France is apparently backing China in the event it invades Taiwan, and is seeking to open the door to European arms sales to the scary Asian giant. Talk about a blatant invitation to invade. After supporting Saddam and now China it seems that France has thrown all pretense of being an American allie out the window. The question now is whether the U.S. will allow France to have it both ways. (Hat tip LGF)

As many of you know, I’m Canadian. I appreciate that many Americans don’t necessarily find information out of Canada that newsworthy. Many Canadians are distressed by this and consider this to be symptomatic of American “arrogance” (primarily from the liberal wing of our country). Personally I think its because we are a relatively small country population wise. Ask a Canadian from a big city if he knows the news from a local small town and he won’t have a clue. He or she isn’t “ignorant” he’s just got his own things to worry about closer to home.

But I think I’ve got something that you may be interested in: The Canadian blogoshpere. More particularily the conservative blogosphere. It’s rising rapidly, perhaps at a greater pace than what occurred with Rathergate. There’s big things happening up north, and the Canadian blogs are at the forefront of the news. The news was even more concentrated here in Canada than it was in the U.S. and the immense void is rapidly being filled by the blogs. Even members of Parliament are getting in on the act, and believe me, they sound like bloggers and not stuffy politcians. Oh, and in case you haven’t heard, they’re helping take down the Canadian government. Here some of the big ones:

Small Dead Animals
Angry in the Great White North
Andrew Coyne (also a National Post Columnist)
Brock on the Attack

They all have plenty of links to many others. I’ll keep my commentary focused on American politics for now, but I urge you to check out what’s going on up north, it’s pretty wild stuff.

The Jawa Report has started a multi-part series about Roy Hallums, a civilian contractor taken hostage in Iraq, as well as others who are currently being held. It’s good that we celebrate the accomplishments in Iraq, but we must not forget about those whose only “crime” was to go to Iraq to help rebuild the country.

It seems that the MSM only becomes interested in these stories when the terrorists invite them to be interested for propaganda purposes. Check out the series here.

Brian Anderson, author of South Park Conservatives, was on the O’Reilly Factor last night in the impact segment. Here follows a transcript of that conversation:

Bill O’Reilly: Thanks for staying with us, I’m Bill O’Reilly. In the impact segment tonight: the media war between conservatives and liberals is as intense as ever and today, the liberal Los Angeles Times ran an op-ed piece and said the liberal radio network Air America is failing. Since the print media has been very generous to Air America, that was unusual. The author of the op-ed is Brian Anderson who also has written a new book called South Park Conservatives: The Revolt against Liberal Media Bias. Wow. Mr. Anderson joins us now. See I’m in the middle of this war here you know and it’s vicious.

Brian Anderson: Sure.

O’Reilly: First of all let’s just walk through the whole thing. What’s a South Park Conservative?

Anderson: Right. Well I use that phrase very loosely to refer to a new kind of anti-liberalism that we’re seeing in the culture. We’re seeing it in comedy, on Comedy Central, particularly with the show South Park, which just goes after the left viciously. It goes after the right too, but it’s something very new to see a program that makes fun of liberals. And I see a lot on college campuses. Both of these things I say in the book are growing out of a pretty big shift in our mass communications. Talk radio, cable news, and the blogosphere all of which are allowing views that have long been excluded from public debate to make their way right into that debate. Basically right of center views.
Continue reading →

New Pope! Joseph Ratzinger – Benedict XVI

White Smoke, Bells of St. Peters. Lots of cheering people.

More when known.

On Friday we received copies of Brian Anderson’s South Park Conservatives: The Revolt against Liberal Media Bias. Review to follow (when I get a little time away from !!algebra!!, which is my current college course with Algebra 2 to follow – lots of work – not enough time!).

On another (similar) note, Brian Anderson was on Bill O’Reilly tonight and I have TiVo’d it and I will have a transcript sometime tomorrow (I have a little time for a transcript, not enough to read and write a review just yet).

Lorie Byrd at PoliPundit links to Right Wing News’ favorite blogs list. Lorie provides her list as well, which includes…..ahem…….Musing Minds (update: in the “expanded list” on Poli) thanks Lorie, and thanks to those in the comments section that included us, it’s really flattering. Go check it out, there may be one or two there that you haven’t visited before.

When I have a bit more time I’ll provide a list of my own (took the day off to spend with the family, we all went to see my wife’s/baby’s ultrasound- amazing experience which I’ll post about later…..off to spend the next four hours building the LEGO Star Wars Episode III Final Battle Scene).

I sure am glad that Lorie Byrd and I share many of the same political views. For a “girly girl” she can dish out quite the nasty smack down. As for Kerry proponents taking the “you weren’t there man” approach, OK, I’ll play that game.

I wasn’t there, but there sure are a lot of vets that were there who don’t think too highly of Kerry. Instead of deferring to Kerry’s experience, try putting yourself in their shoes. Imagine losing a leg, or an arm or suffering some other horrible injury. You come home and go about your life without fanfare because serving was your duty, and because you realize that no matter how much you suffered, someone else suffered more, or never came home at all. Then you turn on your T.V. and see some politician touting his own service as if he alone fought the enemy, flouting his relatively minor injuries as if his were somehow more worthy or deserving of attention.

Yeah, I’ll defer to those who served.

At what point does biased reporting start to look like cheap propaganda? The Washington Post is delving into the “real” reasons behind the democratic movement in the middle east. Looks can be deceiving you know. Sure the most powerful nation mankind has ever known overthrew a brutal dictatorship and set up a democracy in the region. Sure the leader of this great country has thrown down the gauntlet and demanded freedom for the rest of the region and announced that it will stand with those that want freedom. Sure it looks like these actions may have caused the democratic movement to spread. But the Post has the real story. Here’s just a snippet:

But even in Lebanon, where much of the population generally looks to the West, the U.S. agenda in the region is troubling. Kassir, for example, said he believes “democracy is spreading in the region not because of George Bush but despite him.” He cites the Palestinian uprising as a greater inspiration than the U.S. project in Iraq, saying that “the Palestinians showed us the importance of taking matters into our own hands.”

Ah, the secret agenda. Looks can be deceiving comrade.
(Hat tip Powerline)

Recall the media-generated firestorm about the GOP utilizing Schiavo for crass political gain. It was discussed on every talk show, shown on every newscast, printed in all the major papers. Recall that it arose over a memo written by one aide (who later resigned in disgrace), yet the story line was “GOP Talking Points” impliedly created and discussed at the highest Republican levels.

As Ankle Biting Pundits reports, we now actually have the highest authority in a party, talking precisely about utilizing Schiavo for political gain. There are two big differences to the original story, but they’re related, oh are they related:

1) It is the head of the Democrats, Howard Dean, who has come out and said he’s going to use Terri Schiavo and,

2) There is virtual media silence about it.

The story is the same as the original, except the proof is stronger, and it’s directly attributable to the top of the party. But it’s the wrong party, so the story isn’t covered. You see folks, the story isn’t the exploitation of Terri Schiavo, the story is Republican exploitation of Terri Schiavo. Any other exploitation just isn’t newsworthy.