by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
January 12, 2004
It’s almost a given that, if anything, the CBC is extremely anti-american. Unlike the BBC, which on occasion admits to being biased and promises to take steps to remedy the situation, when accusations of an anti-american bias are aimed at the people’s network, Tony Burman appears to tell Canadians, in his condescending tone, that there is absolutely no bias. It was somewhat surprising then that in a letter to the editor of the National Post, a writer accused the CBC of being too pro-american. apparently the writer takes issue with the CBC talking "openly" about the plans of the United States to, "democratize the Middle East". according to the letter writer, this is just opinion and not fact. actually that’s wrong. The United States does have a plan to democratize the Middle East. It’s a fact; as archie Bunker would say, "look it up." Of course whether or not the plan will work or is even viable is a different story but as unrealistic as the plan may be, it does not make the fact of the plan an opinion held by the CBC.
The writer also takes issue with the fact that the network closely monitors the deaths of americans in Iraq but not the deaths of Iraqis. That will come as a great surprise to the network whose coverage of deaths of Iraqis and other victims of the Great Satan are second to none.
Nice try, Michael.
Political correctness lives
as reported in Britain’s Sun and Newsmax.com, the powers that be at the BBC apparently sent an email out to staff forbidding Saddam Hussein to be referred to as the "former dictator". all journalists and correspondents are to refer to the Butcher of Baghdad as the "former president" or, to be really politically correct, "the former deposed president". as Newsmax.com sarcastically put it, perhaps Saddam should be referred to as a "current hospital patient". The BBC’s reasons for not calling Hussein a dictator--the BBC should use neutral language.
What’s next? Perhaps in the interest of equality, the network will start referring to Her Majesty the Queen as "Ms. Windsor".
It’s been warming up for eons
In an email release by Toronto’s CityTV, the station promised to show those listeners who tuned in to that evening’s newscast, how the world’s weather has been warming for eons. Nothing like the use of scientific fact and specifics when warning of impending doom and gloom. The dictionary defines an eon as "a long time".
The station got a little more specific during the newscast when it quoted climatologist Dave Phillips as saying "this December will mark 221 consecutive years where the world has been warmer than normal." Needless to say, if the temperature has been increasing for the past 221 years, it might have been helpful to define what normal is. In the "eons" since the earth has been in existence, there is no information given about whether this is a first or whether temperatures have risen for long periods of time in the past (they have, as well have cooled).
The CityTV item goes on further to attribute all kinds of things to global warming such as the lack of snow in Toronto this year, without giving any evidence to link the present weather with global warming. The piece obviously makes no mention about former Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman having to call in the army to remove snow a few years ago; nor point out that there was a lot of snow and cold temperatures in Toronto last year, during year 220 of this global warming. as is typical of the doom and gloom pieces concerning global warming, any facts that may not support the hypothesis are conveniently left out. and when the temperatures dropped, so did global warming.