After reading this, I thought to myself: 'This Weinraub fellow is quite the naive guy in some ways.' And he's covering Hollywood?!?! :)

Read the excerpt from this NYT story and see what I ...   more »

If you're looking to buy a popular but unprofitable Arab TV satellite news network that comes complete with powerful enemies such as the U.S. government, contact the Emir of Qatar.

Here's some excerpts from the ...   more »

Did I really hear CBC's Cross Country Checkup host Rex Murphy refer to "Jean Chretien's liars" seeking to have Justice John Gomery removed as commissioner of the sponsorship inquiry?

Or is my own mind inventing Freudian slips for the usually nimble-tongued Mr. Murphy? :^)

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi could only muster up 16 suicide bombers in a country of 25 million people to attack polling stations? That's not so good (for him, obviously).

There were over 5,200 polling stations to ...   more »

Musical artists have spoken (albiet in a cheesy poll of 31 people), and they think Johnny Cash's 'Hurt' -- made six months before his death -- is the best music video of our time.

The same-sex marriage issue in Canada has caught the eye of one of the most influential players on the U.S. Christian Right: Focus on the Family, led by Dr. James Dobson.

If the name sounds familiar, it's because he's the same guy who recently took a run at Spongebob Squarepants.

Ami Eden, editor of the New York-based Jewish newspaper The Forward, has written a commentary for the NYT on why the world's Jewish community needs new tactics to combat anti-Semitism.

NYT columnist Thomas L. Friedman has a solution for dealing with the Middle East and the other oil-producing regions of the world -- grow less dependent on them:

Jury selection starts Monday in the Michael Jackson sex abuse case.

This BBC story looks at the overall horde that will descend on the Santa Maria courthouse, but I've excerpted the media stuff:

A newspaper in Morocco has written that the tsunamis were divine retribution for the licentious ways and sex tourism industry of southeast and south Asia.

This had thousands of people in the streets -- endorsing that ...   more »

Deborah Jones brought this Canadian Press story to the attention of CAJ-L.

It's about whether the media, by covering those who wish to take their own lives, are active participants in the act. For background, ...   more »

Author Jared Diamond has been creating much buzz with his book Collapse, on how civilizations suddenly disappear (see here for an op-ed piece he wrote for the NYT).

Here are some excerpts from the NYT ...   more »

An Ontario Superior Court judge has said voters and not courts should hold politicians accountable for broken election campaign promises.

Here's some excerpts from the Globe and Mail story:

Here's a potpourri of useful information leading up to the big day on Sunday. I'll be adding to it as new stuff makes its way into my field of vision.

I'm just playing a hunch here, based on a trailer I saw, but on Feb. 11, keep your schedule open for Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior, starring Tony Jaa.

He's being hyped as The Next One with respects to martial arts movie hero-dom. If the trailer's any indication, believe the hype.

Add columnist Mike McManus to the list of commentators who received money from the Bush administration - $10,000 to train marriage counsellors.

There's a bonus link to Maureen Dowd's witty take on all this.

The rising dollar? Nope. Ballistic missile defence? Sorry. Peter MacKay dating fellow Tory MP Belinda Stronach? Wrong again!

Your right to masturbate in your own living room with the blinds open? Now you're talkin' New York news judgment!

Reporters without Borders (Reporters sans Frontieres) has lumped Canada in with Iraq and Iran as a country that censors al-Jazeera.

I heard about this in an interview on CBC's As It Happens on Friday night.

Boy o' boy, the spectre of being blamed for the millions of bloating tots around the U.S. of A. has McDonalds reverting to extreme measures.

Ronald McDonald, the company mascot and "chief happiness officer," is going to become its public fitness guru.

'The Daily Outrage' column by Ari Berman at The Nation's website looks at the furious Pentagon response to Seymour Hersh's eye-opening New Yorker piece (still on the shelves!; I wrote about it) and how ...   more »

I just finished a book called Exception To the Rulers, by U.S. journalist Amy Goodman and her brother David. She hosts a program called Democracy Now!

Now, the question is: What next? That's where you come in.

The 501 Queen car. Heading west to pay my overdue bill at the self-storage place.

Am minding my own business when I hear a monster "Ah-Choo!!" followed by a sputtered "Mother-FUCKER! Don't you cover your mouth?!?!"

Paul Rusesabagina's efforts to save lives during the Rwandan genocide have made him a famous man, with his story immortalized in the Oscar-nominated film Hotel Rwanda.

But excuse him for being frustrated with humanity's inability to learn from the past. He says: "'Never again' to me is not enough."

I was doing an interview with with a prominent author and professor in 1992 on violent criminals. The savagery in Bosnia was in full swing, the the phrase "ethnic cleansing" had emerged from there.

The prof said who would have thought we'd hear such words again, drawing an analogy to the Nazi phrase "final solution." I said it didn't suprise me a bit. "You can't eliminate hatred from the human soul," I said.

Sixty years ago today, a facility to kill and incinerate human beings -- mostly Jews, but others as well -- was shut down by the advancing armies of the then-Soviet Union.

Here's the BBC's story

The Bloggies are one popular awards website, says this BBC story. When I went there this aft., I got a "bandwidth limit exceeded" message.

An excerpt:

Millions of American children are still haunted by the trauma of seeing Janet Jackson's partially exposed breast for a second or two during last year's Super Bowl halftime show, according to a fake FCC study reported in The Onion.

Complaining about Israel's treatment of Palestinians and likening it to a "Nazi state" is behind the rise in attacks on Jews in the UK, Israeli officials claim.

Here's an excerpt from the Guardian (reg. req.):...   more »

The NYT's Elizabeth Bumiller analyzes Dubya's news conference from Wednesday morning -- which happened after 31 U.S. troops died in a helicopter crash, but didn't voluntarily mention it -- in light of an aggressive White House communications strategy to make put the Iraq election in the best possible light.

Part of that strategy? Not defining what success would be.

The NYT's Adam Cohen examines the disturbing issue of right-wing authors who are trying to re-write U.S. history, but focuses on The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History.

In this NYT commentary, Paul Starr, co-editor of the The American Prospect, explains where U.S. liberals may have fallen down in promoting the good fights.

An excerpt:

Thomas L. Friedman of the NYT has completed his tour of the European colonies and has some free advice for his commander-in-chief.

An excerpt:

According to this NYT story, tastefulness will be the operative phrase for the greatest day of the year in U.S. TV commercials!

An excerpt:

According to an item in Report on Business's Feed The Goat column, CanWest wants to get into the commuter tab business in five Canadian cities.

They've managed to find a leader: Noah Godfrey, son of CanWest board ...   more »

New circulation numbers suggest the Toronto Sun is the paper losing the most circulation ground in the hotly contested Toronto newspaper market, according to a Globe and Mail story.

An excerpt:

Calling Pope John Paul II the "Brezhnev of the Vatican" will apparently get you a trip in front of a judge in Poland.

Read more about the case of Jerzy Urban.

Retiring NYT columnist William Safire, 75, offers some sage advice -- don't retire. Change.

An excerpt:

This is a lovely letter written from Steve Martin to Johnny Carson, who -- unless you're totally out of the pop culture loop -- I'm sure you know died Sunday.

An excerpt:

Over the last two nights, I've made some posts to CAJ-L on being stuck in casual hell as a journalist -- the worst shifts, the worst work and the least security. For the hell of it, I argued the pro and the con sides in different posts.