Bruce Bawer Reviews our CBC Documentary!

Acclaimed author Bruce Bawer reviews our documentary on the CBC: This Hour Could Have 10,000 Minutes: The Biases of the CBC.

Cohen and Litwin don’t just take on CBC’s news programs. On the CBC, as they tell us (and show us), “even the game shows have a political bias.” On one such show, for example, contestants are asked: “Which city in Palestine is recognized to be a place of pilgrimage for Christians, Jews and Muslims?” Answer: Jerusalem.

Needless to say, a major staple of CBC programming is reflexive anti-Americanism. The CBC regularly provides a forum to people who argue that Islamic violence is the fault of American foreign policy. Republicans get especially disrespectful treatment: in one clip, CBC columnist Heather Mallick makes snide personal remarks about John McCain and calls Sarah Palin a “porn actress” type who appeals to “the white trash vote.”

The CBC is, of course, also hostile to Canada’s own Conservative Party. The documentary showcases a shameless piece of trickery by the network, in which a clip of Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper is taken out of context to make it look as if he’s putting down Canada’s Muslim community. After showing us the CBC version of Harper’s statement, Cohen and Litwin present us with the uncut version, which makes it clear that Harper was making a respectful comment about both Jews and Muslims. On this occasion, too, the CBC was forced to apologize.

The CBC bias against the Conservatives manifests itself on all kinds of shows and in all kinds of ways. In one clip, a weather girl makes snide remarks about Conservative policy. On a comedy show, an actor imitating Harper wishes viewers “a happy gun-toting, anti-abortion, heterosexual new year.” Another “comedy” program actually includes a sketch in which the actors shoot at Harper and George W. Bush. Skits mocking the left are few and far between.

We see a CBC interviewer giving Michael Moore a royal welcome, hailing him as a “right-wing bogeyman” and praising his “memorable Oscar acceptance speech.” (Moore repays the compliment, calling the CBC “a national treasure.”) By contrast, when Ayaan Hirsi Ali expresses her love of America in an interview with Avi Lewis, he laughs at her with breathtaking condescension and accuses her of embracing pro-American clichés. (She responds smoothly: “You grew up in freedom and you can spit on freedom.”)

Please read the whole thing.

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Germany sours on solar power....

It's proving to be a disaster...

The Baedeker travel guide is now available in an environmentally-friendly version. The 200-page book, entitled "Germany - Discover Renewable Energy," lists the sights of the solar age: the solar café in Kirchzarten, the solar golf course in Bad Saulgau, the light tower in Solingen and the "Alster Sun" in Hamburg, possibly the largest solar boat in the world.

The only thing that's missing at the moment is sunshine. For weeks now, the 1.1 million solar power systems in Germany have generated almost no electricity. The days are short, the weather is bad and the sky is overcast.

As is so often the case in winter, all solar panels more or less stopped generating electricity at the same time. To avert power shortages, Germany currently has to import large amounts of electricity generated at nuclear power plants in France and the Czech Republic. To offset the temporary loss of solar power, grid operator Tennet resorted to an emergency backup plan, powering up an old oil-fired plant in the Austrian city of Graz.

Solar energy has gone from being the great white hope, to an impediment, to a reliable energy supply. Solar farm operators and homeowners with solar panels on their roofs collected more than €8 billion ($10.2 billion) in subsidies in 2011, but the electricity they generated made up only about 3 percent of the total power supply, and that at unpredictable times.

Nothng like a good sermon....

The Biases of the CBC

This Hour Could Have 10,000 Minutes:
The Biases of the CBC

Our DVD on the Biases of the CBC is now ready to be ordered.

Included on the DVD are my opening comments from our event at the 2nd Annual Free Thinking Film Festival on November 13, 2011, the documentary (49 minutes) and our panel discussion about the film.

Included on the panel are Brian Lilley from Sun News, Mike Fegelman from HonestReporting Canada, Stephen Taylor from the National Citizens Coalition, Eric Duhaime from Le Journal de Montreal, and David Krayden from the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies.

To order our DVD, please send us a cheque for $22 (HST included) and $2 for postage to The Free Thinking Film Society, 39 Birch Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario K1k 3G5.

The Free Thinking Film Society is a not-for-profit corporation and is 100% volunteer-driven. We pay no salaries to anybody.

We also have a bonus DVD of extra clips about the CBC that will be sent out to anybody donating $50 or more to the Free Thinking Film Society.

Hate rally in Germany...

This Hour Could Have 10,000 Minutes....

The Biases of the CBC

"This Hour Could Have 10,000 MInutes: The Biases of the CBC" covers CBC bias against Israel and against conservatives.

Included on the documentary are my opening comments from our event at the 2nd Annual Free Thinking Film Festival on November 13, 2011, the documentary (49 minutes) and our panel discussion about the film.

Included on the panel are Brian Lilley from Sun News, Mike Fegelman from HonestReporting Canada, Stephen Taylor from the National Citizens Coalition, Eric Duhaime from Le Journal de Montreal, and David Krayden from the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies.

To order our DVD, please send us a cheque for $22 (HST included) and $2 for postage to The Free Thinking Film Society, 39 Birch Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario K1k 3G5.

The Free Thinking Film Society is a not-for-profit corporation and is 100% volunteer-driven. We pay no salaries to anybody.

We also have a bonus DVD of extra clips about the CBC that will be sent out to anybody donating $50 or more to the Free Thinking Film Society.

Is Anti-semitism moving to the mainstream???

Alan Dershowitz reports...

For the first time since the end of World War II, classic anti-Semitic tropes—“the Jews” control the world and are to blame for everything that goes wrong, including the financial crisis; The Jews killed Christian children in order to use the blood to bake Matzo; the Holocaust never happened—are becoming acceptable and legitimate subjects for academic and political discussion. To understand why these absurd and reprehensible views, once reserved for the racist fringes of academia and politics, are now moving closer to the mainstream, consider the attitudes of two men, one an academic, the other a politician, toward those who express or endorse such bigotry. The academic is Professor Brian Leiter. The politician is Ron Paul.

You’ve probably never heard of Leiter. He’s a relatively obscure professor of jurisprudence, who is trying to elevate his profile by publishing a gossipy blog about law school professors. He is a colleague of John Mearsheimer, a prominent and world famous professor at the University of Chicago.

Several months ago Mearsheimer enthusiastically endorsed a book, really a pamphlet, that included all the classic anti-Semitic tropes. It was entitled “The Wandering Who” and written by Gilad Atzmon, a British version of David Duke, who plays the saxophone and has no academic connections. Atzmon writes that we must take “very seriously” the claim that “the Jewish people are trying to control the world.” He calls the recent credit crunch “the Zio punch.” He says “the Holocaust narrative” doesn’t make “historical sense” and expresses doubt that Auschwitz was a death camp. He invites students to accept the “accusations of Jews making Matzo out of young Goyim’s blood.”

Books and pamphlets of this sort are written every day by obscure anti-Semites and published by disreputable presses that specialize in this kind of garbage. No one ever takes notice, except for neo-Nazis around the world who welcome any additions to the literature of hate.

More outrage from Caledonia...

A very serious crime...and a very light sentence...

Mr. Gualtieri was a construction worker who was developing four homes at the Stirling South subdivision, located a kilometre from the disputed territory. On Sept. 13, 2007, Mr. Gualtieri and members of his work crew arrived at one of those houses, and found three natives inside. A confrontation ensued, and Richard Smoke, a then-18-year-old native man, began to fight with Mr. Gualtieri while his underage companions fled. When Mr. Gualtieri’s work crew entered the half-built home, they found him badly injured on the ground, while Smoke beat him with a piece of lumber he was swinging with both arms.

Mr. Gualtieri suffered severe injuries to his face and head, and sustained permanent brain damage. To this day, he has trouble reading, speaks slowly and walks with difficulty. He has not been able to return to work.

The guilt of the assailant, Richard Smoke, has been established by the courts — he was found guilty of break and enter and aggravated assault in September. And no one disputes the seriousness of the crime: Judge Alan Whitten described the assault against Mr. Gualtieri to have been “just a notch below culpable homicide.” He added that this “very serious and grave offence” did not advance “any ideology or idea” — was not politically motivated, in other words. It was a brutal assault, well removed from the actual occupation, and one that continues to have lasting ramifications for Mr. Gualtieri, who will, as Judge Whitten wrote, “live life as a brain-damaged man.”

Yet Smoke’s lawyer argued that her client was raised in a culture of racism, and negatively impacted by the legacy of the residential school system (of which Smoke himself was never a part, having been born a full 15 years after the last residential school in Ontario closed). She asked Judge Whitten to consider the “aboriginal perspective” when determining Smoke’s sentence.

Consider it, Judge Whitten most certainly did. For a vicious assault on an unarmed man who was going about his lawful business on private property, Smoke was sentenced to only two years and 11 months. With time served, Smoke will serve less than two years behind bars for a crime even Judge Whitten believes was barely below intentional murder.