Another Earth Hour Has Come And Gone... But Did Anyone Notice?

This past Saturday night, many participated in Earth Hour. For one hour a year, so called "progressives" turn back the clock 200 years and turn off their lights for an hour in name of fighting climate change. I love pointing out on twitter every year that it's ALWAYS Earth Hour in North Korea

North Korea... Where it's #EarthHour ALL THE TIME! pic.twitter.com/t9CsDjtYWi

— Political Paradox (@PoliParadox) March 26, 2017

Is it me or does this event become more of a non-event every year? Earth Hour started in Sydney Australia in 2007 and went international the following year. As I recall, in the days leading up the the big day, there was quite a bit of media coverage in those first few years but as each year passed, the coverage seemed to dwindle. This past Saturday I didn't even know about it until it was mentioned on my local newscast Saturday morning.

Not that I participate in Earth Hour or anything. Quite frankly, it's a huge waste of time. Just another example of what I call "SLACKtivism". Those people who think changing a Facebook picture after a terrorist attack or putting some inspirational quote in their e-mail signature somehow changes the world. Of course, nothing really gets achieved. Forget the fact that burning a candle is far worse for the planet than burning a light bulb.

As each year passes, statistics on how much power was reduced seems to be harder to come by. The only province where stats are readily reported on is British Columbia. Reports from Toronto suggest this year's earth hour may have been the worst ever. A newspaper in the Niagara area suggested people participated this year however they failed to compare it to previous years. Last year, media in my city were all too eager to hype up earth hour ahead of time but failed to report on how we did after the fact. So I decided to tweet my local power company on numbers locally here in Kitchener and they got back to me about 12 hours later. What? No one in the local media could have bothered to do that? I'm not a reporter... I'm a nobody and they easily got me the answer I wanted. The reality is, the media rarely report on anything unless someone bothers to send them a press release. You know earth hour is getting really bad when even the media doesn't seem to care anymore.

Politicians Missing a Huge Opportunity To Reach Young Voters

By now you may have heard about this news story over the weekend where a VICE news reporter was denied an opportunity to ask Stephen Harper a question during a campaign stop in eastern Ontario. If you haven't heard, take a look... it's a good read. And this coming from someone who doesn't always read an entire news article before he gets bored.

Here's a brief synopsis:

We all know about Stephen Harper's policy of only taking 5 questions from the media during his election campaign stops. Well, during a campaign stop in Ontario this weekend, VICE news reporter Justin Ling noticed there were only 4 other reporters present. Justin asked Harper's media people to inquire if he could have that 5th question. Long story short... Harper only took 4 questions. As it turns out, the 5 questions aren't just random pickings. 1 question is reserved for local media (who are only permitted to ask a local question) and the other 4 questions go to established traditional media outlets. So if you're an independent reporter or work for a smaller news organization like VICE... you're out of luck. But here's the kicker... those established media outlets have paid to be on the Harper bus.. $3,000 a day (or about $78,000 for the whole campaign). So in other words... reporters have PAID to be there. Justin only wanted to ask a question about foreign policy. Instead, he was passed over in favour of the established reporters who only seem to ask about the Mike Duffy trial these days.

Money talks I guess. I hope I'm not the only one deeply concerned here. Furthermore, what does it say about our established media that it took a smaller media outlet for this dirty secret to come out? Clearly, this has been going on for quite some time and the mainstream news outlets have gladly and quietly ponied up the cash. Apparently, only the Conservatives require a cover charge to gain elite access to their campaign bus. But just as bothersome, is the fact that smaller news outlets and bloggers are being shut out completely. A huge opportunity is being missed here, many young people get their news exclusively from online news sources like VICE. If politicians and their political parties want to reach younger voters their attitude has to change.

But, there's a little epilogue to this tail. NDP leader Tom Mulcair has been criticized this campaign for often taking NO questions at all. Mulcair was campaigning in Kitchener yesterday and stoped by a local radio talk show. He was asked about Harper's lack of transparency and being closed off to the media. As expected, Mulcair ripped into Harper, despite the fact that he failed to take any listener questions during his scheduled 25 minute interview. I say 'scheduled' because the NDP leader showed up late! And then proceeded to leave early, leaving the talk show host an extra 3 minutes to fill until the commercial break. I find it hilarious that Tom Mulcair had the nerve to attack Harper calling him "Arrogant" yet he himself showed up late... left early... and didn't take any phone calls from the public.

Now, I'm not defending Harper. The way he's treating the media during this campaign is disgusting. But really, this seems to be an indication that all these guys are exactly the same. Politicians will NEVER put your interests ahead of their own. All of this talk about voting for 'change' is really just a smoke an mirrors show. For small c Conservatives like myself, there really is no mainstream option for smaller government anymore... assuming there actually was to begin with.

Infamous Catcalling Video Meets Its Match

You must have been living under a rock NOT to have seen (or at least heard about) the infamous catcalling video from a few weeks back that everyone was talking about. In this video, a woman apparently filmed herself walking around New York city for 10 hours. Over that time period, she was "Cat Called" over 100 times.  The video from a group called Hollaback sparked some controversy. I won't go into all of it here but you can check out a great critique of what's wrong with the video HERE.

The video has sparked many spoofs and re-makes. Recently a woman in Mumbai, India attempted to replicate this experiment. The population of Mumbai is almost double that of New York city so you'd think that there would be almost twice the number of cat calls... nope. Apparently, she was not cat called... not even once.

Now, I say 'apparently' because there could be manipulation in both videos. When you only release 2 minutes of what is supposedly 10 hours of footage. It leaves the viewer wondering about what has been edited out. Be very skeptical. Organizations often have a political point to make and will only show you things that prove their political agenda.

But... I wish this Mumbai video had received more news coverage. This was released over a week ago and no mainstream news outlet has run the story as of yet. This could be proof that there is a political agenda in the media too. Or maybe it's because nothing happened. If there's no story to tell, that not very exciting.

The RCMP Has Some Explaining To Do...

Obviously, yesterdays shooting in Ottawa is a tragic event and all types of questions are being asked. But leave it to the mainstream news media to ask questions EXCEPT the one question that everyone is wondering... How did a gunman get so far into the main parliament building in the first place?

I've been thinking about this Kevin Vickers situation. Mr. Vickers is the one who successfully brought down the gunman at parliament hill yesterday. And today is being hailed as a hero. By taking down the shooter he definitely stooped a terrible tragedy from getting worse and that's of course is a good thing. However... let's not forget that this guy is the head of all security at parliament hill and he should be put on the hot seat about how a gunman was able to advance that far into parliament hill and come within feet of being able to kill mass amounts of people at once.

It's my understanding that the two security guards at the main entrance are unarmed. This seems to be irresponsible to me. Supposedly, the main duty of these officers is to check ID. A little further inside the hill are armed officers in civilian clothes. But even this failed yesterday as one of these undercover officers was shot in the leg while trying to grab the shooters riffle. The shooter continued down the hall getting within feet of where parliamentary meetings were going on. At this point, Mr. Vickers heard the chaos in the hall and grabbed his gun from his desk drawer (which also seems a bit odd to me) and shot the gunman in the hallway.

Government security failed us big time yesterday. If I were the prime minister, there is no way I would trust my well being and security to a government agency. I would hire a private security firm who has a vested interest in making sure I'm safe. Otherwise, they wouldn't have a job. The problem with many Government agencies is they rarely have to answer when they mess up and are rarely held accountable for their actions.  

How much heat is the RCMP going to take for "Being Caught Off Guard"? Government never goes out of business, they just keep on rolling along. If this were a private security company, guaranteed... there would be a different company looking after parliament hill starting today.

Kevin Vickers. Hero?... Maybe. Completely innocent? He'll have to be put on the hot seat to know for sure.

The Tables Are Starting to Turn

As I predicted last week, it appears that the tables are starting to turn, Barack Obama's approval rating has now fallen to 37%.

You had to scroll way down to find it but an interesting story today from the Associated Press stating that Barack Obama's approval rating in the wake of the the partial government shut down is now at 37%. You heard almost nothing about it in the news media today.

I am of the belief that many of the media outlets don't know how bias they actually are. You see, a majority of news here in Canada and the United States comes from only a small handful of news sources... "The Wire" as it were. If the wire services (which are few to begin with) aren't reporting certain stories, you won't hear it on a majority of major media outlets.

I give you an example of that happening with today's story about Obama's low approval rating.

Below, is an excerpt (you can read the whole story here) from the story as it appeard on AP's Website:

Most Americans disapprove of the way Obama is handling his job, the poll suggests, with 53 percent unhappy with his performance and 37 percent approving of it. Congress is scraping rock bottom, with a ghastly approval rating of 5 percent.

Indeed, anyone making headlines in the dispute has earned poor marks for his or her trouble, whether it's Democrat Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, or Republican John Boehner, the House speaker, both with a favorability rating of 18 percent.

Now I present you with the wire version of the same story... in it's entirety:

WASHINGTON - A new poll says Americans are holding Republicans primarily responsible for the partial government shutdown.
    
The Associated Press-GfK survey finds plenty of disdain to go around as people size up the federal impasse. Most now disapprove of the way President Barack Obama is handling his job. And Congress' approval rating is a perilous 5 per cent.

    Overall, Republicans are taking the bigger hit in public opinion. In the poll, 63 per cent say Republicans deserve a lot of the blame. About half say Obama or the Democrats in Congress are largely responsible.

    The poll finds that the tea party is a significant influence among Republicans as well as a source of division. Forty-one per cent of Republicans identified themselves as tea party supporters and they want Republican leaders in Congress to stand firm.

 It should be noted that Obama's 37% approval rating is now lower than George W. Bush's approval rating at the same duration in his presidency. And at it's worst, Bush's approval rating was 33% and that was with the media crapping on him all the time. Unfortunately, the media is still in Obama's corner. Hopefully they wake up soon and start doing some actual reporting... like a CBS reporter did yesterday.