11.07.2011 07:27 AM

Werner Patels: lousy reporting alert

Der Werner, as Rayman dubbed him, is a lunatic of the first order, and progressive folks active on the Internet all know that. The reporter should have researched this creep before putting him on a pedestal.

Anti-immigrant, pro-extremism, all-round nut bar.  A loon. Someone even his own colleagues want to keep at a distance.  That’s who the Calgary Herald considers a victim.

Five minutes on the Internet would’ve shown who this guy was.  And it would’ve shown that Nenshi reacted with restraint.

 

17 Comments

  1. Reality Bites says:

    That link seems to have a problem, but I found another one to the same story that seems to be working better: http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/Mayor+knocked+meds+comment/5667691/story.html

    Werner Patels! Talk about a blast from the past.

  2. Ted says:

    I love it when conservatives, who get bent all out of shape when someone asserts the Evil Political Correctness, get bent all out of shape when someone on the other side of the fence is perceived to be politically incorrect.

    Now, folks, is that irony or hypocrisy?

  3. Kelly Oh says:

    Five minutes of research wouldn’t have changed the story. The mayor took the low road to deal with criticism (warranted or not). That is a story and certainly not a lousy one.

  4. Jonathon says:

    After scanning the links in your blog post, I get the impression you’re just throwing a bunch of stuff at a wall in hopes that it sticks. Not sure that any of it is legit.
    1) Your link claiming he’s “anti-immigrant” is misleading. He appears to be anti-illegal immigration. I don’t know anyone who is “pro”-illegal immigration.
    2) Your second link claiming he’s “pro-extemism” goes to a hatchet job on the Canadian Cynic site (and I do hope you used lots of sanitizer after linking there) that doesn’t even show Werner as an extremist — unless you’re suggesting that people who think immigrants to Canada ought to know one of our official languages is “extremist”. I suspect that “extremist” view is held by quite a few people in Canada. Indeed, knowledge of an official language is pretty standard stuff to expect of immigrants in most countries.
    3) The link from “all-round nutbar” also doesn’t show what Werner was banned for. The accusation is there. The proof has been deleted. Maybe Werner was being dumb. Maybe he wasn’t. We don’t know. There certainly isn’t enough to go on to call the guy an “all-round nutbar.”
    4) “A loon”. Really? For having some fuzzy ideas about how one scientific discovery might impact the climate change debate? Not saying Werner is on solid ground here, but “a loon”? Really?
    5) “Someone even his own colleagues want to keep at a distance.” Maybe. What comments were made? Again, it’s all innuendo.

  5. sassy says:

    Werner Patels seems to think that the Calgary Herald is out of touch, or at least he did on 16 Oct 2011, but that was a long three weeks ago.

    What a shame, but now that the Herald has become a propaganda machine (of misinformation), it is not worth the paper it’s printed on (or the pixels on an iPad screen).

    • Pete says:

      Alberta is turning left…you should worry Gord. next thing you know they will be having a Toronto style pride parade in Calgary.

      • The Doctor says:

        They already have a pride parade in Calgary. Is there something unique about a “Toronto style” pride parade?

      • Jon Adams says:

        The Sask Party was born out of the remnants of two highly damaged parties who badly needed to rebrand and spent twelve years in opposition honing their craft through trial-and-error before finally earning a well-deserved majority via the combination of the right leader, well-thought-out policies without slavish devotion to ideology, and general arrogance of the ruling party.

        Wildrose is made up of a bunch of bitter Albertan separatists, who the PCs wouldn’t take because they are unelectable or otherwise damaging to the party, who believe that they are uncrowned rulers of the province, who accuse everyone who isn’t ideologically in line with them of being closeted Liberals. VERY SIMILAR.

  6. Dr.Dawg says:

    A lot of folks appear to be unfamiliar with all Internet traditions.

    “Off his meds” is cyberspeak. It’s not literal, and there is no implication that it was in Nenshi’s tweet.

    This is just opportunistic political correctness by far-right-wingers. Maybe we should simply read it as instructive parody, and avoid being too PC ourselves.

  7. Michael S says:

    Werner is a nutter, but Nenshi broke the first rule of dealing with crazy people: Never engage with crazy people.

  8. Rick Omen says:

    This, coming from the guy who accused the PM of declining a communion wafer. Warren, you’re calling the pot black.

  9. lance says:

    Please. For all those saying the mayor needs to apologize, give it a rest.

    Anyone, and I mean _anyone_ who followed the Cdn Political blogosphere for at least 5 years can totally relate to what the mayor said. Warner Patels has had at least 10 blogs on all the major aggregators, he started progressive and then renounced that, went conservative (claiming his progressive foray was an ‘experiment’). Left that (maybe got booted, but I can’t rightly remember). Tried liberal, didn’t work out. Declared himself a citizen journalist with more hits than God…cough.

    Please, the guys a weiner plain and simple and I empathize w/ the Mayor for having to deal with Warner.

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