fix it. Copy this code into your html:

table style="margin-top:40px;"

More info can be found here.

I hope this is helpful. Cheers!

Blogger Navbar: An Open Letter to Google

2004-08-18T11:31:00.000-07:00

RE: Problems with Google's new Navigation Bar for Bloggers

Ok, now I'm really pissed so listen up people.

Blogger.com users were inundated with a new navigation bar placed at the top of our blogs. There was no warning this was coming (at least none that I am aware of), and it's timing no doubt was meant to celebrate its IPO offering. It comes in only four "stylish" colors, meaning that it is not configurable to most websites, and unfortunately it also covers up banners.

I realize that we bloggers are at the mercy of the wims of our service provider, and there is not much we can do about that (with the exception of moving our site to another provider). But has it ever occurred to you (Google) that we bloggers spend a huge amount of time and effort making our sites functional as well as aesthetically attractive? And we certainly don't need you poo-pooing on all that effort with an unsightly navigation bar covering up our work.

Furthermore, I also realize that Google employees are probably distracted watching their stock monitors over the prospect of becoming billionaires. However, for just for a moment would you please stop being evil and put aside your greed and extend me the courtesy of at least returning my emails. That is if it's not too much trouble.

And speaking of email, will somebody please kindly tell the Bloke how he can get rid of the navbar that is blocking the top banner. And if for some unforeseen reason you have created it without an option to disable then at least be good enough to advise how it can be moved above my banner.

Oh yes, one more thing. If you are going to impose this on us will you please kindly make it a little more configurable to our websites?

Thank you so much for your consideration.

xxx000

...BB

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BTW: Clicking on the blogger news item link: "the new Blogger Navbar" redirects me to a blank page??? And the network seems awful sluggish and sporadic so let's get with the program people. Here's an idea. How 'bout you guys get off the phone with your brokers and give us some service? Thanks for wasting the better part of my day.

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EDITOR'S UPDATE: For those of you who are having the same problem, Blog Bloke has found a fix. They still haven't returned my emails but I found this information buried in Google's help files which miraculously showed up after I wrote the original post (just a coincidence perhaps ;-). Copy this code into your html:

table style="margin-top:40px;"

More info can be found here.

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SIDEBAR: On a positive note, despite the fact the navbar was imposed on the Bloke, I must admit that it does seem to be a useful toy, er... tool. As my fellow blogger Brandon Bertelsen points out:

"Honestly, I think it's a great value adding feature for experiencing the variety of blogs that are actually on the internet. I'd like to know if someone ever comes across a blog they've seen before! I'm going to bookmark the redirection link to a random blog because I was (and will) thoroughly enjoying reading the most random blogs that I was falling upon."

Adding to that footnote, it comes with some functionality - i.e. a search capability for your blog, a "blog this" link and easy access to your blogger account. Forgetting the fact that the Google Toolbar already has a "Blog This" feature, all in all it does seem to have its usefulness. And I suppose it is a better alternative to their ugly Adsense ads that they used to force on blogspot users.

Problem is the Bloke doesn't really need it. Granted, it has some 'useful' features, but I can do the same things without it. It is essentially just an advertisement for Google under the guise of a tool (or toy depending upon your point of view). It slows down the loading of my webpage, and it was arbitrarily imposed on me without sufficient options to configure it to my site or to disable it. That is the bottom line and so I give it an unabashedly two thumbs down.

Google for Sale!

2004-08-18T06:30:00.000-07:00

"When Fools Rush In"

Only the rich need apply: Google is going IPO and has slashed prices in the face of public criticism that it is overpriced.

Not since the days of the Klondike Gold Rush have we seen so much anticipation as insiders look to the holy grail of dot coms to renew investor confidence. Blog Bloke has listened to all the experts, pundits and soothsayers who seem more intent on subverting Google's enterprise than anything else.

So is the Bloke going to rush out and buy shares today? I think not. I still believe Google is overpriced and I'm going to wait for the dust to settle. Prices should drop to a semblance of normality and only then I will consider the plunge (if I can afford it).

Hurricane Charley Photos

2004-08-14T02:06:00.000-07:00

Pics of Hurricane Charley as it roars its way across Orlando Florida.

Florida - Hurricane Charley slammed ashore Friday on Florida's Gulf Coast with 145-mph winds and surges of water estimated at 15 feet. The storm headed for the densely populated Interstate 4, which is flanked by Walt Disney World and other Orlando theme parks.

The hurricane struck west-central Florida at Charlotte Harbor, about 110 miles southeast of the Tampa area. Winds blew off the roof of a hurricane shelter in Arcadia, where 1,200 people had gathered, and tore apart small planes at the Charlotte County airport.

Three people have been confirmed died so far and dozens injured. Earlier, Charley was blamed for three deaths in Cuba and one in Jamaica. It is the strongest storm since Andrew caused widespread devastation in southern Florida in 1992.

Charley leveled houses and snapped trees in half as it raged into the western Florida coast, leaving 1 million people without power and an expected billion-dollar price tag before moving into the Atlantic Saturday. By 5 a.m. (0600 GMT), Charley was about 115 miles southwest of Charleston, South Carolina, near latitude 31.

By 5 a.m. (0600 GMT), Charley was about 115 miles southwest of Charleston, South Carolina, near latitude 31. 2north and longitude 80.5 west, and its winds had reduced to 85mph (138 kph). It was moving north-northeast at 25 mph (40 kph)and packing winds of up to 85 mph (136 kph).

One storm-related death involving a tractor trailer truck, possibly pushed by a gust of wind, crossed a highway median and fell on top of a car near Orlando, killing a child passenger in the car. Charley was blamed for four deaths in Cuba and one in Jamaica after it formed in the Caribbean Tuesday.

A category 4 storm - the second strongest on a scale used to rate hurricanes - Charley rated as one of the most dangerous storms ever to hit Florida. Hurricane Andrew was believed to be a Category 4 storm when it hit Miami in August 1992, causing $25 billion in damage. It was subsequently upgraded to a Category 5. Hurricane Hugo, which caused $7 billion in damage when it hit South Carolina in 1989, was also a Category 4.

Svend Gets Off

2004-08-07T00:02:00.000-07:00

Gay activist and former Canadian Member of Parliament Svend Robinson pleaded guilty to stealing an expensive ring in an act that his liar (er, I mean the best 'lawyer' money can buy) said was a "cry for help."

Judge Ronald Fratkin later handed him a conditional discharge. That means he will have no criminal record if certain conditions are met.

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If indeed his criminal act was a "cry for help", will someone please explain how a short stint of community service will get him the "help" that he allegedly needs? Clearly there was a deal already in the making before copping his plea, and do we need any more proof there is a two-tier system of justice for the have's and have-nots?

Awe Bloke, there you go being cynical again.

Moore and O'Reilly Get it On

2004-07-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

After reading the transcript of yesterday's confrontation between Michael Moore and Bill O'Reilly, I was left asking myself is it any wonder things are so messed up. If grown men acting like children and accomplishing nothing is your thing then this is for you.

So who do I think won? That can be best answered by saying who I think was the greatest loser - and that would be we the viewers.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I give it a 6 for entertainment value, and a 2 for news worthiness.

Canadian PM wins election but with Minority Government

2004-06-29T13:28:00.000-07:00

In a surprise upset, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and his scandal-ridden Liberal Party bested their reunited Conservative opposition in Monday's federal election. A strong showing by separatists in Quebec helped contribute to rob Martin of an outright majority, but a low-voter turnout across Canada could also be the reason.

No party alone has the balance of power. A Conservative and NDP alliance is one short of a majority government and will have to work with the Bloc separatists, with one solitary independent who may end up holding the keys to the kingdom.

Minority governments can be good. It will keep Paul Martin and the arrogant Liberals humble. This is a government that will have to be inclusive and work together on consensus in order to survive - meaning Canadians will have broader representation, or they will end up back at the polls sooner than later.

Next time around I predict the Conservatives will win a majority. By then there should be enough distance between them and their radical Reform roots. That is of course providing that they can stay out of trouble between now and then.

The Bloc separatists and NDP will have substantial clout in the new government so it should be very interesting. There will be a lot of changing alliances, flip-flopping all over the place depending on the issues. I'm looking forward to it because the last decade under Chretien was BORING to say the least.

The Bloke is Taking a Holiday

2004-06-29T12:28:00.000-07:00

I'm going away on a badly needed holiday for a few days. I will be camping without a laptop so there will be no posting during that time. The news feeds however will be constantly updated so you can still read those during my absence.

It will be tough going through detox (being away from my 'puter that long) but it is for the best (I think) and (hopefully) I will return with a renewed passion to blog.

Thanks for reading and see you soon in cyberspace.

Canadians go to the Polls in one of the Closest Elections Ever

2004-06-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

Like their American cousins, Canadians are poised to partake in what looks like one of the closest elections ever.

All bets are on the newly formed Conservative Party (aka Reform/Alliance) with a minority government. Will that mark the end of Paul Martin's political career? NOT likely. Some say he may resign if he is ousted from his short-stint as Prime Minister.

I say the man is too ambitious, too arrogant to fade away so quickly. Already there are rumblings of an alliance with the NDP, and you can bet he will be looking for an opportunity to bring down the Conservatives with a vote of non-confidence.

Will Harper and the Conservatives be able to build a likewise coalition? Not likely from what I know of him personally, and if he is still as arrogant as I remember. And besides, his policies are so vastly different from the Liberals and NDP I doubt that could ever happen.

And what about the Bloc separatists? Now that would certainly make strange bedfellows. Western separatists (aka Reform) and Quebec separatists working together? Given their bitter rivalry, that would usher in a NEW Canada indeed!

The wagons have encircled Ottawa so let the games begin! Should be exciting to watch how it all unfolds.

Nader Blew It !

2004-06-28T13:17:00.000-07:00

Green Party Rejects Nader, Nominates Cobb as Presidential Nominee:

Democratic Party activists were breathing a sigh of relief on Saturday after Ralph Nader, the consumer activist blamed for spoiling Democrat Al Gore’s bid for the presidency in 2000, lost a bid for a third party endorsement on Saturday.

The Green Party snubbed Nader’s bid for backing, the Chicago Tribune reported, denying him access to 22 state ballots where the Green Party will run.

Nader's decision to publicly break from the Greens last winter and then later solicit party support for his independent run cost him precious backing from the party's grass roots, who were more interested in a long-term strategy of growth.

Now it's Lewinsky's Turn

2004-06-25T20:46:00.000-07:00

Anything to get in on the act. First it was Gennifer Flowers, and now it's Lewinsky's turn at bat.

Monica says she was betrayed by Bill's failure to acknowledge that he destroyed her life in his newly released memoirs.

Ok, so how 'bout we all say a big collective 'BOO HOO' for poor little Gen and Mon? Good. Now that's been said, will the both of you kindly fade away back from whence you came? Pulease!

Governator Steps into Doggy-Doo

2004-06-25T19:58:00.000-07:00

"I realized last night that there was a mistake that I made on the budget".

It seems that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has learned quickly that you can't mess (ugh) with the nations pets. The governator did some fancy back-peddaling after stepping in it and generating a nationwide storm of protest. Reversing his decision that made it easier for shelters to 'terminate' stray dogs and cats, he reinstated the state's six-day waiting period before lost animals could be killed.

As part of his budget proposal that was first drafted in December, the governator had asked the Legislature to repeal a 1998 law that requires the shelters to hold animals up to six days before destroying them. The gov wanted to save money by cutting the waiting period in half saving local governments that operate the shelters $14 million, according to the governor's office.

Cheney curses Senator over Halliburton criticisms

2004-06-24T15:41:00.000-07:00

Vice president Dick Cheney is apparently cracking under the strain of his alleged involvement in Haliburton's profiteering from the war in Iraq. He is accused of using the "F" word in a heated exchange with Senator Leahy.

"I think he was just having a bad day," said Leahy.

A graceful interpretation indeed... more at CNN.

Gennifer Flowers Wilts over Clinton's 'My Life'

2004-06-24T15:23:00.000-07:00

Slogging another five minutes of fame, Gennifer Flowers (the cabaret singer who allegedly had an affair with Bill Clinton) is wilting over his treatment of her in his newly-published memoir, 'My Life' and is threatening legal action.

"I have learned that Bill Clinton has repeated his lies about me and I am sickened by his continued disregard for the truth," Flowers said. "Bill Clinton pretends to be contrite but he continues to bear false witness against his neighbour. He is a national disgrace."

In the memoir, he continues to deny any 12-year affair, saying only that he had a relationship with Flowers "that I should not have had" in the 1970s. "The fact is there was no 12-year affair," he wrote.

```
Quote: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman"... Whoops, sorry - that was Lewinsky.

Wolfowitz Says Iraq 'Temporary' Layover Could Last Years

2004-06-23T16:08:00.000-07:00

Wolfowitz is now saying the temporary layover in Iraq could last "years". The time-line keeps getting longer doesn't it folks? Pretty soon the figures may stretch into decades, and I'm surprised they had the guts to fess up before the election.

It seems to me that is what I have been saying all along. Can you imagine how many headless bodies there will be by that time? So let me see... there is at least one body showing up every week or so, and if my math is correct... well, you figure it out and that doesn't even take into account all of the soldiers coming home in body bags.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'm not an anti-war left-wing nut, BUT the fact is this war is a losing battle. Thanks to technology, never before in the history of mankind have so few been able to cause so much mayhem.

You cannot defeat an enemy you can't find and whose ruthlessness has been bred into it's culture for thousands of years. They have had more practice and are much better at it than we could ever be. Besides, if we even tried to be as barbaric as they are we would no longer have the moral high ground would we?

Face it - it's a lose/lose proposition and they know it. A so-called clean surgical war and the Geneva Convention are out the window on this one. Let's re-think this now before any more people have to to die.

More Heat on Farenheit 9/11

2004-06-22T01:41:00.000-07:00

In a reply to Michael Moore's threat of a libel suit, Christopher Hitchens of MSN Slate Magazine says:

"To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of 'dissenting' bravery".

And Jack Shafer continues the offensive...

Clinton Loses it in Confrontation over Lewinsky Affair

2004-06-21T14:13:00.000-07:00

Bill Clinton's grin is beginning to crack under the strain after his attempt to rewrite his legacy seems to be failing.

After gruelling questions by David Dimbleby during a recent BBC television interview Clinton lost his temper when he was repeatedly quizzed about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Ray Bradbury puts Heat on Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11'

2004-06-21T13:47:00.000-07:00

Author Ray Bradbury is demanding an apology from filmmaker Michael Moore for lifting the title from his classic science-fiction novel "Fahrenheit 451" without permission and wants the new documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" to be renamed.

"He didn't ask my permission," Bradbury, 83, told The Associated Press on Friday. "That's not his novel, that's not his title, so he shouldn't have done it."

"Michael Moore is a screwed a--hole, that is what I think about that case," Bradbury said according to an English translation of the story. "He stole my title and changed the numbers without ever asking me for permission."

Continued the author: "[Moore] is a horrible human being – horrible human!" "He slandered the president to General Clark, and Clark allowed him to do it," Bradbury said. "Clark should have said: 'Don't say that. It is not true.' That day Clark lost his chance to become president."

Bradbury dismissed any chance of the title being changed at this point: "Who cares? Nobody will see his movie. It is almost dead already. Never mind, nobody cares."

Of the Cannes award, Bradbury told the paper: "I have won prizes in different places and they are mostly meaningless. The people there hate us, which is why they gave him the d'Or. It's a meaningless prize."

According to the report, Bradbury refused to say if he would take legal action against Moore.

Clinton's $ Memoirs $ Narcissistic Self-Indulgence

2004-06-19T00:36:00.000-07:00

Clinton's Book 'My Life'
Everything you could ever want in a best seller. Sex, conflict, intrigue... but most of all, a bad case of narcissistic self-indulgence and exploitation of his public (dis)service.

In a sprawling 957-page autobiography, former President Bill Clinton's book "My Life" is a painfully sordid affair (pun intended) about his personal flaws, while exhorting gleeful vindictiveness about what he calls the hypocrisy of his enemies, and blaming his trist with Monica Lewinsky on "old demons" that have haunted him all his life... New York Times.

Am I the only one bugged by all this? Doesn't this only confirm the public's belief that politicians are just a bunch of self-serving egoists? Talk about turning your pain into gain $$$. Only in America you say. Sorry Bill, but you're not getting any of my hard-earned dollars.

Then again, maybe I'm not the only one who is fed up with Bubba's fascination with himself. Perhaps MICHIKO KAKUTANI said it best... "Sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull... the sound of one man prattling away, not for the reader, but for himself and some distant recording angel of history".

Frankly, I don't know where the man finds his gall.

American Hostage Beheaded

2004-06-18T14:05:00.000-07:00

HOW CAN YOU DEFEAT AN ENEMY LIKE THAT?

Short Answer: You Don't

Al Qaeda militants kept a pledge to kill their American hostage, posting three chilling photographs Friday on an Islamist Web site to prove they beheaded Paul Johnson Jr.

The Lockheed Martin Corp. employee was kidnapped in Riyadh last Saturday and found Johnson's body in the eastern part of the city.

U.S. officials confirmed Johnson's death, saying the remains shown on the al Qaeda-linked Web site are "definitely" his.

```
Update June 19, 2004: Saudi officials report they have killed Abdulaziz al-Moqrin, purportedly al-Qaida chief, in reprisal for Johnson's murder. They also say Johnson’s beheaded corpse has still not been found, contradicting earlier reports that it was dumped outside the capital Riyadh.

Hijackers' Radio Transmissions of Sept. 11

2004-06-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

Hijackers' radio transmissions were played for the first time providing a chilling record of Sept. 11 events.

"We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be OK. We are returning to the airport," a hijacker, believed to be Mohamed Atta, the alleged ringleader of the 19 hijackers, told the passengers of American Airlines Flight 11. "Nobody move. Everything will be OK. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet."

There was a second transmission, with sounds of someone yelling, "Get out of here, get out of here." Then came another transmission. "Keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb on board." Then another transmission came. "Uh, is the captain. Would like you all to remain seated. There is a bomb on board and are going back to the airport, and to have our demands (unintelligible). Please remain quiet."

The tape was played for the audience at the commission's hearing. That transmission was the first inkling federal air-traffic controllers had of the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 11 shortly after takeoff from Boston's Logan Airport at 8 a.m. EDT. Atta had been speaking to the plane's passengers, but the radio transmission was received at the FAA's Boston Center. More... National Post

Canadian Election a Dead Heat

2004-06-17T12:32:00.000-07:00

I couldn't resist. In case you didn't know, there's a federal election going on in the Great White North.

The front runner is an old acquaintance of the Bloke's - namely Stephen Harper of the new and improved Conservative Party, formerly known as aka the Alliance and Reform Parties of Canada (last time I checked).

(BTW, the pic above is care of the irreverent Canadian tabloid 'Frank Magazine'. Click on the image and check out their website. It's a hoot.)

So what does the Bloke think of his old bud Harper?

Ode to Ray Charles

2004-06-12T14:59:00.000-07:00

I realize that I'm a little late paying my respects to Ray Charles who died yesterday, but here goes.

I recall hearing an interview with Paul McCartney admitting that often when he writes a crooning ballad, he will think of Ray and ask himself how would he have done it.

That says a lot about the man. Ray Charles crossed all musical genre and racial boundaries, and will always have a special place reserved in my favorite music repertoire.

I will sorely miss him. God speed Ray.

Bush Family History

2004-06-02T13:15:00.000-07:00

With an election looming and Fahrenheit 911 movie about to be released, the history of the Bush Family and the middle east may have a significant impact on the coming election. So for your reading pleasure a brief history is listed here, courtesy of Political Gateway, the official Bush White House biography and the Bush Presidential Library.

Fascinating reading. Reminds me of the Cheney/Haliburton connection and Kennedy senior's shady past. They are all kindred spirits. Opportunist shadow people riding the fine line between good and evil wherever it fills their pockets. Obviously there's big money in war and intrigue.

But we get what we deserve don't we? We never vote for the little independent guy who is not beholding to anybody. We always go for the big-biz mainstream parties. Ralph Nader who?

Can George W. break free from his family's past? Time will tell. But of course it is a double-edged sword. No matter how much he may try, the fact is Bush junior wouldn't be president today if he were not born into a family of privilege and influence. And with so many of Daddy's buds around, well... you can't have it both ways can you? It's time to grow up and be your own man Georgy.

Not much of a playing field is there? Kerry the meanderer? Hmmmmm. So far that scenario doesn't work for me either. Do you think maybe a 'None of the above' option will be available? Hope so.

Shifting America's Paradigms

2004-05-31T12:01:00.000-07:00

I came across this post by Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame. He quotes fellow blogger Andrew Sullivan's retort to mainstream media writer Susan Sontag:

"Sontag asserts that the core of the U.S. and coalition mission in Iraq is imperial conquest. This is demonstrably untrue. The motives of the French and Belgians in nineteenth and twentieth century imperialism were utterly different than the Bush administration's attempt to pre-empt Islamist terror in the wake of 9/11. The goal from the beginning of the Iraq war has been to set up a democratic and stable Iraq and to move toward U.S. withdrawal. No imperialist would be insisting upon a June 30 deadline for the transfer of sovereignty, as President Bush did last night. The conflation of these two distinct endeavors is absurd: mere rhetoric, not argument. Was American intervention in Bosnia, of which Sontag approved, "imperialist"? It saved Muslims from a totalitarian, genocidal monster as well. And we still have troops there. If Sontag wants to make a distinction between the two wars, it would be interesting to read. But none is there. She is venting, not arguing."

Glenn ended his post with the nondescript comment: "Indeed".

~~~
Well that is all very well and interesting fellas, but I can't help but wonder - if US involvement in Iraq is really all that noble, why then can't they make a timely withdrawal and get heck out of there? And NO - the original plan was to get rid of Saddam, his alleged WMD's and terrorist connections, and give it back to the Iraqi's - period... and in a timely fashion. NOT, to doddle around indefinitely manipulating behind the scenes.

I for one don't buy the White House spiel. Read between the lines and you will see that George W. continues to make it up along the way and spew his "rhetoric" (such as) "we will stay the course". And why is that? Because, the so-called June 30th handover will be symbolic at best, and he's going to stick around long enough to make certain that a pro-American puppet government is in power. Whatever it takes and no matter how many body bags come home.

So let's get real here for a moment shall we. We all know that our interests are a tad more greedy than we care to admit - i.e. what about the oil, and... the oil, and... oh yeah - the oil. Yada, yada, yada.

Yes, we got rid of a bad guy named Saddam, but there's a million others like him around the world that don't happen to sit on the 3rd largest oil field. So please, save the speeches for the 4th of July.

Don't get me wrong. All that I'm saying is let's be honest and stop trying to spin this noble, high-minded nonsense. It's all chicanery, and unless you have had the opportunity to live abroad you can't really understand why the rest of the world doesn't buy into it.

It's about paradigms - just ask Stephen Covey. No matter how many 'smart' bombs we build, we cannot possibly re-create mankind in America's image, and that is precisely the kind of arrogant thinking that has created so much anti-American resentment.

The rest of the world ain't all that stupid fellas, and it's time that we gave them the benefit of the doubt for having a brain and treat them with some semblance of respect. The 'smart' money says we should be learning how to live and let live, get along with our neighbours and make the so-called 'enemy' our ally. Not developing the latest technology that can pulverize them into oblivion.

Remember the cold war? Are you a movie buff? Frankenstein's monster can easily turn against it's creator.

Was Bush Duped by Iran?

2004-05-25T16:24:00.000-07:00

CIA fears Iran duped U.S. into Iraq war. The Washington Post reports:

The CIA has asked the FBI to investigate Ahmad Chalabi's Pentagon contacts to see how he got sensitive military data that ended up in Tehran.

At the heart of the CIA request is its growing suspicion that Iran manipulated the United States and Britain into the Iraq war by bogus intelligence passed through Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress to Pentagon contacts, the Guardian reported Tuesday.

Bush Speech outlines 5 step Plan for Iraq

2004-05-25T06:30:00.000-07:00

Reactions vary to President Bush's speech about his plan to help Iraq reach a secure, democratic future amidst a flurry of bad news, attacks on coalition forces, abuse of Iraqi detainees and rising criticism at home and abroad.

President Bush said there may be "difficult days ahead" in Iraq that "sometimes appear chaotic," but he promises "no power of the enemy will stop Iraq's progress."

In his speech at the U.S. Army War College Monday night, Bush outlined five steps to restore Iraqi sovereignty and get the country back on its feet:

1. Handing over authority to a sovereign Iraqi government.

2. Establishing security.

3. Continuing to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure.

4. Encouraging more international support.

5. Moving toward a national election in Iraq that "will bring forward new leaders empowered by the Iraqi people."

Bush Poll Numbers on Iraq reach new Low?

2004-05-25T06:17:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post reports that only 4 in 10 Americans give Bush positive marks for his handling of Iraq.

Whereas CNN says "forty-seven percent of people polled May 21-23 said they approve of how Bush is handling the presidency - up 1 percentage point.

Eric Clapton Guitar Auction

2004-05-24T22:27:00.000-07:00

Have you secretly always wanted to be able to play like Eric Clapton? Well, maybe we can't all have his talent, but now you can own one of his guitars:

"These guitars are the A-Team. What I am keeping back is just what I need to work with. I am selling the cream of my collection," Clapton told reporters.

Eric is donating his guitars to the Crossroads Center for drug and alcohol treatment in Antigua that he founded in 1997 with a little help from his friends -- Pete Townsend, Jimmy Page and Carlos Santana. The collection of more than 50 expensive guitars will be placed at Christie's auction house in London for public viewing before the auction scheduled June 24.

Bush takes it on the Chin

2004-05-24T17:14:00.000-07:00

The accident-prone commander-in-chief took it on the chin during a biking mishap when he fell on his face Saturday, leaving him with some fairly serious road rash.

Not exactly war wounds, but Bush is hoping to reassure voters that hundreds of Americans did not die in vain, promising to unveil his blueprint for a democratic Iraq and salvage his ratings that have sunk to an all-time low.

Shrek 2 is Number One

2004-05-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

Shrek 2 broke records this weekend at the box office, taking in an estimated $125.4 million during the first five days after its release May 19.

Singing to praises that is even better than the first, the big question now is if it will have enough staying power to humble Mel Gibson's 'The Passion Of The Christ', which is winding up with $370 million in North America and about $270 million abroad.

Election Time for the Great White North

2004-05-24T17:09:00.000-07:00

Perhaps no longer will Canada be held in the strangle-hold of a Liberal dictatorship. Canadians will be treated Sunday May 23rd to a democratic delight denied them for over a decade after Paul Martin asks the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament - the first election in over a decade that won't be a foregone conclusion.

Just after 1 p.m. EDT, Mr. Martin began his walk to Rideau Hall to visit the Governor-General. A united Conservative party, a Bloc Quebecois resuscitated by outrage and an NDP revived by a media-savvy leader have used the fuel of the sponsorship scandal and fatigue with the Liberals to raise the real possibility of a minority government for the first time in 30 years.

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A bystander looks on as bodies recovered from under debris are cremated near the sea at Nagapattinam, India, one of the many places hit by the tsunami. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)

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