Time Immortal

So sayeth Andrew Potter, national editor of the Ottawa Citizen, and Scott Reid, political speechwriter. Now, I’m sure this stunning revelation of the true nature of bloggers comes as news to, respectively, my nose, my apartment, and my 36.5-weeks pregnant wife…but members of the liberal media said it, so it must be true!

Here’s Andrew Potter, getting things going:

AP: What worries me, though, is that we’re seeing the “democratization” of politics, in the most literal sense of the word: The people — the great idiocratic mass of mouth-breathers out there frantically swiping the drool off their keyboards as they Google around for “dirt” — are running the campaigns now. There aren’t war rooms anymore, directed by parties with smart, educated, responsible adults in charge — it’s Hobbes’ state of nature as imagined by Mike Judge.

To which, bold as brass, Scott Reid — yes, that one, Mr. “Beer and Popcorn” himself — replied:

SR: I actually think it’s A-OK for the media to maintain a few measly standards that separate them from the likes of ‘chubbylover69′ and the rest of the self-defined blogsphere press gallery. One of my pet peeves is the habit of mainstream media ‘reporting’ on bloggers who have posted rumours without source or sense of motivation. The Internet is a wonderful thing for people like me (newshounds with a gambling addiction), but that doesn’t excuse the mainstream media from doing their jobs any more than it excuses Jack Layton’s vetting squad from doing theirs.

That reminds me: what are the three things you need to be a blogger? Your laptop. Your basement. And your virginity.

Note: this also comes as news to my desktop PC, from which I do 90% of my blogging.

It’s at once interesting and alarming to see media mucky-mucks being so bald-faced and open in their contempt for the average citizen and his/her ability to articulate personal opinion freely and openly. It’s at once interesting and alarming to see media mucky-mucks so utterly dead-set against the very idea that an average citizen should have any say or influence over the shape of policy, or any contribution to national opinion. The disconnect from reality that so infests the mindset of the average media flunkie is…profound.

And it should be noted that seeing that contempt here, displayed plain as day, can only serve to embolden the blogosphere that these media types so heartily detest. If only to spite them, bloggers will not shut up.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Jay Currie has been busy, and deserves a ton of credit for breaking this story. Assists, as I understand it, go to Dr. Dawg and The Black Rod.

Briefly, what has transpired is this. Yesterday, Jay broke the story of Liberal Party of Canada candidate Lesley Hughes, who had for years been publishing Twin Towers conspiracy theories of an anti-Semitic nature on the internet. In one such writing, she asserted that Jewish businesses vacated the World Trade Centre in the days prior to the 2001 attacks.

(The “Jews were Warned!” meme is a fairly common one in the circles of those who insist that the most devastating act of Islamic terror perpetrated yet in North America was, in fact, an inside job or the work of the Israeli Mossad.)

Not twenty-four hours later, after initially defending his candidate and refusing to take action, Stephane Dion asked for, and received, her resignation from the electoral race in the Manitoba riding of Kildonan-St. Paul. This was a story that emerged, and was carried, almost entirely in the blogosphere — the mainstream media has been struggling to play catch-up.

And in a somewhat ironic twist, the Liberal Party’s “Team BC” website yesterday ran a story about an NDP candidate who is also a “troother” (e.g. a 9/11 conspiracy theorist), one Bev Collins by name.

Methinks that Jay has opened himself a rather large can of worms here. If you ever needed to see a quick demonstration of the power of the blogs, O Reader, look no further than this example.

Also: very sweet…I haven’t used the “Conspiracy nonsense” category in a while!

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Jen wrote in last week (my apologies for the delay!) with a comment on this article, concerning blogger Canadian Cynic’s anti-Semitic slurs.

I’m curious as to why you think that Canadian Cynic is a racist, when even the blogs that you link to (in a
roundabout way…you linked to Five Feet of Fury, who linked to Blazing Cat Fur, who linked to Dust My Broom, who
linked to Dr. Dawg (the “In This Corner post, in the archives), who says that he doesn’t like how Canadian Cynic uses sarcasm… “All in a day’s work for the CC team. They have their own unique stylings — edgy, off-centred, cutting brutally to the heart of the matter, crude and sometimes funny as hell. Bigots cringe in their caves, holes and sewer-pipes when they hear the CC folks coming. And well they might, because it’s never long before the halogen beam finds their squirming, blind, white bodies and a copious dose of RAID is dispensed.” Maybe I’m just in the middle of a blog war that I missed the beginning of — I was just trying to show one of my kids how Canadian political blogs were better than the American ones that she’s seen at school. Bad mistake…bad mistake.

How does that possibly lead you to think that the Canadian_Cynic hates Jews? If anything, he’s the one using sarcasm about people who do.

I’m assuming that you do realize that with Eastern European politics left and right are reversed?

Sorry if this is formatted badly- for some reason backspacing seems to work very oddly on this comment form, but it may just be because I’m using chrome for the first time.

I hope that you have a good weekend

Jen

There’s a few points to address here.

First, I never said Cynic was a racist; I said he was anti-Semitic. “Anti-Jewish” might be an even more specific term, although I don’t think it’s necessary to be that categorical here.

Second, Cynic is anti-Semitic. I know that he and his apologists try and dismiss him as being “edgy,” but I quite frankly do not buy it. I think he’s a rather mean-spirited bigot who attempts to cloak his petty vindictiveness in an air of left-leaning prattle, with all the right keywords. And every so often, I think the mask slips.

He wrote a short article about how Stephen Harper had been “bought.” “An excellent investment, Jewily speaking,” was the title he gave to that. Is that edgy? Or is it just your run-of-the-mill, Protocols-driven “the Jews control everything anyhow” mentality finding voice in someone who has spent an awful lot of effort in attempting to paint freespeechers such as myself as racists and enemies of human rights? Is it cutting commentary, or rote hypocrisy on Cynic’s part?

Personally, I think it’s the latter.

Now, as to Canadian blogs being “better” than American blogs…I think that’s a matter of opinion, really. There are some excellent Canadian blogs, and there are some excellent American blogs. I read blogs from many different parts of the world (although the ones I check daily — or near-daily — seem mostly to be from Canada, the United States, or Britain). I’m not sure Jen could conclusively demonstrate to her children that Canadian blogs are better, however.

But I do note that in Jen’s example, there is ample opportunity to impart a lesson about the self-correcting nature of the blogosphere, and about the speed at which news propagates through it, and about the speed at which rapidly propagating stories expand with the addition of new details and commentaries made by each successive author. My favourite example of this is still the fake memos that Dan Rather tried to pass off as real, which were debunked by bloggers within hours.

As to Eastern European politics…I don’t see what that has to do with an article about a Canadian political blogger.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

I don’t usually agree with the man himself, but I respect his right to his opinion.

And I support his fight against the Truther jagoff who has elected to sue him, apparently because he expressed contempt for those who abuse the memory of the World Trade Centre attacks in service of an anti-Jewish/anti-American/anti-human ideological (and then conspiracy-driven) agenda.

As the Shaidle says: the blogosphere must remain free.

BCF informs me that apparently I am beginning to make a tiny little name for myself in the wider blogosphere and the political scene in Canada.

A very tiny little name, in fact.

you’re gonna be famous, SCROLL THROUGH THE DOCUMENT YOUR SITE IS LISTED

http://ezralevant.com/Vigna%20fax%20July%2018.pdf

It is true that a link to Time Immortal is listed in a legal notice recently sent to Ezra Levant — full details can be found here. I don’t read French, and so can’t quite understand the context of the appearance of the hyperlink within the document — http://www.timeimmortal.net/tag/giacomo-vigna/ — but I would suspect it is being cited as evidence of the “damages” that Mr. Levant’s various commentaries on a certain Giacomo Vigna (a lawyer for the Canadian Human Rights Commission) have done.

(I should note that the link above will lead the reader to this article here at the site, in which I quote Mr. Levant’s suspicions that several CHRC goons who were for a while harassing his parents may have been sent there to investigate by Mr. Vigna.)

What an odd form it takes, this act of moving up in the world.

Or, as BCF worded it to me in a follow-on message: “…you are not being sued, your site is just listed as working in concert with Ezra and his Neo Nazi cohorts in a plot to defame Vigna.”

Which is certainly good company to keep, I suppose.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

I’ve been sitting on this for about a week, as I had hoped to find the time to go through it line-by-line and see if I couldn’t verify the information herein. If true, it’s a potentially interesting analysis of the history of one Henry Morgentaler, who I understand has been in the news of late (something about a snowflake-shaped award-type bauble of some kind). But of course, that’s the first question, isn’t it?

But as I have simply not found the time to do the necessary looking, I submit the following to the near-light-speed fact-checking of the blogosphere. With that in mind, allow me to turn the blog over, for the briefest time, to Reader karol.

Did Dr. Henry Morgentaler assume identity of real survivor of Auschwitz Abraham Morgentaler???

Was Henry Morgentaler ever at Auschwitz??? If not, did he lie to us about his medical education in Germany??? Did he become an abortionist in an effort to cover up his ignorance of medicine that was showing in his general “medical” practice???? Did he become abortion activist just to save his life by staying in a spotlight just so MOSSAD would have a hard time to take him out as an imposter and a parody of real victims of Holocaust??

The “tattooed” number 95077 that Morgentaler remembers so well seems to be way too low. He allegedly arrived at Auschwitz in 1944. Henryk Mandelbaum who arrived at Auschwitz on April 10, 1944 had number 181970.

The only way Morgentaler could get away with his lie would be if Germans were to recycle their numbers. According to this link: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007056, it never happen with Jewish prisoners, and yes numbers were assigned not only in sequential but also in alphabetical order (going by last name of prisoner) in each transport that arrived.

http://www.auschwitz.org.pl/new/index.php?language=PL&tryb=szukaj_adv

Partially salvaged Auschwitz Records show 297 finds of numbers in 95xxx range. Many entries indicate that prisoner died in March or April of 1943. Some were shot dead on 19 of February of 1943, others were shot after an escape attempt on 13 February of 1943

Close numbers

Abelowicz, Chaim
ur.28.10.1910 (Słonim), numer obozowy:95043, zawód:krawiec

Pulchny, Stanislaw
ur.17.4.1915 (Głogoczów), numer obozowy:95103, zawód:rolnik

Anybody out there care to take a stab at vetting (or disproving) this information?

Update: Welcome, UnAborted readers!

Satirical brilliance from London, Ontario musicians Unprotected Group — a commentary on the current human rights fracas in Canada:

Here comes the Rights Commission, second time today
Everybody logs off and hopes they go away
How many folks they’ve framed now, only God could say
But if I had a royal commission, I’d make somebody pay

I don’t believe in Section 13 or investigators leaving bait
Cause if there ain’t no haters out there, Lord, they’re easy to create
And when I read on FreeDominion of Human Rights folks spreading hate
If I had a royal commission then I would set things straight

In the right wing blogosphere, one hundred thousand wait
To be sued by Richard Warman, or some less humane fate
It’s just like Charlie Manson suing Sharon Tate
If I had a royal commission I would not hesitate

You can get them on the stand, but they’re just gonna lie
Or say they don’t remember who wrote those words or why
Stealing people’s wireless — echoes of the victims’ wails –
If I had a royal commission, somebody’d go to jail

I almost like it better than Bruce Cockburn’s original.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!