Rita

TheRecord looks like it is publishing a series of articles that are taking the usual technology giant suspects to task. Each article has a big, blue icon that states in capital letters: “DEFANGING BIG TECH”. There are two articles today and one last Saturday. The article on Saturday was by Daniel Tsai, a law and business lecturer at Ryerson. His article talks about the recent FCC decision in the U.S. regarding the “safe harbour” provision in their Communications Decency Act and the limited liability that content providers like Facebook and Google enjoy. Of course, Mr. Tsai completely misrepresents the conservative position – but what else is new for TorStar papers. Today, we have articles by Jeff Outhit and Alex Boutilier of the Toronto Star. Now I immediately have an issue with this type of reporting. If you have a subtitle of your article that boldly displays “DEFANGING BIG TECH”, is this now an opinion piece or a news article? Does “BIG TECH” have fangs like some wild predator that needs to be controlled? Well, if that’s the case, then these articles are opinion pieces and should be labelled as such. Outhit’s op-ed is basically a rehash of the current argument that some how tech companies like Google, Facebook, Instagram and others are stealing advertizing dollars from papers since they link to newspaper articles in Facebook and Google news feeds. I’ve gone over this nonsensical argument before and I’m not going to repeat myself again. Newspapers are dying because they are committing suicide. They should be thankful that online news aggregators like Facebook link to their articles. If they were worried about lost review, then they should simply put every online article behind a paywall. There – problem solved. Idiots. Alex Boutilier’s column under the “DEFANGING BIG TECH” byline talks about Facebook Canada trying to hire some people from Heritage Canada. Wow. Such big news. Of course, why Facebook would want to hire some bureaucrat from the Canadian government is unknown. I say hire them all.

Thomas Walkom nails it regarding Donald Trump in his column today. Absolutely everyone should read it. Period.

Rebecca Chinamasa from The Record’s Community Editorial Board has a rambling, disjointed, and sometimes, almost unreadable column in the paper today. She suggests that: “Growing community by building bridges to healing” or something. She starts out by telling us that: “After the world has experienced so many unimaginable things this year, with COVID-19 and calls to address racial issues, it is time to build bridges to heal the deep divisions and pain in our society.” What deep divisions? What pain? She doesn’t give us any examples, but I assume that if you’re a perpetual victim, or a perpetual victim sympathiser, then deep divisions and pain are some kind of constant that doesn’t need to be explained. She lets us know that she planted a garden somewhere and “This garden represents what can come out of suspending judgments, seeing differences as strengths, respecting each other and having open dialogue that seeks to truly learn from each other.” Gibberish at best. Oh, I almost forgot – she’s a student who is pursuing a master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies at Conrad Grebel University College. Well, good luck with those studies, Rebecca.

Susan Koswan, the one-hit wonder, the one trick pony, the broken record, has another column up today. Chicken Little is telling us that the federal government’s recently announced ban on stir sticks and other “single use” plastics, is a good start to our national goal of zero waste by 2030. But, she suggests that the “province’s 2030 target for diversion rates from landfill is only 55 per cent for rigid plastics and 30 per cent for flexible plastic” and this isn’t going to achieve the federal goal of zero waste by 2030. Look – the reason governments make such huge pronouncements about wonderful future events 20 and 30 years into the future, is because they simply have no desire to meet these impossible goals. In 30 years, every one of them will be out of politics and most of them will be dead. So, why not make lofty, unrealistic goals since they won’t be around to see them unfulfilled? The only good thing about stupid goals like this is that Koswan has one more thing to complain about. She reminds me of everyone’s Evil Aunt Gertrude – you know, the old woman who has at least 4 cats living with her.

Raymond Beauchemin is an editor at TorStar. He wrote a little, mythical short story about what might happen if President Trump lost the next election and if President Trump didn’t relinquish power and if President Trump didn’t leave the White House. Mindless drivel from a poor soul suffering from terminal TDS. Very sad. But Beauchemin didn’t publish this fantasy on his FaceBook page, or on his website, or someplace where a few of his friends could view it at laugh behind his back. No, he published it on the Editorial and Opinion page of The Record today!!! I can’t think of a more clear cut example of just how far The Record has fallen… Brutal. Less than pathetic.

Susan Delacourt normally writes, reasonably semi-sensible columns – which is a small breath of semi-fresh air considering she writes for TorStar. But today, she asks: “Is the pandemic the antidote to Trump-style populism in Canada?” I’m not sure how she can dare compare the 10,000 deaths in Canada to winning the U.S. Presidency when Trump beat the most vile, corrupt, untrustworthy career politician in the history or the twentieth and twenty-first century. Ugly.

In her front page column today, Luisa D’Amato tells us: “This is not time to take funds away from the police”. She goes on to make a few rather obvious observations about the growing crime rate in Waterloo Region and then asks: “So should we save $29.3 Million by removing 216 officers… Of course not.” Wow. Maybe her next column will tell us about what direction the sun rises in the morning. O.K. maybe I’m being a bit harsh – but c’mon. She points to a website: https://reallocatewr.ca/ that has “specific proposals” for this $29.3 Million. Well, I dropped over to that site and contrary to what Ms D’Amato suggests, “specific proposals” it does not have. Unless you want to consider a laundry list like: “The allocation of space and resources for the establishment of a regional Indigenous Friendship Centre” – no costing of this IFC of course, and “invest in community-led food security farm and garden programs”, and “BIPOC-led recreation and leisure programming, camps, sports, etc.” and (Hey wait a minute, isn’t hiring based on race illegal in Canada? I guess that small fact doesn’t matter to them), and “Providing BIPOC-owned businesses with access to regional commercial property” and (Hey wait a minute, isn’t rentals based on race illegal in Canada?) and – forget it. And these guys want less cops but want to spend my tax dollars. Next!!!

So I know that headlines are not usually written by the authors of articles in The Record. The reporter writes the article and submits it. But while reporters should (or at least pretend to) simply report on a story and be neutral, the editors do not appear to be under any such constraints. For example, the lead story’s headline today reads: “Defunding would cut 216 officers: chief”. But the sub-headline, in red ink of course, states: “Police propose increased budget with no reallocation of funds as called for by activists”. So it appears that this story is going to be about the Police Chief and “activists” arguing over next years proposed budget. But, the only time “activists” are mentioned in the article is in the first line: “Taking $29 million out of the police budget and redirecting the money to social and mental health programs – as Black activists have called for – would mean getting rid of more than 200 officers, said Waterloo Regional Police Chief Bryan Larkin.” That’s it. No names of “activists” groups, no “activists” spokespersons, no “activists” quotes, no “activists” nothing. So why even have this sub-headline and not even the mention “activists” at all?

A number of years ago, the Business Section used to be almost an entire section in The Record. Now, it’s a page. Nice. However, there is an interesting article today regarding “For many workers, earning more doesn’t pay”. The article is a summary of Finance Department documents from last November – but just released to the public a few days ago. It compares what happens when various groups earn an additional $1,000 and how much of that money is clawed back through the reduction of benefits or increased taxes. Result: “Workers with modest incomes, between about $25,000 and $34,000, lost $413 for every $1,000 in extra earnings, the highest clawback of any income level. Just behind them were the top 10 per cent of workers, with incomes over $114,570, who gave up $402 for every $1,000 of additional earnings.” Ouch. But we all know what they say about lies, damned lies and statistics. And I don’t trust Jordan Press since he like most other CP journalists tend to slant their articles to the left. So I wanted to look up these documents – but of course, Press didn’t point to the article or the website where it’s located. Why not? So I went to the Department of Finance and checked out their site – basically useless. A google search of the quoted words in the document brought up nothing but links to his article in tons of other papers, CTV News, the CBC etc. but nothing about where I could find the document. Strange. How easy would it be just to include the website where the article was located if others wanted to view the original DofF papers? Dumb.

Three anti-Trump articles in the space of three pages. Wow. Of course, an article in The Record about practically anything in the U.S. is anti-Trump. I love the first article on Page A7: “Canadian expats eye options if Trump wins”. Subtitle: “Some have made plans to a possible move back home, other will endure”. Really, endure what? Only the greatest economy in the world. Some endurance. Hey, and how did this line slip through some biased editor’s scrutiny: “Life in the United States these days isn’t all bad, Wallis was quick to add. ‘The job prospects down here, frankly, are better in a lot of ways, the salaries are better in a lot of ways, especially in this area,’ he said.” Oh my. Really. The Record accidentally published something good about the U.S. under President Trump. This is a first. I think I’ll cut out the article and put it in my scrapbook.

No one who drives so slowly on 400 series highways, in the left hand passing lane, that trucks (who are regulated to 105KPH) flash their lights at them to move over, should comment on traffic issues. Period. End of discussion. Oh, but wait. Never fear, Luisa D’Amato in her column today wants to tell you about traffic laws she doesn’t like – such as turning right on a red light. Geeesssshhhhh. She milks her social media discussion from last Friday for one more column and asks: “Have we considered that one reason there are so few cyclists in Waterloo Region is because riding alongside badly driven cars and trucks is incredibly intimidating?” Look. There are only two type of people who ride bicycles in the Region. People who ride for exercise and people who can’t afford a car. No one else. If you ride for exercise, then you shouldn’t be riding on Erb or Bridgeport or Westmount or Victoria streets. If you are riding to get somewhere, there are always safe, side streets that people can travel on. People are stupid. I blame our education system.

Today’s editorial “Canada’s digit publishers need a level playing field” is typical of recent editorials from “The Record’s View” – one sided, self serving, generally leftist and error filled. (The Hamilton Spectator and The Toronto Star all have similar editorials today.) Their “View” – or more accurately, TorStar’s “View” is that search engines like Google and social media companies like Facebook “scrape content we publish” and then “Do not pay us for this content.” Now, I could go into a line by line dissection of this editorial, but hey – it’s Saturday morning and I’ve got way better things to do. But I do want to point out that the their main argument and the example they provide is just flat out wrong. Not misleading or arguably inaccurate, just wrong. Here is what the editorial says: “Think about this for a moment. Suppose you have a business that produces something that has value. You sell it and that’s how your business survives, and hopefully prospers. But what if someone comes along and takes the product of your work, and gives it away to the same people who might otherwise pay for it? …You haven’t got a chance. That’s not only unfair, it is bad for the economy.” “Facebook and Google take it without permission and use it, paying nothing for doing so.” No – this is obviously a false characterization of how Google operates. If I go to https://news.google.ca I see a list of news items from various online publishers like TheRecord.com, cbc.ca, aljazeera.com etc. All I see is a title of the online article, the website domain and the time is was published. I can then click on the link and go to the website and read the article. Just how does this compare with “…someone comes along and takes the product of your work, and gives it away…”. If I open up a store and someone steals gadgets I make, that’s theft. But if someone stands across the street and points to my store and says: “Hey look – Rita sells gadgets.” – how is this stealing? The example they provide is just false. Period. The main issue here is that Google and Facebook have a huge advantage over digital publishers since they know various data points about me and TheRecord does not. For example, if I go to Google (or Facebook) and search for a new bedroom set, they tag this data point to my account or through a tracking cookie. The next time I use Google, they directly target incoming ads based on my previous searches and sales on bedroom furniture suddenly appear on websites I view. (This may be creepy, but highly effective.) Digital media sites can’t do this since they do not have the ability to specifically target custom advertisements to individual users. But so what? This vastly superior business model is helping millions of companies use their scarce advertising dollars to better serve their customers. This is wrong? Funny how the editorial didn’t mention this rather important point. Of course, Google and Facebook aren’t the only sites that use this model. News aggregator sites like drudgereport.com, citizenfreepress.com, slashdot.org and reddit.com have used this model for years. So, what does TheRecord suggest on how to fix this “problem”. “The publishers are not looking for handouts. There is no public money and no impact on taxpayers. They’re seeking fairness. We pay millions of dollars each year to employ people who generate local journalism, and we pay to publish that content. By any measure, it is wrong for someone else to take that content and use it for their own purposes without compensating the source.” Oh, right – the government should force Google to pay to link to an article on a media site. Again, how is linking to an online article at TheRecord somehow “wrong”? Strange how they also forgot to mention that Trudeau just gave $600 Million of taxpayers money to “generate local journalism”. TheRecord should be thankful that Google and Facebook actually link to articles on their websites and drive traffic to them. Now they somehow want Google and Facebook to actually pay them to do something they can’t or won’t do themselves. Pathetic.

Luisa D’Amato takes the lazy way out and lets social media (whatever that is) write her column today. She asks (somewhere): “What was good about those [controversial temporary bike] lanes. What was bad. And what have we learned from the experience?” She then tells us that: “Feedback to the Waterloo Region staff was 96 per cent negative.” Really? I’m shocked. (cough) She tells us that Regional Councillor Geoff Lorentz (I’m not a fan) said: “We wasted half a million bucks.” Thank you Captain Obvious. Councillors Sean Strickland (also not a fan) and Mike Harris (fan!!!) said that “This was a big mistake.” Their remarks remind me of a quote from Dr. Thomas Sowell. He said (and I’m paraphrasing) that the biggest waste of money are from projects that government proudly boasts about and the biggest bang for your tax dollars are the things that our elected leaders never talk about – like fixing potholes. So, why don’t these Councillors look at other projects. Where is the cost/benefit analysis on the ION project? How about a yearly Income vs Expense report? Oh, right. Councillors can talk about a $500,000 waste of money but not a $1.5 Billion waste of money. Got it.