Some plucky software developers are working on filters that would see absolutely bone-stupid comments whisked off to a cybercorner where they can't bother anyone.

From globeandmail.com, a commentary by Human Rights Watch researcher Phelim Kine:

Today is Journalists' Day in China, but there's no reason for celebration by reporters who cover the world's most populous nation.

Like any other day, journalists in China will be subjected to routine harassment by a government that continues to defy its pledges to a free media. What's dismaying this year is that the International Olympic Committee — an organization that says it is dedicated to "ethical principles" and "preservation of human dignity" — is passively accepting such blatant violations of the Chinese government's Olympic-related media-freedom commitments.

From globeandmail.com:

CBC Television abruptly cancelled a featured Falun Gong documentary just hours before it was to air on Tuesday night, prompting complaints that the network bowed to pressure from Chinese government officials.

The network, which had actually already broadcast the documentary once in English and once on its sister French service, Radio-Canada, switched the program at the 11th hour to rerun a piece about Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf.

A CBC spokesman said the network is simply doing its “due diligence” in holding Beyond The Red Wall: The Story of Falun Gong for prime time, in order to make it “more solid” before airing it at an unspecified date.

“If there is re-editing that's required, we're going to do that,” CBC spokesman Jeff Keay said. He confirmed the network had been talking with Chinese diplomats who had expressed concerns about promotions the CBC had aired in the runup to this week's broadcast.  ...

The Canadian director of Beyond The Red Wall says he has no intention of re-editing a piece that he spent three years working on. “We have to quote-unquote give balance,” veteran filmmaker Peter Rowe said in an interview. “… I've never experienced anything like these kinds of demands.”

From the BBC:

Land clearances in Indonesia to meet the growing global demand for palm oil pose a serious threat to the environment, a report has warned.

Forests are being burned and peat wetlands drained for plantations, causing huge releases of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, Greenpeace said.

The environmental group warned of a potential "climate bomb" and called for the clearances to stop.

Palm oil is an ingredient in foods and a bio-fuel added to diesel for cars.

From the BBC:

The global demand for energy is set to grow inexorably through to 2030 if governments do not change their policies, warns a top energy official.

Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said such a rise would threaten energy security and accelerate climate change.

He said energy needs in 2030 could be more than 50% above current levels, with fossil fuels still dominant.

Partner that with this -- 'Unexpected growth' in CO2 found -- and boy o boy ...

From The Onion:

According to a groundbreaking new study by the Department of Labor, working —the physical act of engaging in a productive, job-related activity — may greatly increase the amount of work accomplished during the workday, especially when compared with the more common practices of wasting time and not working.

"Our findings are astounding: By simply sitting down and doing work, employees can dramatically increase their output of goods and services," said Deputy Undersecretary of Labor Charlotte Ponticelli, who authored the report. "In fact, 'working' may revolutionize the way people work."

Perhaps even more shocking, the study reveals that not working significantly decreases worker productivity, sometimes even resulting in no work getting done at all. Similar findings were reported in the areas of avoiding work, putting off work, complaining about work instead of actually working, pretending to work, and fucking around.

"Fucking around is in fact detrimental to the work process," the study reads in part.

I was just over at my old friend Warren Kinsella's blog, and clicked on the ad for his new book, The War Room. Here's the top three related choices suggested by Amazon.com:

I should not that the above image was altered slightly to save space (it's 490 pixels wide vs. the original 688 pixels), but those were the recommendations in the order in which they appeared when I clicked on the link.

From a Radar interview with Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor of the New York Times and son of former executive editor Abe Rosenthal:

Type in YouTube.ca. From the CP story on CTV.ca:

The company says YouTube.ca will highlight made-in-Canada content.

As well, content uploaded by users in Canada will show up as "top favourites'' and "recommended content'' on the site. ...

YouTube has already signed agreements with Canadian content partners including the CBC, the CFL and Sony BMG Canada.

For some reason, I'm recalling the advice of the experts who said back in 2000 that content on the Internet was dead, and that people should invest in those companies that supplied the hardware -- you know, companies like Nortel.

Kevin Sites spent a year on assignment with Yahoo! News covering the world's wars as a solo digital media correspondent.

Google grabbed headlines (as usual) by announcing that it would make available, for free, a software package for mobile phone makers to put everyone on the same platform.

This isn't altruism. This would make it easier for easier for Google to peddle ads.

I found that story particularly interesting when juxtaposed with this one:

The PC's role in Japanese homes is diminishing, as its once-awesome monopoly on processing power is encroached by gadgets such as smart phones that act like pocket-size computers, advanced Internet-connected game consoles and digital video recorders with terabytes of memory. ...

The Toronto Star has a story today on the ever-increasing burden that home ownership is placing on Canadians' finances.

From ABC News:

Comedian Stephen Colbert's White House bid seemed to end even before it began.

Last week, the South Carolina Democratic Executive Council rejected Colbert's application to be on the primary ballot in a 13-3 vote; Colbert did not apply to appear on the state GOP primary ballot — with its $35,000 filing fee.

In a statement today, Colbert said, "Although I lost by the slimmest margin in presidential election history — only 10 votes — I have chosen not to put the country through another agonizing Supreme Court battle. It is time for the nation to heal." 

Here's the disquieting thing about his "campaign":

Colbert's coverage of his campaign was sponsored by Doritos.

One could read arguments, by those on the conservative side of the spectrum, that Colbert was simply trying to point out the absurdities of U.S. political campaign finance laws. Others might see Colbert's actions as trying to help Doritos move some product. Which, if true, would be cheesy.

I bought a new computer from Dell. It's in Toronto, but I've yet to see it.

When I got home from work on Friday, a note on my door from Purolator told me they had been there, but there was no little old me.

I phoned the company and asked for a redelivery attempt to be made on Monday.

From 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. today, I wait (Purolator generously allows itself a 10-hour window for delivery).

At 1:12 p.m., I phone the company to see what's what. They tell me nothing, other than they have until 6 p.m. to deliver the two boxes.

As of 6:01 p.m., no delivery.

I phone Purolator. The "customer service professional" tells me the driver has rescheduled the delivery for tomorrow (Tuesday) -- and furthermore, that the decision was messaged in at 5:30 p.m.

Wow. They can do that -- just decide to not deliver something when they said they would and not tell the customer?

"So I'm going to have to blow off another day waiting for you people?!?!" was my response.

The guy asked me if I wanted to pick it up. I said yes, given that Purolator appears to be completely unreliable.

So here's my hike for tomorrow:

I will be avoiding Purolator in the future where possible. If it can't provide more predictibility and reliability as to when something can arrive, what good is Purolator as a courier?

Update

I check with Purolator before I head out. My computer is roaming Toronto somewhere in a Purolator truck.

Despite my having specifically asked for the computer to be left at the depot, the driver took it. The Purolator "customer service professional" explained that he didn't have time to deliver it yesterday, so he left it on the truck.

I pointed out that I had specifically asked for it to be left at the depot. Her attitude was that I could pick it up later today or whenever.

Purolator seems to think its customers exist to meet its needs.

Postscript

The driver showed up -- predictably, as I was just returning home from an errand. I had left a note saying I would be back at 4:40 p.m., which is when I showed up.

"They don't like us to wait around," he said.

"I waited for 10 hours yesterday," I shot back.

He was surprised to hear that no one showed up on Monday (he said my area is part of his regular turf, but he was off Friday and Monday) and then surprised me by saying 'sorry' -- and appearing to mean it.

Now that's a customer service professional.

From the NYT:

In a showdown this afternoon between the government and the news media, hundreds of journalists and printers at the Jang Group, Pakistan’s largest media group, confronted the police and officials from the government’s press information department at the offices of Awam, the afternoon newspaper in Karachi.

The government officials ordered the newspaper’s editor, Nazeer Leghari, not to print a supplement, and the police threatened to close down the plant, according to a statement issued by the Jang Group. When the newspaper’s management refused to obey, the officials withdrew, the statement said.

Here's a Nov. 4 Committee to Protect Journalists news release on the media crackdown in Pakistan since the declaration of emergency rule.

You had to know this day was coming, given the budget issues at the BBC.

Anyway, here's a note from Steve Hermann, editor of the BBC News website, as posted to The Editors blog:

Richard Sambrook, the BBC’s Director of Global News, outlined the reasons for this move here – and, as he explained, these are basically about funding the BBC’s public service journalism for our international online audience.

In editorial terms the journalists will not be involved in any of the dealing with advertisers or with the scheduling of the ads. There’s an "editorial guardian" - paid for by BBC Worldwide, our commercial partners - who will help assess possible ad campaigns and give guidance on what might produce a conflict of interests, clash with our own editorial values or in any way compromise our journalism. If he sees any campaign, or individual ad, as potentially unsuitable then it won’t run. Journalists, guided by him, will have the ability to prevent ads appearing, for example, on sensitive or distressing stories.

Frankly, it's a very small price to pay to support an outstanding global news resource. The Beeb is a site I would willingly subscribe to.

As an aside, I was at a CAJ panel discussion sometime in the late 1990s that featured Lloyd Robertson, CTV's longtime news anchor, and Peter Mansbridge, his CBC counterpart.

"I never thought I'd see the day there would be ads on The National," Mansbridge said, shaking his head grimly.

"We'll take them!" Robertson quipped. :)

From a Globe and Mail profile of someone named Tila Tequila, a MySpace pheenom who has had a reality show debut recently on MTV:

The mainstream press have heralded Ms. Tequila's arrival with a mixture of curiosity and disgust. “When exactly in the Warholian arc of fame did we arrive at a point where we create celebrities of people so little accomplished that they make Paris Hilton look like Marie Curie?” worried a New York Times critic last week.

There's some other good stuff in the Oct. 28 NYT piece by Guy Trebay:

Montreal lawyer Hubert Lacroix, reports Robert Fife, CTV's Ottawa bureau chief.

Lacroix is a senior lawyer with Strikeman Elliot and once served as CEO of Telemedia.

Laxcroix's mandate is to get control of the CBC's costs.

The Crown corporation receives a subsidy of $1.1B from taxpayers and ran a net operating deficit of $69 million in 2006-’07. according to its annual report.

From a CMG news release:

“We know little about Mr. Lacroix, except that he’s said to be a good corporate lawyer,” says Lise Lareau, president of the CMG. “We would welcome the opportunity to get to know him better and to share with him our views about the future of the public broadcaster.”

InsideTheCBC reports that Lacroix did some sports commentary for Radio-Canada in the 1980s.

From AP via CTV.ca:

Engineers at Google Inc. are working to resolve a problem on the company's Google News site that has resulted in some photos and news stories being mismatched.

Searches conducted on Google News on Friday occasionally returned photos from Reuters Group PLC that didn't match the stories they were listed next to, such as a shot of bunches of vegetables that appeared alongside a story about a Japanese merger firm.

Another story listed on Google News' top business stories had a Reuters photo of a guitarist next to a Wall Street Journal story about Sprint Nextel considering changes to a wireless Internet service plan.

Google's news pages are automated and use computer coding, or algorithms, to select and display stories. Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker said its algorithms appeared to be mismatching some material, but the problem appeared to be mainly with photos from Reuters.

The Beeb's Natalia Antelava on the quest of Alisher Saipov to provide actual journalism to the people of Uzbekistan -- something that probably got him killed.

The New Brunswick Conservatives met on Saturday in a closed-door meeting with officials from the party's message-control-obsessed Politburo in Ottawa.

Yet somehow... anyways, check out this from the CP story on CTV.ca:

The entire session (about how a federal election is inevitable and imminent - BD) ... was inadvertently broadcast to a small group of startled journalists holding a workshop in the next room. Reporters huddled around a speaker, notepads and pens in hand, throughout a presentation and the following question-and-answer session.

Part of the closed-door meeting was streamed live to the Canadian Association of Journalist's blog site.

Personally, I highly suspect that's an accidentally-on-purpose leak. But that's just me.

But bear in mind that campaign chair Doug Finley told the party to be ready to go on Oct. 20 and also told people in February that an election could happen within a month.

Ever dreamed of living in a place where your commode has glass walls, so people elsewhere in your dwelling can see you doing whatever? Do you simply want your life on display? Then start saving, because such a building is coming to Manhattan's financial district in 2009.

Here's a piece I did for CTV.ca on Saskatchewan's provincial election. The vote takes place Wednesday.

Given that Saskatchewan is the province that gave us the Mossbank Debate, it sounds like the quality of political discourse in the province I called home for10 years has precipitiously declined.

Jane Chalmers is stepping down as vice-president of CBC Radio, leaving expanded local programming as her main legacy.

Leading U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani has told a whopper about the chances of surviving prostate cancer in the United States versus the socialized medicine hellhole of Great Britain. The NYT's Paul Krugman is wondering why the U.S. political press isn't calling Rudy on his fib.

From TheStar.com:

Liban Hassan, 11, needed to stand on a special riser to see over the podium as he talked about his "uncle," Ali Sharmarke, who was killed when his car drove over a remote-controlled landmine in Somalia.

"Have you ever imagined being a journalist, reporting from a war zone?" he asked the 500 people gathered Thursday evening in downtown Toronto for the annual International Press Freedom Awards, presented by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.

Several in the crowd actually had reported on wars, but most hadn't.

While most journalists in Toronto work hard and long hours, we don't face the threat of being kidnapped, tortured, imprisoned or, as in Sharmarke's case, murdered for just doing our jobs.

From the BBC:

With a year to go before the 2008 US presidential elections, young Americans are poised to mark their growing engagement in politics with an ambitious online news site.

The creators of Scoop08.com, which launches on 4 November, say it will be the first to harness the power of students across the US to follow the campaign.

"We noticed there was a void when it came to national, grassroots, student journalism that really could have an impact on issues of importance," said co-founder Alexander Heffner, 17.

Whether the venture sky-rockets or fizzles, its very existence reflects a social shift that candidates and major parties ignore at their peril.

Namely, America's young voters, traditionally seen as apathetic, are becoming more active voters - and there are more and more of them.

From washingtonpost.com:

The magazines stack up, unread, on your coffee table: the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Sports Illustrated, Vanity Fair. You subscribe to them but don't have time to read them. So there they sit, a glossy pile of guilt.

Where you see wasted money, Jeremy Brosowsky saw a business opportunity.

The Washington publishing entrepreneur recently rolled out Brijit, a Web site that creates 100-word abstracts of articles from dozens of magazines and rates them. Brijit, Brosowsky said, aims to be "everyone's best-read friend."

Now on Brijit are summations of articles in current issues of GQ, Wired, Mother Jones, ESPN the Magazine, the Economist, Smithsonian and more than 50 other magazines. Even if you never read the entire article, just scanning Brijit could make you the smartest person at your next cocktail party.

From the BBC:

The US has criticised Azerbaijan over the imprisonment of a newspaper editor, urging the Caucasus republic to respect the right to free speech.

Eynulla Fatullayev was given a sentence of eight-and-a-half years on Tuesday, on charges of making a terrorist threat and inciting inter-ethnic conflict.

The US Department of State said it appeared to be "an attempt to silence criticism and stifle free speech".

His two newspapers have been shut down. He has been in detention since April.

Sahar is one of a group of female Iraqi journalists collectively honoured by the International Women's Media Foundation with the 2007 Courage in Journalism award.

She talked to the BBC about her life and work:

This cheery little brief from CP via globeandmail.com:

The Montreal Gazette, the city's only English-language daily newspaper, has told employees it wants to reduce its newsroom staff. Publisher Alan Allnutt says the Gazette wants the staff reductions to be achieved through voluntary departures sweetened by enhanced severance packages. He says in the memo that the move is being driven by the newspaper's market, circulation and readership as well as by other economic factors. The newspaper is one of several Canadian daily newspapers owned by CanWest Global Communications Corp. CGS (TSX) rose 70 cents to $8.28.