Spent the day in transit from meetings this week in Toronto back to Ottawa so was unable to monitor the Twitter tide as much as normal. Still:
- SUN NEWS got its license today. Conservative blogger Stephen Taylor tweeted:.
@MargaretAtwood can I get your reaction to today's CRTC approval to Sun TV News?
And Ms. Atwood replied:
Hello, naughty @stephen_taylor: SunMedia TV: Their license is standard, no special deals, sd @DavidAkin to me last nite at CJFE dinner. 🙂
- My old friend, new grandfather, and columnist for the Calgary Herald and National Post does what I believe is rather effective job at removing himself from Conservative MP Jim's Abbott's Christmas Card list:
So what did Jim Abbott, who has announced he will not seek re-election, witness on a visit of no apparent value to taxpayers? “I saw Canadian soldiers, diplomats and people involved in development activity who made my heart want to burst with pride over what we as Canadians were doing for the people in Afghanistan and that part of the world.” he bubbled.
Yup, that’s the classic shower-every-day, cafeteria-grub, feel-good tour the military reserves for protected politicians.
The only hardship they’ll experience is having jet fighters screech off the Kandahar Airfield runway at 5 a.m.
BZ RT @BCheadle: Brilliant @dsmartin56 column on #AFGH, eliciting comments (anonymous, of course) beneath contempt.
- I cover politicians for a living, as you may have heard, but I've only put my name on a ballot once in my life: At the University of Guelph in the late 1980s where I thought I would make a very good president of the Central Students Association, the student union at the university. At the time, the U of G had about 13,000 students and I would need to win enough votes from them to send me on the way to a political career. Standing in the way: A certain Ms. Jaye Robinson, a very pleasant and popular woman who had spent her first years in school working the political trenches of student life, as it were, trying to improve life in the university's student residences. I, on the other hand, had spent my time at Guelph up until that time as a DJ at one of the campus pubs and at any big campus parties. Jaye cleaned my clock. I got the message that perhaps politics wasn't for me and ended up running the student paper. I mention all of this to say I'm so pleased to see that Jaye is back in politics — as a newly elected Toronto city councillor.
On a ballot just once in my life: for Pres of U of G students assoc. Got whipped by Jaye who @donpeat profiles: http://bit.ly/fKxYQB
- Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) works to improve press freedom in Canada and around the world. Every year, it puts on a gala affair at which it honours the courage and dedication of those who fight to tell their stories or who fight to help journalists tell their stories.
In T.O.+ privileged to a guest at @margaretatwood's table for this event tonite
Also at our table G Gibson, A Nikiforuk, Sylvia Fraser and old NatPost colleague John GeigerHey @OxbloodRuffin: FYI: U of T's Citizen Lab just won award from Cdn Journos For Free Expression.
[From @OxbloodRuffin] @davidakin Yes, I heard the other day. Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch.
Cameroon journalists incl late Bibi Ngota, honoured for their fight against govt oppression #CJFE
Carol Off closes #CJFE gala”You gave the enemies of free speech another bad day”
[@ezralevant replies] Yeah, the Cdn Islamic Congress is shaking
@ezralevant oh ease up 🙂 We're takin' on African dictators and Mexican drug lords here! #CJFE
[@ezralevant replies]So thinking globally, doing nothing locally