So, the latest bit of outrage going around in Canada is a segment a Fox News show the "Red Eye" did on Commander Leslie's comments that our troops may need a breather in Afghanistan after next year. The panel on the show took the opportunity to lampoon Canada in general, and make fun of our military. Naturally this has sparked some outrage in Canada, asking for boycotts of Fox and it also made our major news networks.
I won't post a link here (simply search youtube for Red Eye Canada) and you will easily find it. The main reason? My points below.
Let me first clarify that I'm not a fan of Fox News, far from it, and I am playing a little bit of a devil's advocate here. First off, The Red Eye (and Fox News in general) has always been about infotainment, and less about news. I did briefly watch the Red Eye for about 15 minutes a few months ago, and changed the channel because quite frankly, the show is awful. But, one thing I did note is what the show is trying to be. They are trying (albeit badly) to be a conservative version of The Daily Show. The problem is, they have a tough time doing the "news satire" bit with a conservative bent because it is hard to do without coming off as incredibly mean spirited. And also the people on that show are hacks compared to people like Bill Maher, Stewart and Colbert.
When The Daily Show features Canada on his show when the U.S. president visits Stewart always takes his shots at Canada, however the tone of them are light-hearted and on topics that us Canadians can laugh at ourselves for. Take for example Rob Corddry attempting to speak French a few years ago. What The Red Eye did was basically call us Canadians wimps, made fun of a cultural institution in the RCMP, and proclaimed the superiority of the US. Satire or not, those three topics all strike a BIG nerve with Canadians. So, given that the people who produce the Red Eye either are incredibly ignorant or they did their homework. My guess is the latter. Here's why...
Their goal with this segment was to manufacture outrage and get attention. So, I'm thinking they knew which buttons to press to get us Canucks going. Guess what, it worked. Fox does not have a high viewership in Canada; but in the Internet age youtube clips spread very quickly. There are groups on facebook, news segments, emails, hate mail, etc... all dedicated to this topic now all asking for boycotts and a call to action against the evil people of Fox News. I would be interested to see the Red Eye's viewership numbers in the coming weeks. My guess? It's Canadian audience will spike. If you have ever heard the stat when Howard Stern started out, people who disliked him listened longer than the people who liked him.
Here's my advice Canadians. Ignore it. Turn the other cheek. Why, because getting angry is playing right into what Fox and the Red Eye want. Fox News is excellent at manufacturing outrage (see Hannity and O'Reilly) and they are now trying to do it up here. Not because they hate Canada, but because they are trying to build a market up here. They are trying to find a niche in our news landscape, and the area around the center political spectrum is already clogged with CTV NewsNet and CBC Newsworld. They are going for a big bang, and they may have got it. The thing that would anger Fox News and The Red Eye the most, is if we would have responded with a collective "Meh". Or a "look at those crazy Yanks trying to start something, how adorable" and left it at that.
You won't see me on any facebook group, or writing any hate mail. I hope my fellow Canadians do the same.
Cheers.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
Head shaker
Every once in a while, I'll stumble on something that does just that - makes the head shake. I typically don't get angry at things I see or read (even if I should). For example, I don't feel any outrage towards the AIG executives for their bonuses. My reaction was, who is their PR guy? He is the one who should be fired, not the executives who received the bonuses. Why? How did a PR guy for AIG not convince them that the American people may get somewhat angry about a bunch of rich guys getting bonuses provided by the taxpayer. Although, when a lot of money is involved people sometimes get blinded to reality.
Bernard Goldberg Segment on Fox News
So, the gist of the above debate is about whether a Yiddish word for a black person is offensive. My opinion is if you have to debate whether something is a racial slur, or offensive, then it is not. Regardless, it seems like a reasonable debate on laguage, albeit a waste of time. Until this Goldberg guy says the dictionary is written by someone with a liberal bias.
The Dictionary. Is written by someone with a liberal bias. (Shakes head)
OK, if you want a neutral book without a political bent the dictionary, along with a thesaurus, is a pretty safe bet.
How a dictionary can have a liberal bias is beyond me. Maybe the Webster's dictionary is written in Berkeley, California and describes "liberal" as a person who is a pillar of society with an outstanding moral compass. It in turn describes "conservative" as a misguided person with suspect morals who likes to have sex with immediate family. How else could you make that distinction?
Or, maybe the Webster's dictionary is the liberal book, and the Oxford dictionary is the conservative book. I don't know where he got this idea from. We always hear about a bias in the media, but this is usually because OPINIONS are expressed in print media. Last time I checked, not a lot of opinions are expressed in the definition of words like cauliflower, piano, computer, and albatross.
Anyways, a short rant for today.
Cheers.
Bernard Goldberg Segment on Fox News
So, the gist of the above debate is about whether a Yiddish word for a black person is offensive. My opinion is if you have to debate whether something is a racial slur, or offensive, then it is not. Regardless, it seems like a reasonable debate on laguage, albeit a waste of time. Until this Goldberg guy says the dictionary is written by someone with a liberal bias.
The Dictionary. Is written by someone with a liberal bias. (Shakes head)
OK, if you want a neutral book without a political bent the dictionary, along with a thesaurus, is a pretty safe bet.
How a dictionary can have a liberal bias is beyond me. Maybe the Webster's dictionary is written in Berkeley, California and describes "liberal" as a person who is a pillar of society with an outstanding moral compass. It in turn describes "conservative" as a misguided person with suspect morals who likes to have sex with immediate family. How else could you make that distinction?
Or, maybe the Webster's dictionary is the liberal book, and the Oxford dictionary is the conservative book. I don't know where he got this idea from. We always hear about a bias in the media, but this is usually because OPINIONS are expressed in print media. Last time I checked, not a lot of opinions are expressed in the definition of words like cauliflower, piano, computer, and albatross.
Anyways, a short rant for today.
Cheers.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
My fair city - Saskatoon
So, as I'm sure everyone has heard by now. My beloved home of Saskatoon is the most dangerous city in Canada. The list for the last few years has basically been a revolving door of Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, and Edmonton at the top. What surprised me the most, having spent 6 months there working last year, was Halifax being #7. This year, Saskatoon got it. Of course, the mayor of Saskatoon has talked about steps the city has made to deal with this and assure people that steps are being taken. Granted, Saskatoon (along with Regina, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and the other cities at the top of the crime rankings) are not without their problems. But I think a little perspective is in order. Being the nerd that I am, I decided to dig a little deeper into this. So, I went to Statistics Canada for some information. Some quick math showed some very small discrepancies in numbers, so I am going to assume that the sources are the same.
What the MacLean's study did, is look at the average for 6 categories - homicide, robbery, sexual assault, aggravated assault, breaking and entering, and vehicle theft. They then took the Canada wide average, and rated the various cities at above or below average. For instance Chilliwack B.C. had the highest ranking for breaking and entering - at 149.79% above the national average. My guess is thieves were stealing 70's Canadian classic rock albums.
Before I get into this, I want to make a few large observations. First, it is important to know that Canada's crime rate dropped in 2007, continuing a recent tred. Violent crime was down, as was property crime continuing a downward trend that started in the early 1990's. It is also important to point out that Canada is a very safe country, with crime rates similar to Western European nations like Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands.
A lot is always made of the "Murder Capital" of Canada. This is measured by murders per / 100000 people. The average in Canada for 2007 was 1.8, which is continuing a downward trend from the 1970s when it was around 3.0. This year, the capital was Port Coquitlam BC (and not because of Robert Pickton). The problem with this is that Canada has very few murders - 594 in 2007 nation wide, and a quarter of those are committed in Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto (The stats for metro Vancouver are split between lower mainland cities like Burnaby, Surrey, New West, etc...). So, that leaves a little over 400 murders to be spread out over the rest of the country.
Port Coquitlam has a population of around 60,000 people. They had 3 murders in 2007. I'm not a statistician, but I don't think 3 even be considered statistically significant. So in 2008 if there was only one murder you could say "Murders decreased 66% this year". I just don't think it means anything and I think that when you are dealing with such small numbers the results should be thrown out. If I remember my University days correctly, to be a statistically relevant sample size you need at least 20. Regina is another interesting example. In 2003-2006, Regina had the dubious distinction of either being first or second in homicides with 8-10 a year. In 2007, they had only 5 which dropped them to 17th. Great for Regina, but is a numerical drop of 4 an indicator that anything has improved? Was a number of 9 homicides the year an indicator that the city has a problem with homicides to begin with? Police say that homicides are very difficult to prevent, because the victims typically know each other and crimes of passion are frequently involved. Only the largest cities in Canada have enough homicides a year to do any kind of meaningful trending or analysis on. That's a good thing.
Let's do some comparisons with our friends to the South for 2007. Let's use Edmonton as an example, with around 32 murders in 2007 for a rate of 4.18 murders per 100,000. Edmonton had a population of around 764,000 that year. If you compare with Indianapolis Indiana, a city of comparable population. Their murder rate was 14.30. Over 3x as much. Columbus, Ohio is around 10. For alarm, I'll throw in two of the most dangerous cities in the U.S. stats - Baltimore and Detroit. Both had a rate around 45. I'm not trying to bash our neighbours to the South. In general, the United States is also very safe. New York City, considered one of the safest big cities in the world had a rate of 6.03.
What brought Saskatoon down was aggravated assault and robberies. Using robbery as an example, Saskatoon had 272 counts in 2007. If I was to put Saskatoon in a chart with comparable size U.S. Cities, Saskatoon would be towards the bottom of the pack - behind Irving and Lubbock, Texas and ahead of Yonkers NY and Spokane.
I'm not making any excuses, and I know that in the West the influx of gang influence that brings crime rates up needs to be dealt with somehow. But, overall, even the highest crime cities in Canada are great places to live.
Cheers.
What the MacLean's study did, is look at the average for 6 categories - homicide, robbery, sexual assault, aggravated assault, breaking and entering, and vehicle theft. They then took the Canada wide average, and rated the various cities at above or below average. For instance Chilliwack B.C. had the highest ranking for breaking and entering - at 149.79% above the national average. My guess is thieves were stealing 70's Canadian classic rock albums.
Before I get into this, I want to make a few large observations. First, it is important to know that Canada's crime rate dropped in 2007, continuing a recent tred. Violent crime was down, as was property crime continuing a downward trend that started in the early 1990's. It is also important to point out that Canada is a very safe country, with crime rates similar to Western European nations like Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands.
A lot is always made of the "Murder Capital" of Canada. This is measured by murders per / 100000 people. The average in Canada for 2007 was 1.8, which is continuing a downward trend from the 1970s when it was around 3.0. This year, the capital was Port Coquitlam BC (and not because of Robert Pickton). The problem with this is that Canada has very few murders - 594 in 2007 nation wide, and a quarter of those are committed in Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto (The stats for metro Vancouver are split between lower mainland cities like Burnaby, Surrey, New West, etc...). So, that leaves a little over 400 murders to be spread out over the rest of the country.
Port Coquitlam has a population of around 60,000 people. They had 3 murders in 2007. I'm not a statistician, but I don't think 3 even be considered statistically significant. So in 2008 if there was only one murder you could say "Murders decreased 66% this year". I just don't think it means anything and I think that when you are dealing with such small numbers the results should be thrown out. If I remember my University days correctly, to be a statistically relevant sample size you need at least 20. Regina is another interesting example. In 2003-2006, Regina had the dubious distinction of either being first or second in homicides with 8-10 a year. In 2007, they had only 5 which dropped them to 17th. Great for Regina, but is a numerical drop of 4 an indicator that anything has improved? Was a number of 9 homicides the year an indicator that the city has a problem with homicides to begin with? Police say that homicides are very difficult to prevent, because the victims typically know each other and crimes of passion are frequently involved. Only the largest cities in Canada have enough homicides a year to do any kind of meaningful trending or analysis on. That's a good thing.
Let's do some comparisons with our friends to the South for 2007. Let's use Edmonton as an example, with around 32 murders in 2007 for a rate of 4.18 murders per 100,000. Edmonton had a population of around 764,000 that year. If you compare with Indianapolis Indiana, a city of comparable population. Their murder rate was 14.30. Over 3x as much. Columbus, Ohio is around 10. For alarm, I'll throw in two of the most dangerous cities in the U.S. stats - Baltimore and Detroit. Both had a rate around 45. I'm not trying to bash our neighbours to the South. In general, the United States is also very safe. New York City, considered one of the safest big cities in the world had a rate of 6.03.
What brought Saskatoon down was aggravated assault and robberies. Using robbery as an example, Saskatoon had 272 counts in 2007. If I was to put Saskatoon in a chart with comparable size U.S. Cities, Saskatoon would be towards the bottom of the pack - behind Irving and Lubbock, Texas and ahead of Yonkers NY and Spokane.
I'm not making any excuses, and I know that in the West the influx of gang influence that brings crime rates up needs to be dealt with somehow. But, overall, even the highest crime cities in Canada are great places to live.
Cheers.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Sports TV
OK, yesterday proved it. There is way too much sports coverage on TV. Yes, I said it. As most Canadians know, yesterday was the NHL trading deadline which is often talked about with as much hype as the first day of playoffs. This has been covered even more in recent years, since the salary cap has really lessened the amount of player movement throughout the season for various reasons. TSN started the countdown to the trading deadline a month ago. A MONTH!
So we had three networks - TSN, The Score, and Sportsnet all vying for the the viewer's interest with comprehensive coverage of the day and the ultimate goal of reporting something 30 seconds before the competitor network. Every trade is dissected, over analyzed, argued about until the next one. Given there was about 25 trades this year, and most of them minor, that's a whole lot of TV to fill with not a lot of information.
The networks also bring in special guests as experts to weigh in with additional expert analysis. Such as Marty McSorley. No offense to Marty, but what else can he possibly bring other than stating the same as Nick Kypreos and Darren Millard, just phrased different.
Millard: "So, can we break down the Andy Wozniewski for Danny Richmond trade"
Kypreos: "Well Darren, in Wozniewski Pittsburgh adds to their depth on defense, and a guy who can hit. Richmond is a good stay at home defensemen who should make the team next year"
McSorley: "Pittsburgh does well here. They needed another depth defenseman. Richmond is a good addition to the Blues prospects, and should help the team in the near future"
Gee thanks guys. All you accomplished was eating up airtime by taking twice as long to say the same thing. And don't get me started on TSN. Do you really need three "Hockey Insider" type guys. Why do you need Bob McKenzie, Pierre McGuire, and Darren Dreger to all talk about rumours and over analyze everything in hockey. Bob McKenzie said the big winner of the day was the Florida Panthers because they did NOTHING. Thanks Bob for the insight. Really profound. And if Florida is the big winner by doing nothing why is there so much hype on the day to begin with?
Also, what is with Darren Dreger and his blackberry on set the last couple days? He was taking calls and answering emails on set. Are we supposed to believe that Dreger has a red phone to 30 NHL GM's and countless player agents? Let me get this straight, if something happens in the trade market, the GM's immediately send Dreger a text? Come on, sports announcers just aren't that important. Maybe now that the deadline is over he can answer his blackberry during commercial breaks.
On a related note though, Swift Current area boy Travis Moen is now a San Jose Shark joining another Swift Current area boy Patrick Marleau. They will coached by former Bronco coach Todd McLellan. With that kind of hometown contingent, I guess the Sharks will be the team I hitch my horse too if the Oilers don't make it into the playoffs.
Enough for today. Cheers
So we had three networks - TSN, The Score, and Sportsnet all vying for the the viewer's interest with comprehensive coverage of the day and the ultimate goal of reporting something 30 seconds before the competitor network. Every trade is dissected, over analyzed, argued about until the next one. Given there was about 25 trades this year, and most of them minor, that's a whole lot of TV to fill with not a lot of information.
The networks also bring in special guests as experts to weigh in with additional expert analysis. Such as Marty McSorley. No offense to Marty, but what else can he possibly bring other than stating the same as Nick Kypreos and Darren Millard, just phrased different.
Millard: "So, can we break down the Andy Wozniewski for Danny Richmond trade"
Kypreos: "Well Darren, in Wozniewski Pittsburgh adds to their depth on defense, and a guy who can hit. Richmond is a good stay at home defensemen who should make the team next year"
McSorley: "Pittsburgh does well here. They needed another depth defenseman. Richmond is a good addition to the Blues prospects, and should help the team in the near future"
Gee thanks guys. All you accomplished was eating up airtime by taking twice as long to say the same thing. And don't get me started on TSN. Do you really need three "Hockey Insider" type guys. Why do you need Bob McKenzie, Pierre McGuire, and Darren Dreger to all talk about rumours and over analyze everything in hockey. Bob McKenzie said the big winner of the day was the Florida Panthers because they did NOTHING. Thanks Bob for the insight. Really profound. And if Florida is the big winner by doing nothing why is there so much hype on the day to begin with?
Also, what is with Darren Dreger and his blackberry on set the last couple days? He was taking calls and answering emails on set. Are we supposed to believe that Dreger has a red phone to 30 NHL GM's and countless player agents? Let me get this straight, if something happens in the trade market, the GM's immediately send Dreger a text? Come on, sports announcers just aren't that important. Maybe now that the deadline is over he can answer his blackberry during commercial breaks.
On a related note though, Swift Current area boy Travis Moen is now a San Jose Shark joining another Swift Current area boy Patrick Marleau. They will coached by former Bronco coach Todd McLellan. With that kind of hometown contingent, I guess the Sharks will be the team I hitch my horse too if the Oilers don't make it into the playoffs.
Enough for today. Cheers
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