FOUR
THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WARRENKINSELLA.COM
1. Warren doesn't
know what "permalink"
means:
Warren doesn’t have
permalinks because (a) he is busy running a busy business
(b) he is busy being father to four busy young children
(c) he is busy doing a million other things and (d) he
therefore couldn’t be bothered. He doesn’t have time.
Besides, he believes in age-old marketing principles: why,
having brought people onto his website, would he then send
them somewhere else?
I think he means "hyperlinks,"
but then again there are plenty of hyperlinks on his site.
Oh, busy, busy Warren. So busy he must ponder the perfidy
of the Toronto Star whilst
in church. So busy monitoring every little
thing about himself on the Web. So busy playing
the groupie at MuchMusic. (Sorry, no permalink;
see 27 and 28 September entries for Rise Against.) Hey,
Warren, look behind you; it's Ian MacKaye! Sucker.
2. Warren is full of shit:
Warren is mightily suspicious
of ideology, believing that ideologies (and some
religions) are generally at fault for all manner of
pogroms and prejudice. He believes, therefore, that sanity
is most often found in those persons whose belief systems
are contradictory and confusing...
...blah, blah, blah; the 196 masturbatory words which
follow have been excised. Warren is so suspicious of
ideology he proudly describes himself (Montreal
born, Toronto resident) as a "Calgary
communist." But I suppose Warren
considers himself one of the good communists. You know
"good communists," right? They're like
"white witches" or "good
Hodgkin's."
3. Warren is full of shit:
[WarrenKinsella.com]
despises cowards and hypocrites...
Warren so despises cowards and hypocrites that his
homepage proudly declares the decidedly
non-ideological Lenin as one of "his heroes"
but disguises this insult to the
millions Lenin murdered by calling him
"Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov."
Warren so despises cowards and hypocrites that when he
decided to take a lesson in kicking
ass in Canadian politics from Ted White, he
chose a riding not in Calgary (or Toronto or Ottawa) but
in North
Vancouver.
Warren so despises cowards and hypocrites that he rails
against "homophobia" but
responded to a
measured review of his latest book by
calling the reviewer a "nancy boy." When called
out on this, Warren
weaseled that this was a "punk"
insult, not a "homophobic" insult. He then gave
a little tutorial on the differences between English as it
is spoken in England and as it is spoken in North America.
Again, Warren is full of shit. From the Oxford English
Dictionary:
nancy n. & adj.
(also nance) sl. —n. (pl.
-ies) (in full nancy boy) an effeminate man, esp. a
homosexual. —adj.
effeminate. [pet-form of the name Ann]
(Here's a real "punk insult," Warren, from
the godfather himself, Lou Reed: "You go beyond
assholism into some kind of intestinal tract.")
4. Without Prejudice
Warren doesn’t have
a comments section—like Paul Wells, like
Adam Radwanski and plenty of smarter other folks don’t—not because he
doesn’t value intelligent feedback, pro or con. He does,
he does. Warren doesn’t have comments because he is too
busy (see above) to start policing the inevitable orgy of
hatred and libel. Life is too short, etc. Besides, as an
alleged lawyer, Warren’s reading of the law is that he
would be sued, along with the defaming commenter, for
permitting [CENSORED] to be called a [CENSORED]...
[WarrenKinsella.com]
makes mistakes: Like the guy who writes it, the web site
makes mistakes all the time. Like the guy who writes it,
the web site believes in speedy and frank acknowledgement
of errors. If you spot one—or something that you
think is unfair or wrong—write Warren at wkinsella@hotmail.com.
Chances are that he'll agree with you and make the
necessary changes...
Perhaps "alleged lawyer" Warren remembers the
malicious and defamatory statements about me he posted on
Antonia Zerbisias's website 27 July 2005.
These libels are, as is Warren's practice, not supported
by any documentary evidence, i.e., direct
quotations from me or hyperlinks to them. In order:
a. "Grace wrote news
stories endorsing Collins' view that Jews 'control
Hollywood.'" What I wrote in Alberta
Report/Western Report 15 February 1999 was this:
It
is Mr. Collins' belief that the Jews "control"
Hollywood. Truth is no longer a defence in British
Columbia, but it remains of some interest, if only to
scholars. The tribunal ruled the above belief a
manifestation of anti-Semitism, but Benjamin J. Stein
disagrees. And the multitalented Mr. Stein, frequently
quoted in this space, can hardly be accused of being a
"self-hating Jew." In January's The American
Spectator (www.tas.org)
he expresses (not for the first time) his sorrow with Jews
who efface their ethnicity by changing their names or
modifying their appearance through plastic surgery.
In
an article a couple of years ago for E! Online (e3.eonline.com/Hot/Specials/Jews/index.html),
Mr. Stein argued that "Hollywood was not really 'run'
by anyone (it's far too chaotic for that), [but] if Jews
were about 2.5% of the population and were about 60% of
Hollywood, they might well be said to be extremely
predominant in that sector...It is extremely clear to
anyone in Hollywood that Jews are, so to speak, 'in
charge' in Hollywood." Mr. Stein, justifiably proud
of his people's achievement in the entertainment industry,
concluded, "And a very angry voice in my curly head
makes me add, 'What the hell of it?'"
Warren implies that the paragraphs
above are preposterous and insinuates they prove
anti-Semitism on my part. But it is a commonplace that the
Jews are disproportionately represented in Hollywood (see,
for instance, Entertaining
America by J Hoberman and Jeffrey
Shandler or An
Empire Of Their Own: How The Jews Invented Hollywood
by Neal Gabler). And there is nothing in these paragraphs
that any reasonable person could conclude is anti-Jew,
anti-Hollywood or anti-Jews-in-Hollywood.
b. "Grace enjoys the
enthusiastic support of Canada's far right: http://www.freedomsite.org/pipermail/fs_announce/2001/000682.html
And, here, where he is championed by David Irving: http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/99/02/Alberta.html"
First, neither website asked my permission to reproduce
these articles. And as I testified under oath 5 December
2000 before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal in the
matter of Sabrina Citron et al. vs Ernst Zündel:
I
take no position for or against the republication of my
material on the Internet because I can't stop it. If I
acted as if I had a means to do so, this would imply that
somehow I approve of people republishing my material. My
material has been republished by people all over the
world, and they don't ask permission; they just do it.
Second,
Warren insinuates that republication by David
Irving and others
demonstrates that I share their opinions about the Jews.
Warren provides no evidence that I do, only guilt by
association. Both Michael
Coren and Barbara
Amiel have been
republished (with approbation) by Irving, almost certainly
without permission. Does this make them anti-Semites?
c.
"There is more,
if you have the stomach for it. Grace defending war
criminals." Again, typically, Warren provides no
evidence to justify this damnable lie. What I have derided
is the
vexatious prosecution of Helmut Oberlander by the Liberal
government. There is no evidence Oberlander
committed war crimes, and if Warren disputes this, let him
take it up with the Federal
Court of Appeal:
Th[e
Minister's] Summary [of Facts and Evidence], which must be
taken to include all of the facts the applicant hopes to
establish by evidence in this case, does not include any
reference to personal commission by the respondent of
atrocities or war crimes or his personal involvement in
"the execution of civilians" or in criminal
activities. Nor does it include any reference to his
involvement in aiding and abetting others in the
commission of criminal activities, in any sense comparable
to "aiding and abetting" as those terms are used
in s. 21 of the Criminal Code for Canada, R.S.C. 1985, c.
C-46. Thus, in my view the Minister does not seek to
establish by evidence that Mr. Oberlander was personally
involved in the commission of atrocities or war crimes or
criminal activities, or in aiding and abetting, in any
criminal sense, others engaged in criminal activities. I
affirm for the record that no evidence was presented to
the Court about any personal involvement of the respondent
in criminal activities or war crimes.
d.
"Grace defaming Jews
and Israel." Again, where is the evidence? The second
claim is preposterous. I
am a lifelong Zionist (see
here), and Kinsella will search in vain for
any defamation of Israel by me. The first claim was
considered at the CHRT hearing mentioned above. B'nai
Brith lawyer Marvin
Kurz used Warren and Ezra Levant as sticks
with which he attempted to beat a confession out of me.
One example of many:
Kurz:
You don't even think they [Terry
Long, Wolfgang
Droege, Gerry
Lincoln, as cited by Warren] are very bad
people, do you?
Grace:
No, no, no, don't tell me that. I have made it clear that
I am not an anti-Semite; I am not a Holocaust revisionist.
I have nothing against the Jews, and do not support any
such thing.
And
here is my testimony under oath on re-examination:
I
think Doug
Collins is rather—I
don't agree with what he has to say about the Jews. He
seems to be obsessed with the Jews, [and] he believes in a
Jewish conspiracy.
B'nai Brith and other hostile
intervenors attempted to prevent me, as insufficiently
experienced and as an anti-Semite, from being qualified as
an expert witness on journalism. They did not succeed.
Claude Pensa, chairperson of the tribunal, concluded with
regard to my putative anti-Semitism:
Undoubtedly, Mr
Grace has strong views, including about the role of human
rights tribunals, but we are not convinced that the
concerns rise to the level of bias...We will allow Mr
Grace to give evidence, recognizing the limitations of his
experience and expertise.
To sum up: I was tried and found not
guilty of anti-Semitism by no less than the Canadian Human
Rights Tribunal.
e. "Kevin
Michael Grace can write, but that doesn't mean he belongs
in the [National] Post, or any other mainstream
media outlet. Even Western
Report figured that out." Coming at the end of a
long indictment, Warren clearly insinuates that I was
fired from Alberta Report/Western Report for
anti-Semitism and other just cause. As it happens, I have
in my possession a letter from Dan Scott, "counsel
for United Western Communications Ltd," (owner of Alberta
Report/Western Report) dated 20 March 2003. It reads
in part: "There has not been any suggestion that Mr
Grace was dismissed for cause." And as it turns out,
United Western Communications settled my suit with six
months's pay and other considerations. (They welshed
on the deal, but that is another matter.)
It is my contention that, considering his pre-eminent
position in the Canadian media, Warren's outrageous
defamations coupled with his declaration that I am morally
unfit to work for "any...mainstream media
outlet" have severely compromised my ability to
secure journalistic employment in Canada. As to the
question of malice, I believe this is easily demonstrated.
Seven years ago, Warren recycled a letter he had written
to Diane
Francis into a splenetic and error-riddled
attack on me, which concluded with the opinion that I (a
native of Canada and a Canadian citizen)
"perhaps" deserved deportation. Unfortunately
for Warren, he had neglected to remove all the references
to Francis. When I mocked him for this, he
sued me. A year later, after I sent Warren a
private email containing questions for a story I was
writing about him, he responded with a legal letter
threatening further action. "Alleged lawyer" or
no, Warren understands very well that private
communications cannot be defamatory by definition.
So. On the one hand, I have long held
that journalists suing other journalists is contemptible.
On the other, I am exceedingly poor, while Warren, besides
being rather well off, is one of the most contemptible
figures in Canadian public life. He richly deserves to be
sent to Coventry. But failing that, to be whacked with a
huge libel judgement. (In the event I should decide to
sue, I have already assured Antonia Zerbisias that she and
the Toronto Star have nothing to fear from me.)
Warren, you claim you
believe "in speedy and frank acknowledgement of
errors." So I expect you to post on your website a
full and formal apology for your libels of 27 July 2005.
After you have done so, write me at kevin_grace@hotmail.com.
As mentioned above, this offer is without prejudice. It is
also, as you litigators say, "time sensitive."
Warren poses proudly with two real war criminals and
some woman
Kevin
Michael Grace, 12.55 am, 29 September 2006►
BREAKING THE CHAIN
Once again, I don’t like "tags," but I can’t
say no to Michael
Brendan Dougherty, so here goes:
1. One book that changed your life?
The
Patriot Game: Canada And The Canadian Question Revisited,
Peter Brimelow
2. One book that you have read more than once?
The
Machiavellians: Defenders Of Freedom,
James Burnham
3. One book you would want on a desert island?
Loitering
With Intent, Muriel Spark
4. One book that made you cry?
Cancer
Ward, Alexander Solzhenitsyn
5. One book that made you laugh?
Wilt,
Tom Sharpe
6. One book you wish you had written?
Kleinzeit,
Russell Hoban
7. One book you wish had never been written?
The
Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
8. One book you are reading currently?
Trail
Of Havoc: In The Steps Of Lord Lucan,
Patrick Marnham
9. One book you have been meaning to read?
The
Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire,
Edward Gibbon
10. Pass it on
No can do
A staggering work of heartbreaking genius
Kevin
Michael Grace, 2.05 pm, 28 September 2006►
THOUGHT FOR
THE DAY
I am always baffled by people's
willingness to believe in "Al Qaeda." This
alleged organization is supposedly everywhere, popping up
in the Philippines one week, Spain the next, Bali the
following month, Indonesia, Turkey and Iraq after that.
These places are all deeply different and the connections
between Islamists in them are tenuous and have never been
proven. But it is also supposedly a tightly organized plot
controlled by that bearded chap in the mountains.
I specially love the
phrase "all the hallmarks of al Qaeda" and wait
for TV reporters to intone it at some point in any account
of a terrorist outrage anywhere. The "hallmarks of al
Qaeda" are, apparently, that it is an outrage, and
that it has been done by Muslim Jihadists. These are not
actually hallmarks. It is like saying that having four
wheels, an engine and a windscreen are "all the
hallmarks of a car."
The truth, that there is now a
global ideology of Islamic militancy, which doesn't
require a central command or training camps in Asia or a
man with a beard, is partly addressed in the new US
intelligence report which also rather obviously admits
that the Iraq invasion may have something to do with the
current upsurge of militancy. These Washington experts are
slowly getting there. Sooner or later they'll come up with
a report saying that George Bush is no good as President,
shortly after he's left office.
Once again, the interesting
question is why people believe something that is plainly
silly. In the case of the neoconservative enthusiasts for
the global "War on Terror," I think it is
because they are anxious to come up with an explanation
for this conflict which does not involve Israel—when
it is obvious to anyone who can see that Israel is the
pivot of the whole argument. I think some PC people are
worried about seeming anti-Muslim if they link the
outrages with militant Islam.
In the case of the spooks and
the policemen, they need a bogeyman with which to frighten
the public and justify their powers and their budgets. I
just wish journalists would stop swallowing it whole.
—Peter
Hitchens
Kevin
Michael Grace, 10.10 am, 28 September 2006►
THOUGHT FOR
THE DAY
I'm not sure I see
the silver lining about cynicism re government. People
used to say the same thing about the JFK conspiracy buffs
and disbelief in the Warren Commission. Actually, it seems
to demobilize people from useful political activity. I
think the nuttishness stems from despair and political
infantilism. There's no worthwhile energy to transfer from
such kookery. It's like saying some lunatic shouting to
himself on a street corner has the capacity to be a great
orator.
—Alexander
Cockburn
Kevin
Michael Grace, 10.17 am, 27 September 2006►
WRETCHED
REFUSE
Apparently there is no end to the parade
of dubious characters Canada is prepared to put up at the "greatest
hotel on earth": Ernst Zündel,
Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad, Conrad Black... According
to the Globe
and Mail, Lord Buyback of Selfdeal "is
going through the 'normal channels' to become a Canadian
citizen again." I
predicted this in the June 2004 Chronicles:
"Rumor has it he will flee to Canada, which, for all
its sins, has an agreeably lax securities regime. For such
a self-hating Canadian, this would surely be worse than St
Helena."
Now, cynics might suggest that, having
worn out his welcome in Britain and having run into a spot
of bother in America, Lord Safeharbour has little choice
in the matter. But no, he has apparently experienced
nothing less than a Danforthian conversion. He told Steve
Paikin of TVOntario that "he has become something of
a 'demonstrative Canadian flag waver.'"
What was it Dr Johnson said about the last
refuge of a scoundrel?
Lord Crawlback (with Baby Jane Hudson):
Would you grant a soiled passport to this man?
Kevin
Michael Grace, 12.22 am, 27 September 2006►
PENSÉE
The divine right of kings has become the divine rite of
democracy.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 10.47 pm, 26 September 2006►
THOUGHT
FOR THE DAY
If Sierra Leone, why not
Somalia? If East Timor, why not Aceh? Why so tolerant of
that nuclear host to terror, dictatorial Pakistan, and so
hysterical about semi-democratic Iran? It is no good
muttering that we cannot be everywhere. We can at least
talk the talk. Kant's moral imperative must be
universalisable or it loses all force as both a rule and a
deterrent.
More serious is the lack of
sincerity behind this interventionism. Nothing has changed
since Kipling
complained: "When you've shouted Rule
Britannia / When you've sung God Save the Queen / When
you've finished killing Kruger with your mouth..."
what then? British neoimperial belligerence has already
committed troops to reckless, unwinnable wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan... Any fool can call for "action to end
the fighting" anywhere on earth, without giving a
thought to what this involves. It usually involves other
people dying to no good purpose.
The swelling chorus of
something-must-be-done-in-Darfur argues that bombast
"raises awareness". They ask, what would I do
about the janjaweed,
and what about the 1.9 million refugees? My answer to the
first is identical in substance to theirs: nothing really.
They just get the T-shirt. The janjaweed are not in my
country, not my business and, most important, not a
problem within my power to solve...
—Simon Jenkins, "The
Inhumane Folly Of Our Interventionist Macho,"
Guardian, 20 September 2006
Kevin
Michael Grace, 10.42 pm, 26 September 2006►
GRESHAM'S
LAW
I've been brooding about bad writing. I once believed writing was
a craft journalists were expected to master. Then I became
an editor, and I wised up. But is anyone edited
anymore?
A couple of weeks
ago, I read a movie review (by a journalist who shall
remain nameless) that defined film
noir as a genre in which good triumphs over
evil. I was not especially surprised that the
"arts critic" of a mid-level American daily
newspaper should be so ignorant. I was, however, still a
little surprised that such an obvious howler would go
unnoticed by the copy desk.
Or is the problem
that editors are now surplus to requirements? From a Sheila
Copps column of 17 September on the Dawson
College shootings:
We think such
things don’t happen in Canada. They don’t happen in
downtown Montreal, a vibrant, urban city that most days
could pass as a poster child for communal harmony.
Let's pass over the
"poster child" usage in silence, shall we, and
never mind that "vibrant" is usually not thought
coterminous with "communal harmony." But an urban
city? An urban city? An urban city?
To
Canada's eternal shame, Sheila
Copps is a member of the Queen's
Privy Council and a former Deputy Prime
Minister. Her employer, Sun
Media, calls her "a passionate voice
for a progressive Canada since 1984." That's one way
to put it. Another would be that Copps has been a
passionate voice for stupidity since well before 1984 and
can't write for toffee. From the same column:
In families, death
forces us to set aside our petty differences and come
together as one. Death in old age may break our hearts,
but it does not cause our minds to cry out in despair.
Let's pass over the
pronoun trouble, shall we, and never mind the obvious
truism that death in families as often as not divides
rather than unites. But "cause our minds to cry out
in despair"? I was going to make a Harlan
Ellison or Bernard
Nathanson joke, but then I was stopped
short by the sound of my own mind crying out in despair.
And I was tempted
to declare that Sheila Copps's apotheosis as star
columnist at the National Post and then Sun Media
is an insult to journalism and an illustration of the
contempt with which these organizations regard their
readers. Then again, however, perhaps newspapers are just
giving their readers what they want. If literacy is now
supererogatory and editors are otiose, if bad writing now
pays better than good, then why kick against the pricks?
But perhaps I've been watching too many film noirs.
Copps: Millions for airbrushing, not one cent for
editing
Kevin
Michael Grace, 1.16 am, 26 September 2006►
MASTERS
OF PROSE
If
you hadn't slept through social studies in high school,
unlike me, you'd know that Canadians and French-Canadians
were once at war when they were Britain and France.
The British won
but the Quebec Act of 1774 allowed the two groups to
coexist under the nation we now call Canada. Needless to
say, the divide is still there, yet it fades a little each
day as we forget the past and move into the future...
—Patrick Blennerhassett, "Montreal
Singer Heads West," Victoria News,
22 September 2006
Kevin
Michael Grace, 7.53 pm, 25 September 2006►
PENSÉE
In our time, after a man speaks the truth, he is then
compelled to apologize. And the more obvious the truth,
the more fulsome the apologies.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 10.17 am, 25 September 2006►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
(SPECIAL THOUGHT FOR THE CENTURY EDITION)
I trust that a graduate student
some day will write a doctoral essay on the influence of
the Munich analogy on the subsequent history of the
twentieth century. Perhaps in the end he will conclude
that the multitude of errors committed in the name of
“Munich” may exceed the original error of 1938.
—Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., "The
Inscrutability Of History," in The
Bitter Heritage: Vietnam and American Democracy, 1941-1968
Kevin
Michael Grace, 10.14 am, 25 September 2006►
