The National Post Should Fire That Anti-Vaxxer Prick

National Post columnist Lawrence Solomen is now running an anti-vaxxer website.  You can see it here.  This is from the "About us" section:

VaccineFactCheck, headed by Lawrence Solomon, is a project of Consumer Policy Institute.

The "Consumer Policy Institute" is also just more Solomon, another part of his "Energy Probe" network of  astro-turf groups pushing various corporate causes.

Now, Solomon probably wouldn't call it an anti-vaxxer site; he'd probably just claim he was trying to "teach the controversy".  But that is, of course, bullshit.  And after that whole thing with The Star's Gardisil article I thought the whole nation had come to the conclusion that this kind of ant-vaccine  fear mongering was beyond the pale.  But not the National Post, apparently.

So here's a call out to Andrew Coyne, who is apparently some kind of editorial big-wig over there at the NP these days:  fire Lawrence Solomen.  Ditch the kook.  Show some class.

NP Censors Anti-Censorship Piece

Jonathon Kay's typically awful defense of Charles McVety has been disappeared from the National Post Website. The cached copy can still be found here, however. I'm assuming that it was the sight of bare-assed men that got the piece yanked. In any case, perhaps Mr. Kay will come out and denounce his employers. Perhaps.

How The Mighty Have Fallen

An anonymous TSF reader says the first floor of the recently sold Toronto Sun building will become a Loblaws store later this year.

Rumor has it the National Post HQ on Don Mills will be converted into a paint-ball facility. Defcon is looking to expand. A better class of people will moving in. Gentrification, and all that.

Natty Post Claims False Scoop On Stripper Pics, Gives Liberal Blogger The Stiff!

That picture 1st appeared here (on this blog, which is mine) on November 10th. Plus several more exclusive shots!!!

Your coverage of Canadian Human Rights cases continues to be dismal. If you can't tell the truth about exotic dancers, how can you guys be trusted with anything???

No wonder your stock is under a buck!!!!

The Free Market Speaks! Right Wing Media In Toilet X 2!

1) Bourrie at Ottawa Watch has been on the CanWest Death spiral like a vulture on the bloated corpse of a dead cow. Basically, the stock has dipped below $2.00 per share, and this has sparked rumors that the National Post might be sold off. In other words, next time you're at McDonalds keep an eye on the guy behind the counter flipping burgers. It might be Jonathon Kay.

2) The Audit Bureau of Circulations is a not-for-profit circulation organization. It conducts 3rd party audits of newspaper circulation reports so that advertisers and advertising agencies can have accurate, verified figures. Recently, ABC dinged The Toronto Sun for "discrepancies" in their 2007 reporting, and

...said it expects to release an audit report for 2007 within the next 10 days that shows downward circulation adjustments of 11 per cent on the paper's daily circulation, 12 per cent for Saturday papers and 15 per cent for Sunday copies."

Doom, baby, doom!

h/t Sun Family Blog.

CIC Peace Offering To Macleans/Steyn

Word comes of an offer from the CIC to settle the Macleans/Steyn human rights complaint. The press release is here, and Warren has some speculation as to what's in the offer. It will be interesting to see whether Macleans takes the deal or decides to fight on. Kay suggests that, for purely commercial reasons, Macleans will choose the latter course as this issue has served to give them credibility among Conservative readers.

I'm not so sure. As I say, outside the blogosphere, I don't think this issue has any profile at all. If it has had an effect on Macleans' circulation, I imagine this can be measured in dozens of copies. In any case, taking Macleans down the same diasastrous path as the National Post, which has managed to make itself the national newspaper for about 2/3rds of the nation, is surely a dangerous strategy.

Warman Drops The Bomb, Sues National Post (And Others)

Richard Warman has named The National Post Company, Jonathan Kay, Ezra Levant, Kathy Shaidle, FiveFeetOfFury.com, SmallDeadAnimals.com, Catherine McMillan, Mark Fournier, FreeDominion.ca and Constance Wilkins-Fournier in a statement of claim filed today.

Warman is looking for $50,000 from the defendants, "jointly and severally", apologies, and retractions, and etc. Central to this case is the "Anne Cools" Post of which I have written so often.

Remember, this is not about possibly frivolous uses of the HRC process anymore. We're talking libel now.

PS. My favorite bit from the documentation:

"Mr. Lemire and his direct associates had always been cautious enough never to spread the allegation [re the Cools post] outside of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal hearing. Indeed, one of Lemire's closest associates indicated in an Internet posting that they had legal advice not to do so (presumably knowing they would be sued for libel)."

Never, never, never trust them Nazis.

The Lost Poll Of Ipsos Reid

Remember on Saturday I asked what had happened to the latest Ipsos Reid poll? Two weeks in a row, each Friday, a poll from Ipos had come out showing the Tories "surging" towards Majority territory...and then nothing! I wondered if the Natty Post hadn't stuffed the poll because it didn't fit their narrative of imminent Conservative Dominance.

Well, Ipsos has finally released the thing via their website and, guess what?

Ottawa, ON – In a week where the House of Commons voted on the Throne Speech and federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty met with retailers and, ‘standing up for consumers’, announced that Canadians ‘deserve to pay a price [for goods] that reflects the strength of the Canadian Dollar’, it appears that the Conservatives are finding it hard to break through the elusive 40% majority-territory barrier.

Since last week, the Conservatives have dropped one point nationally and now sit at 39% support of Canadian decided voters, but they still maintain a twelve-point lead over the Liberals at 27% support. The NDP has rebounded three points and now sits at 17% support, while the Green Party holds steady at 8% support, nationally.

This one has appeared nowhere in the MSM as far as I know. More evidence, if anyone needed any; don't trust the Natty Post. Killing their own poll when it gave them an inconvenient truth!

Update: Canada.Com finally publishes something about an hour ago (about 6:00 pm). Pretty unusual that a major news organization should let a blog break news of their poll. I'm feeling like Matt Drudge here at the moment.

Bourque Crashes Out!

From the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Power Stroke Diesel 200 at O'Reilly Raceway Park:

There were several minor incidents throughout the evening. Pierre Bourque [71] and Chad McCumbee were involved in the first caution of the night, which ended both of their nights.

Bourque's performance at this his first truck race can be seen as a metaphor for the financial performance of his sponsor, CanWest Global Communications, whose flag-ship publication, the National Post, appears to be doing a slow-motion endo into the snow fence of Bankruptcy as its circulation plunges like an old pick-up truck flying off a cliff.

Bourque, needless to say, came out of his accident all right. Will the Natty Post?

PS. This is not the series in which Bourque races under the Tory banner. That's the CASCAR stock car series. Just to be clear.

National Post Numbers Tank, Will Conrad Black's Trip To The Pokey Finish Them?

From The Globe's Report on Business:

The National Post's weekday circulation in that category tumbled 22 per cent in the six-month period. On the weekends, its circulation for people paying at least half the cover price fell 22 per cent to 125,165 copies.

For total circulation, The Globe was flat Monday to Friday while the Post fell 12 per cent. The Post has withdrawn from delivering its paper in many rural markets, particularly in Eastern Canada.

The end is near, brothers and sisters. Every day when I run past the Southem building I see Andrew Coyne out front selling pencils by the bus stop, and Kinsella keeps asking me for cigarettes.

And just for the record, Mr. Kay, my offer still stands: after the inevitable restructuring I would be willing to step in and take over from both these guys for the price of a single columnist. If you have read this blog enough you will know that I've acquired the ability to rant like a lunatic from years of reading The Sun.

But the Natty's Posts problems go far beyond the fact that nobody reads it. When Lord Black is sentenced, I expect the reporters and columnists there to spontaneously combust, the way a lair of vampires will burn away spectacularly to nothingness when their Alpha Vampire meets the stake.

National Post Caught In Global Warming Lie

In the course of Lawrence Solomon's series on Global Warming skeptics, "The Deniers", no less than three scientists were incorrectly referred to as global warming "deniers", including Nigel Weiss, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. Of the three, Mr. Weiss was offended enough that he issued a press release clarifying his position, and wrote a letter to the Natty Post claiming that Solomon had slandered him. At first Solomon slithered about in print for a bit, claiming that he was using the term "denier" in its most heroic sense. I guess, however, that the threat of imminent legal action held sway at last, because this morning the Post assumed its best grovelling position:

Nigel Weiss, professor of astrophysics at the University of Cambridge, believes that the warming trend in Earth's climate is caused by greenhouse gases produced by human activity, and that the effect of a potential future reduction in solar activity would not reverse or cancel out that trend, but might have a small effect in mitigating it. He has held these views for several years. Incorrect information appeared in a column in the Financial Post on Feb. 2. The National Post withdraws any allegation that Dr. Weiss is a global warming "denier" and regrets the embarrassment caused him by the Feb. 2 column and a further column on Feb. 9.

On behalf of Mr. Weiss and the planet in general, let me just respond to this by saying that the editorial staff and columnists at the Natty Post are all a bunch of wiggly worms, the lowest form of life that crawls, and I look forward with joy and anticipation to the day when your next rotten filthy lie is waved before your faces and you are, once again, forced to eat the dirt that lies beneath our feet.