There is no thing on Earth that I love as much as this thing. Spring has sprung!

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And who’s the first guy you see? The House Commie™, me!

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From: H.Gauthier – hugpete@videotron.ca
To: Warren.Kinsella@sunmedia.ca

you can spin all your bs on this loserrrrrrrr.like his old man that i met and hatedddddd.is a socialist, commie,parasite.and i will bet what money you have he will never ever be pm.count on it.PETER THE GREAT LIBERAL AND TRUDEAU HATERRRRRRRRRRRRRR

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Buy it now! Buy several copies!

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Quote:

“It’s unclear whether Anonymous’s decision to intervene was prompted by Kinsella’s online plea. (Kinsella suspects that Anons were working on the case before he spoke out.) Still, the fact that a public figure had called openly on the group attests to its growing stature in Canada. I first took an interest in Anonymous while reporting a feature about a new generation of online crime fighters who are second—guessing, upstaging, and competing with the police—and in the process, exposing flaws within the investigative systems. Anonymous’s OpJustice4Rehteah—which helped to create such a humiliating media flurry that the authorities agreed to reopen the case—is one of the most successful of these initiatives, and it marks a small turning point for hactivism in Canada. Anonymous, with its capriciousness and its wonky theatrics, will never be mainstream, but it is gaining a measure of credibility among people who might previously have written it off. What’s more, the sensitivity and cohesion with which Anons handled the Justice4Rehtaeh operation has called into question many popular assumptions about the movement—my own included.”

Worth a read.  Not worth a read?  Chris Selley, Dan Gardner or Parker Donham on the subject.  They didn’t know what the Hell they were talking about, and they still don’t.

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I will use this opportunity to shamelessly point out that I, unlike everyone else, predicted the re-election of Premier Redford.  Here.

Also, I will use this opportunity to point out that, in the days that followed April 23, 2012, I delighted in mocking the many folks who got it wrong.  Here and here and here.

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Following tragedy, offering one’s “thoughts and prayers” on social media is commonplace. People now do it in a ritualized fashion whenever bad things happen.

After the murders in Boston last week, average folks felt compelled to offer their “thoughts and prayers” to the victims, allegedly of the Tsarnaev brothers, on platforms like Twitter. And, after the Boston Marathon murders — after 9/11, after Newtown, after any number of other calamities — politicians offered up their thoughts and prayers, too. Most of what they had to say is as banal as it is meaningless.

But the media and their critics carefully scrutinize their words, to ensure that it carefully aligns with the mood of the moment.

Justin Trudeau learned this lesson the hard way last week. A couple hours after the Boston bombings, when emotions could not be higher, Trudeau sat down to a scheduled interview with the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge. The Liberal MP had won his party’s leadership the day before, so making the rounds with the TV networks was de rigueur. But, in Boston’s immediate aftermath, the encounter was fraught with peril.

Mansbridge’s first question about the attacks was as predictable as it was fair. As prime minister, “what do you do?”

Trudeau’s answer, as is now well known, was an unmitigated disaster: “First thing, you offer support and sympathy and condolences and, you know, can we send down, you know, EMTs or, I mean, as we contributed after 9/11? I mean, is there any material immediate support we have we can offer?”

That was uncontroversial, if communicated poorly (in all, Trudeau said “you know” nine times in a single answer). Then Trudeau got himself into big trouble. Instead of expressing outrage about the terrorist attacks and sympathy for the many victims, Trudeau chose instead to play amateur sociologist.

“At the same time, you know, over the coming days, we have to look at the root causes,” he said.

“… There is no question that this happened because there is someone who feels completely excluded, completely at war with innocents, at war with a society. And our approach has to be, OK, where do those tensions come from?”

Trudeau similarly went on for another 126 words, but the damage had been done.

Stephen Harper immediately seized on the Liberal leader’s words, as did much of the conservative-dominated commentariat, deploring Trudeau’s response as insufficiently tough and too bleeding heart.

It did not matter that Harper himself had said there is indeed a need to determine the root causes of terrorism.

As Maclean’s Paul Wells revealed, in 2011 Harper had given a speech on the National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism, pledging to find out “as much as we can about terrorists, their tactics, and the best solutions to protect people.”

That isn’t all that different from what Trudeau said, of course. But, much like his father would have done, Trudeau put reason ahead of passion. These days, in the social media era, passion always precedes reason.

Trudeau may not approve of that, but — having won his party’s leadership riding the crest of a social media wave — he should have known better.

He is unlikely to make that mistake again.

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…but not in a way that any of us would like, of course.  This one is a bit close to home, as my Mom is on that train run regularly.

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Quote:

“There’s very little vote that I can see that will bleed from Harper to Trudeau. But, from Mulcair to Trudeau, there will be plenty of voters shifting allegiance. The Dippers need to do a lot more than remove the word ‘socialism’ from their constitution,” Mr. Kinsella told The Hill Times in an email, referring the NDP’s policy convention at which delegates voted to rewrite the party constitution’s preamble to remove reference to socialism and add references to social democracy instead. 

“The notion that the NDP will ever form a government, now, is a joke.  If that’s what NDP spinners are saying, they need to get their heads read.  They’re in trouble,” said Mr. Kinsella.

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Really?

Except:

The attack ads are working. Twitter “teaches” nothing; mostly, teachers do. Obama lost the gun control vote. Question Period changes nothing.

Twitter circulated an avalanche of false information about the Boston bombings, and arguably made false stories easier to spread. Nobody donates to, or as a result of, Twitter. It “inspires” no one.  It just is.

It’s a tool, tool. It’s not the summit of human achievement. Get a grip.

That more than 140 characters? Too bad.

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