My favorite Sunday morning ritual is to go downstairs, grind coffee beans, brew a steaming cup of goodness (straight black) and pick through the carcasses of Saturday night’s hockey games.

I start with NHL scores and work my way through the alphabet soup: AHL, ECHL, IHL, CHL, OHL, CCHA.  I do this because I want to know what’s going on, but also because I have friends playing, coaching or broadcasting at all of these levels.  Then I log on to the CBC web site and watch the hat trick of Hockey Night in Canada television segments: Coach’s Corner, Coast to Coast, and Hotstove.

Yum.  E.

While surfing the CBC site this morning, I noticed Scott Oake’s bio.  Oake is an award-winning member of the network’s broadcast team.  His bio states he is very popular on Twitter and encourages people to follow him, so I wandered over to Twitter and logged in to my account, which I use, oh, twice a month.

I just don’t see a whole lot of value in Twitter.

Apparently, Oake doesn’t, either.  His last tweet was dated Nov. 7 and thereby reinforces what I’ve said all along:

• Twitter is a fad
• People who actually do things — people like Scott Oake — don’t have time to tell everyone else about them

Also: Former Western Michigan forward Mark Letestu had an excellent game for Pittsburgh last night, even though he did not score and the Penguins lost to Chicago in overtime.  Letestu created plays, hit the post with a backhanded shot and won the key face-off in Chicago’s end that led to Jordan Staal’s game-tying goal with under a minute left.

He did not, to the best of my knowledge, Tweet about it.

I covered Mark during his only season in Kalamazoo and remember the phone conversation we had on the day he announced he signed with Pittsburgh.  Here is the article from that day:

March 20, 2007

By Rick Shanley
Special to the Gazette

KALAMAZOO — Sidney Crosby, Jordan Staal, Evgeni Malkin… Mark Letestu?

It might take a few years, but Letestu is at least in the Pittsburgh Penguins pipeline after signing a two-year contract with the organization Tuesday.

Letestu leaves Western Michigan University after just one season, during which he led the Broncos in scoring and won the Central Collegiate Hockey Association’s Rookie of the Year award.  He has already reported to the Penguins’ American Hockey League affiliate in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., where he practiced Tuesday.

“It kind of took form when the season was winding down,” Letestu said of his decision.  “I just had to re-evaluate my hockey career.  It came up on me real fast.  I don’t even know if it’s hit me yet.”

Which is ironic, considering how Letestu surprised the college hockey world this season.

He led the nation in rookie scoring for much of the campaign and finished with 24 goals and 46 points.  His five shorthanded goals also led the country.

Letestu said “three or four” National Hockey League teams, including the Penguins, pursued him, although he wasn’t permitted to say which ones.  However, Detroit Red Wings’ general manager Ken Holland attended a game at Lawson Ice Arena late in the season and Steve Yzerman, now a Red Wings vice president, had lunch on campus recently.

Despite interest from the Red Wings, Letestu said his decision to sign with Pittsburgh was based on the way he feels the organization develops its players.  And it doesn’t hurt that the Penguins currently have three of the NHL’s top young players.   

“Obviously, you dream of that,” Letestu said of one day playing with Crosby, Staal and Malkin.  “But these first couple of years I’m here to develop as a pro.”

Of course, Letestu’s decision to leave WMU creates quite a large void for the program, which anticipates a strong freshman class next year and the continued development of some of its young impact players, like forward Jeff LoVecchio and goaltender Riley Gill. 

“It presents a challenge for us, there’s no question about that,” said Broncos head coach Jim Culhane.  “From a selfish standpoint for our program, he will be missed.  But we’re excited for him and he has our full support.”

Letestu is just the second player to leave early under Culhane’s tenure.  The other was forward Vince Bellissimo, who turned pro during his junior season in 2005.

“I ran some statistics (Tuesday),” Culhane said.  “There were 25 players who left early last year and I think that’s a trend that we’re seeing right now around the country.  It’s not going to be unique to us; it’s maybe a trend with the new Collective Bargaining Agreement.”

Culhane said he feels a player’s year in school doesn’t really matter when it comes to making the decision to turn pro, but Letestu’s situation was a bit unique.  At 22, he was older than most players on WMU’s team.  Plus, he possesses an unusually high level of maturity, which he feels will help his transition.

“For me, it was just the time to start my job,” Letestu said.  “I was 22 as a freshman and was going to be 23 as a sophomore.  It was just time to get on with it.”

Landrieu Got $300 Million They Want Theirs

The progressive elitist Democrats in Congress and even some in the main stream media were shocked when they learned that Mary Landrieu (D-LA) was bribed with $300 million for her “yes” vote on Obamacare.  The socialist Democrats have much, much more street money to buy votes now.  And that more than anything threatens our democracy..continued…

Also join us at MomsAndDadsBeHeard.org a new forum for you to express your views and concerns. Help us and be part of bringing our Great Christian country back.

Not to belabour the point too much, but Climategate goes beyond the ethics of reading and reporting on alleged hacked emails from a server in the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. It also goes beyond being a fringe story in the mainstream media now, as almost all major Canadian news media are covering it in some capacity. And finally, it goes beyond just an international story, and has some very direct, very important Canadian connections.

The Globe and Mail yesterday printed an article entitled : “Breach in the global-warming bunker rattles climate science at the worst time”

In the piece Doug Saunders discusses the relevance of the CRU emails exposing the “bunker mentality” among scientists who have guarded records and fudged data. And why is it so critical for each and every nation to pay attention to this news at this juncture? Why, if for no other reason than the Copenhagen summit which is supposed to set about a successor for the Kyoto Protocol, something that will definitively affect Canada and Canadians.

Mr.Sanders quotes a scientist working at the CRU as saying : “It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this has set the climate-change debate back 20 years.”

Does this sound like something worthy of the back pages of the news in the mainstream media? The UN’s IPCC itself has launched an investigation into the authority which is the basis for the consensus on anthropogenic climate change in the world. And as the sound of all hell breaking loose is upon us, governments around the world are in full denial mode. As the tables turn, those who were slow to accept the “consensus” are equally slow in accepting the new wrench thrown into the debate.

CBC journalist Kady O’Malley told me yesterday on the Evan Solomon show that she, and most other journalists covering the hill, haven’t reported on the issue because politicians simply are not talking about. In correspondence with her after the show she reiterated:

I’m actually surprised that no one on the Environment committee has brought it up, since it would make for a very timely study — even if simply to propose that the committee set a day aside for a hearing into the implications. I know that it’s been much more politicized in DC, but honestly, in Ottawa, I’m just not hearing *any* politicians – C/conservative or otherwise – talk about it, with the exception of Elizabeth May, of course.

Ah yes, Elizabeth May, quoted by Little Green Footballs as an authority on the Climategate emails. The only politician who is actually defending the legitimacy of the “consensus” is the one whose very existence depends on it.

And yet there is a Canadian connection in all of this. Canadians Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick were the ones to have discovered faulty calculations in some of the key scientific studies behind the reports of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And even if nobody on Parliament Hill has the guts to talk about it doesn’t mean that our media establishment should not be proactively investigating it, grilling our federal leaders, and generally holding their feet to the inferno as fastidiously as they have done during the detainee affair.

As Ms.O’Malley’s own CBC colleague Rex Murphy says, the information “let loose by a hacker, or a whistleblower” pulls back the curtain on pettiness, turf protection, manipulation, defiance of freedom of information, lost or destroyed data, and attempts to blacklist critics and skeptics of the global warming movement.

Update

I also left a comment in my other post which is rather interesting:

On Jeff’s blog, which I freely admit I do not read except when posted on Full Comment, he wrote a post about his experience. The blog he recommended afterwards, The Pundits Guide, showed up to to his comment section and had this to say:

I will say, Jeff, that I’m concerned about the fact that the original raw climate data was destroyed, leaving only the adjusted version available for peer scientific review. It’s also troubling the lengths the scientists in question went to, in order to skew the peer-reviewed science process.

I haven’t reviewed the entire documentary evidence myself, but researchers I respect have been raising alarm bells with me about the lack of “data integrity” being reported in the CRU’s datasets (this is a term with a very specific meaning in relational database world, and has to do with the ability to enforce referential integrity between related tables), along with the extent of contortions being attempted to clean the data.

The scientists are supposed to be the ones who can take on those they disagree with, using data and logical arguments. Attempting to use their influence to silence those dissenters instead does not make for as strong argumentation on their part. I believe that’s been harmful to the realm of scientific inquiry and research.

That said, as I understand it, there are two other significant datasets whose origin and analysis are not currently under a similar cloud. And thank goodness for that.

Thank you again for your citation yesterday, and best of luck in the Canadian Blog Awards.

I have spent the past 48-65 hours in a trancelike state of existence in multiple locations, mimicking early 1970’s video effects where identical images cross over and break off into transparencies of one another, becoming motion-picture homages to Warhol’s pop-art imagery in different monochromatic tonalities.

First things first.

I was politely and privately chastised by a good friend with genius intentions with regard to some of the statements I made on the MuchMusic interview we shot the other day. It seemed to him that perhaps I was trivializing or making light of the idea of stalking/being stalked, so I wanted to set the record straight. I certainly don’t think that being actually followed by someone who is genuinely disillusioned with regard to the nature of the relationship with the object of their desire is a “cool” or “sexy” thing. I have certainly, as I said in the interview, encountered a few individuals who have made their intentions/presence constant, scary and the furthest thing from sexy. So while I make no apologies for the content in the interview or the music, I want to also assure that I am not attempting to take a dangerous concept and make it cool. Whatever that means.

Art’s purpose is to make the audience feel something. So whether that is a “positive” response, or like much of the “negative” feedback I have received with regard to lyrical content, iconography or recurrent themes in some of my work (and anticipate much more with the coming projects), I am satisfied to provoke responses that engage, whether it brings hate mail or love notes.

Back to life, back to (un)reality. I attended the opening of the second coming of Dennis’ House Of Vintage Thursday, which ended up being a well-soundtracked, cocktail-fueled conference for the fashionable and fashionably disillusioned. Set in an open, well-lit storefront on West Queen West (the late-blooming, visibly pierced second cousin to the now completely gentrified Queen West), The House Of Vintage moved from its original location at Queen W & Portland two years ago and has only this month been reborn – a brilliant move on their part, as its absence only encouraged demand by a ravenous fanbase (including the Hollywood set – Misha Barton and her ilk have been frequent flyers). DHOV selects pretty much ONLY beautiful, high end vintage pieces that will blend well with the beautiful, high end clientele that play pretty paperdolls in revamped make-believe 1960’s Yorkville.

TORONTO LIFE has Best-Of’d DHOV about ten zillion times, with quotes like “Channel your inner femme fatale with Chloé, Dior and Pucci goodies from the 1950s to ’80s. For ’50s glam, go with a dark blue lace and silk cocktail dress ($200). Or give the ’70s a go with geometric Lanvin shirt-dresses, starting at $150. The options for men are equally dream making: finds include blazers from the ’70s and ’80s ($50–$80) and old Adidas track jackets ($50). Halston and YSL shoes ($70–$150) are big for fall.” Dennis has styled me for several events, notable favorites have been a 1960’s paisley minidress I wore for a segment on the CBC, the incredible high-waisted Chanel sailor trousers I wore to the Nelstar launch this summer, and my future jetset YSL pantsuit.

(“It will be mine, oh yes… it will be mine.”)

1239 Queen West, hit it and plan to physically fight me for the postfuturistic yet achingly 60’s Ferragamo handbag.

(Which is likely gone as on-hold’s flew off shelves and racks as dedicated followers of fashion scooped fierce finds from far off lands. Holy Alliteration, Nation.)

Maybe you already caught this extract from yesterday’s Power & Politics program; the CBC’s hip, fast-paced replacement for Don Newman’s old gig.

In this instance, Evan Solomon’s guests for the show’s segment where various bloggers square off about the week’s “hot topics” in the Blathersphere were Kady O’Malley, Adrian McNair and Jeff Jedras. Unfortunately, I missed most of it because the phone rang not long after it started so thanks to Jeff for posting it.

Due to time constraints, I’ll leave it to others to dispute the relative merits of the points made (or more accurately, not made) as it hardly seems worth the effort involved — it could easily take ten times longer than the length of the segment itself to critically analyze and deconstruct them. And to what end?

Save to say, I think this clearly illustrates the futility of attempting to discuss multiple issues intelligently with several people in the space of ten minutes. I mean really, what insight can possibly be derived from such an exercise? As a viewer, all one comes away with is a grab-bag of unresolved loose ends, specious arguments, half-baked assertions, and a maddening sense of frustration — but then, its focus was about blogging, so maybe that was the intended reaction…

CBC News Network

At least the Canadian’s are getting some mainstream broadcast coverage of Climategate. This piece by Rex Murphy is quite enlightening, and has been viewed more that 25,000 times as of this writing:

Click image to watch Rex Murphy on Climategate

Some key comments from the broadcast:

• “They lost the raw data on which all the models…are based.”
• “You wouldn’t expect that from a grade 9 science fair.”
• “Science has gone to bed with advocacy, and both have had a very good time.”

I couldn’t agree more.  I’ve written about high school level science requirements in a previous post:

Scientific method for K-12: a model climate scientists should follow

It’s time for the rest of the mainstream media to wake up and report on Climategate.  Are they journalists, or advocates?

I must admit, I love Tom Allen. I love his voice, I love the comments he makes on air and I especially love his new show in the afternoon. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s called Shift. What’s it about you ask? Well, what he is tasked with is literally to shift from the day time classical programming to the late afternoon pop/indie/folk music programming that Buck 65 brings to air around 3:30pm.

Now, for some of you this sounds like a total bore, but let me assure you that is not the case. This is the first time in my life I have actually learned about classical music in a way that is interesting to me from a non-musician standpoint. I can talk about punk, metal, indie, folk and jazz music to beat the band (tee-hee) but I know jack-shit about classical and most music made before 1930. What Tom has done (and I feel like this is his creation rather than an executive decision from the CBC head honchos) is create a theme each day. He will play just over an hour of classical music, talk about the composer, talk about the importance of a particular piece AND talk about it within a modern context. This is what I find fascinating- the fact that he can instantaneously translate something I know nothing about into something related to what I enjoy listening to now. But that’s certainly not where it ends…

What’s even more appealing about his show is the fact that he can relate a piece of classical music or a composition to the Canadian Football League or a freakin’ hockey game! The reason I bring this example up is because the way Tom presents these pieces is in such an unpretentious way that it’s acceptable for the listener to have no clue what he’s talking about. About three weeks ago I was driving to work when he played a piece by a composer I can (sadly) no longer remember, but he spoke about how unpretentious and accessible a scrappy piece of music can be. He wasn’t talking about terrible it sounded, but rather that the piece was gritty and lovely.  When it was originally written, the composer had likely rounded up a group of buddies for a jam session. Many years later, it had been recorded in much the same way- taking musicians who happened to around to form the group who would play the piece. It wasn’t polished, it wasn’t meant for perfection, it was just meant to be a lovely piece of music. How does this fit with a story about the CFL? Well, this was right around the CFL semi-finals and he brought up a story about a CFL kicker who wasn’t going to be playing that particular game, in fact he was shopping for business supplies at Costco when he was called in to play 6 minutes of a game, which turned out to be a game winner.  Tom was showing the parallel between that piece of music and the nature of Canadian football, that neither were out to be super stars, they just liked what they did and that was enough.

14 days out in the open and very few “main” stream media cabals have bothered to make mention of it. They can’t; it would undo so much of their belief system. For those who firmly believe the success of the first world is the greatest sin ever, there’s nothing that can move them; not even their own Leftarded rationalizations.

Only the sun’s activity and lack thereof, affects the overall climate on earth. Guess what nuclear fireball in the sky doesn’t merit mention as affecting the earth?

This is a war against capitalism, freedom and prosperity and since the international left cannot destroy with munitions, they do it with policy backed by the scam of the century.

Meanwhile, the real issue of !slam goes unnoticed by the same Leftarded folks hyperbolizingly alarmed over prosperity, er, global warming climate change. Well, the million year old news is that the climate always changes, whether/weather we like it or not.

The upshot, Al Gore, David Suzuki et al, are spectaculars liars and frauds but I can’t hold my breath long enough for the CBC/CBJihad to become a “news” organization.

You wanted Climategate on CBC, I give you Climategate on CBC. Not trying to plug myself, I just think this might be the first debate on the story on the CBC so far [notwithstanding Rex Murphy's solo effort]:

Power & Politics with Evan Solomon [Running time 10:22]

Update. Thanks to Jeff Jedras for uploading the video to YouTube so I could embed it.

The best way for someone to sense they are being spun is to listen for jargon or trigger words repeated over and over, says a reporter for the CBC.

With the seemingly never ending barrage of news stories popping up in the media related to politics, citizens are constantly exposed to political spin. Most politicans have become masters of trying to influence the behaviour of voters.

How can a regualr person see through the spin tactics of politicians and make an informed decision?

Political reporter Bendan Elliott said if someone keeps going back to or repeating the same message using different words, then this person is more than likely trying to spin you into hearing their version of the story.

“Also, regular news observers should listen to whether a question is actually being answered. If a journalist asks a question, and the person does everything except answer the question, then there’s a good chance that person is spinning.”

a It is hard for the average person to counter this spin, he said.

“The only suggestion would be for the person to continue asking their question until they feel satisfied that their question has been answered.”

CBC producer Donna Allen, said people should stop and ask themselves a few

questions,when considering whether or not they have been spun.

“Does this sound likely, reasonable, does it pass the smell test? What aren’t they telling me? Why is this person saying what they are saying? Might there be an ulterior motive? Does this person seem credible to me?”

Editor:

While it’s good to see Rex shed some badly needed light on the scam that is “global warming”, don’t forget that CBC is up to it’s neck in the constant promotion of the scam.

Peter Mansbridge has done stories about the importance of wind energy to combat global warming which was always a scam.  He’s hosted shows on global warming that were made to scare the public into believing global warming was a real threat and the humans were responsible. In 2008 Mansbridge was made an officer of the Order of Canada -Did he receive the award for doing his part in promoting the scam?

George Stroumboulopoulos the host of CBC’s “The Hour” is not only a big promoter of global warming but he is also on the board of the Suzuki Foundation.

The CBC like it’s cousin the BBC is a cesspit of propaganda pushing Agenda 21 and One World Govt. under the guise of environmentalism.

Can government-run media be objective? (H/T Right Wing Liberal via ECM)

Yes! It’s POSSIBLE.

Other links

• Nice graph shows how the Medieval Warming Period was much warmer than today
• Analysis of the software code behind hide the decline graphs
• The relationship of research grant money to hiding of the decline
• NASA is also hiding climate data from FoI requests
• James Hansen’s former supervisor at NASA is now a GW skeptic

Note: One of my radically leftist ex-co-workers just complained to me that the software file has the “adjustment” commented out. But actually, the software file “briffa_Sep98_e.pro” has the “adjustment” uncommented!

So they did indeed explicitly hide the decline:

;****** APPLIES A VERY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION FOR DECLINE*********
;
yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,$
2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor

And a bit later:

; APPLY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION
;
yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,x)
densall=densall+yearlyadj

Hide the decline!

says Spencer Weart in an interview with CBC’s The Current on December 3, 2009. Scientists can prove global warming without data from weather stations.

(to hear it yourself, go to the 3rd segment of the December 3, 2009 program – it’s less than five minutes in.)

I’m still trying to figure out whether it was a small moment of courage, or just a different way of talking about the same old story, when Peter Mansbridge brought up the Tiger Woods story on the “At Issue” panel on The National last night.

Mansbridge asked the panel for their thoughts on what the obsession with the Woods story says about us – meaning the greater “us”, as in all of us.

I think the question would have been more courageous, and more relevant if he’d meant “us” to mean “us” as in the CBC.

I suspect there was a little of that in his question. There had to be. Because the CBC has been as guilty as almost everyone else in the mainstream media of mindlessly following where the tabloids and TMZ have lead them. In fact, you could make a strong argument that there’s really very little difference between the mainstream, and the tabloid media anymore.

A man of money, means, and apparently motivation commits adultery, and this is a story? Not just a story, but THE story of the week. My oh my, it’s a world gone mad.

The crew in charge at the CBC now tosses around the word “transparency” to talk about how it covers things differently than it did before.

“More transparent,” they tell us.

Well here’s what I’d love to see in terms of transparency. I’d love to see Jennifer McGuire – who’s in charge of CBC News – take to the airwaves and say something like…

“You know what? We’ve been talking about this in our newsroom, and we can’t figure out for the life of us what the news value is in this story. So, we’re not going to report on it anymore. We’re going to leave it to others to obsess over, and report on. You guys are smart enough to know where to find those others, but we’re going to move on to other things.”

Fat chance, eh? It will never happen with this leadership team at the CBC.

Because in the Stursbergian vision, news is simply stuff that happens.

There’s no choice in whether or not we cover it. No thought about why it matters.

It’s happening…everyone else is reporting it…we have to report it as well.

Expect something more from the CBC…something different from your public broadcaster?

Those days are done.

Rep Elijah Cummings lays out the reasons for the Congressional Black Caucus revolt -

110th CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT (CBC) 2009
Ian Resnick, Compiler, <avian@nyc.rr.com>, 917-626-9562

The Christmas Bird Count is racing up on us this year. QCBCers (and guests) will be counting the wintering birds in our area, demarcated by a 15-mile diameter circle centered in southeast Queens. Our count is scheduled for SUNDAY, December 20th (the first time it is on a Sunday).

Last year there were over 2100 other groups doing counts from Canada south to the Antarctic. Unlike all our other trips during the year, there is a fee of $5 to partici-pate in this count, which is imposed by the Audubon Society to cover the cost of publication of the results in a special CBC issue of American Birds.

The Queens count is broken up into the following geographic territories:
Atlantic Beach / Far Rockaway
Valley Stream / North Hills
Jamaica Bay east of Cross Bay Blvd.
Forest Park / Flushing Meadow Park south
Flushing (Kissena Park / Flushing Meadow Park north)
Coastal Flushing (Flushing Bay, Little Bay)
Alley Pond Park / Oakland Lake
Douglaston Marsh / Little Neck Bay

Count Details: The count lasts all day. Feeder watchers are encouraged, and they are not required to pay the participant fee. I will be assigning the group leaders for each of the above areas and they will designate the time and place for meeting.

If you want to participate, please contact me at (917) 626-9562 (preferably in the evening) to register or if you have questions.

Final planning for the event will be done at the club meeting on December 16th, although we should have just about everything in place before that.

Documentation: Once the count is finished, group leaders are to submit the completed QCBC CBC checklist, included in this issue. The checklist includes all the regularly occurring species on the Queens count based on the past 20 years. Any species reported that are asterisked on the checklist or that are not on the checklist at all must be supported by detailed field notes. Photographs are good too.

Field note forms will be provided at the compilation dinner. Group leaders should note the group name, group leader & participants, party hours and miles and beginning and ending times on the checklist. If a participant is not a member of QCBC, please also include their full address on the back of the sheet.  Group leaders should collect the $5 fees from the participants, to be handed in at the dinner.

Count Week Birds: Birds seen three days before or after the count day should also be reported to me, particu-larly if they are unusual for our area or not seen on Count Day. If it is something unusual, photographs should be taken or detailed information should be reported.

Compilation Dinner: The day finishes with the compilation and dinner, which will be held at a restaurant to be announced. We should arrive at the restaurant by 5:30 pm, although you can get there earlier. The compilation will start by 7:00 pm.

This event is usually the highlight of the club‟s activities for the year, so don‟t miss out!

Even if you can’t go birding with us during the day, you are more than welcome at the dinner and compilation. I look forward to seeing you all there!</span>

The first English Language animated feature made in Canada by Canadians — and an internationally bootlegged cult classic written by Peter Sauder and John Halfpenny.

Because Rock & Rule didn’t get an initial release, it nearly bankrupted the studio that made it, Nelvana. Nevetheless many of the animators went on to become well-known and Nelvana saved themselves with the commercially successful The Care Bears Movie, also written by Peter Sauder… and my next post.

Here’s the Wikipedia entry — and watch the trailer:

CBC09于2009年11月7日至8日在广东连州市地下河风景区举行，本届CBC的主题是“微动力 广天地”。大约有150多位来自全国各地的中文Bloggers参加了这届会议。以上图片是我在会议现场拍摄的。

November 29, 2009
CBC News: The Fifth Estate

‘The Unofficial Story: Eight years after 9/11, why are doubts growing about the official record of that day?’

This documentary was originally broadcast on November 27, 2009 on Canada’s CBC and will be available for viewing at www.CBC.ca (or below, if you are not in Canada).

DESCRIPTION

On September 11, 2001 the world watched in shock and disbelief as planes flew in to New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, and Americans realized they were under attack. But by whom? What really happened? In The Unofficial Story, the fifth estate’s Bob McKeown introduces us to people who believe the real force behind the attacks was not Osama Bin Laden, but the U.S. government itself.

Emerging from the dust and debris that day was a movement, known these days as 9/11 Truth or “truthers” — people who believe that 9/11 was part of a vast conspiracy and cover-up by a criminal faction within the U.S. government. As the fifth estate reports, public opinion polls now show that the majority of Americans believe the Bush Administration had advance knowledge of those attacks and somehow allowed them to happen and that one-third of Canadians share the same belief.

In The Unofficial Story, Bob McKeown explores why these questions and theories are growing in popularity.

You’ll meet some of the leading proponents of “truther” theories: Richard Gage, an American architect, explains how the WTC twin towers and the lesser known ‘Tower #7′ could only have crumbled as they did due to explosive charges placed inside the buildings. Others, including Canadian professor Kee Dewdney, insist that the story of the brave fight by the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 must have been a hoax. But, you’ll also hear from others who dispel “truther” theories and try to understand why, from JFK’s assassination to the moon landing to 9/11, a culture of conspiracy springs up around certain historic events.

Despite the difference of opinion between those who blame the hijackers and those who blame their own government, the real importance of the fight over 9/11 truth is that it may have less to do with the past than the future.

Ed. Note: See also at the CBC.ca site: video interviews, audio of calls from hijacked planes, related links and comments, a related story from 2003, and opportunity to comment.