Jim Tubman

Software developer, clergy husband, grandad, amateur photographer.

[Conrad Black @ConradMBlack]

Regrettably, an exchange on social media between two former CBC journalists, Keith Boag and Travis Dhanraj, was inflicted upon me today and it perfectly captures the invasive rot afflicting and spreading forth from the CBC's newsroom and college campuses into the collective consciousness of our society.

For reference, Mr. Dhanraj was given the high jump from the CBC last year when he attempted to gently nudge that organization in the direction of diversity of opinion. Mr. Boag, on the other hand, was a CBC lifer, retiring after 35 years of blissful ignorance to any opinion outside the CBC's ideological monoculture. The exchange comes within the context of a recent revelation (by Warren Kinsella) that the CBC’s senior director of journalistic standards was demanding avoidance of the t-word in describing the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Mr. Boag seems to be defending this position by categorizing 9/11 as a run-of-the-mill "attack on civilians for political purposes,” giving several other examples to imply there is no clear distinction between any instance of civilians being killed in pursuit of some political purpose. By implication, Osama bin Laden and Nelson Mandela (an implication Boag made explicitly in a subsequent exchange with Ezra Levant) are morally equivalent; they are either both terrorists or neither are. It is not a serious position. It is moral illiteracy formatted into the CBC's perverse style guide. Sadly, the idea is not original, or unique. In fact, it is the pervasive view on campuses and among large swathes of the Canadian media landscape. It is also very dangerous, and it needs to be answered.

Mr. Boag's position is bunk. If the “political purpose” in question is to kill and terrorize civilians in the service of global jihad or the extermination of a people, it belongs in a distinct category. That was 9/11. That was October 7. That was the Holocaust. These acts were genocidally motivated and carried out by groups that would never accept any peaceful resolution.

On the other hand, using decisive force to destroy war criminals who will never make peace, belongs in a completely different category. It is not terrorism. Israel’s campaign to destroy Hamas is a righteous cause. Israel is not only within its rights, but morally obligated to uproot the terrorist apparatus that hides behind its own population. And Israel should be lauded for the strategically disadvantageous lengths it has gone to limit Palestinian casualties, even while Hamas has tried to maximize them. Accusing Israel of genocide is either credulous stupidity or intellectually flaccid anti-Semitism attempting to disguise itself in a threadbare cloak of righteousness.

The atomic bomb was developed by the Allies and used to save lives and compel a surrender that would not otherwise have come. One may argue, and I would agree, that a demonstration on a remote island, a sort of nuclear warning shot, might have been preferable. Likewise, using another of Boag's examples, one could argue the ANC should have continued with their Gandhi-inspired peaceful protest movement even after the Sharpeville massacre. The fact is, no act of violence toward civilians, whether in pursuit of a greater good or not, should be whitewashed. But nor should they all be grouped lazily together, as Boag attempts to do, as if genocide and global domination were indistinguishable from self-defense or peace-through-strength. As if they can all be neatly filed away as “political reasons.”

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States did not proceed to conquer the world, though it could have with a four-year monopoly on nuclear weapons. It used it geostrategic leverage to rebuild Europe and Japan, establish the United Nations — which, believe it or not, was once a righteous and laudable organization — and strive for peace. Had the Nazis or Imperial Japan developed nuclear weapons first, no sane person believes they would have pursued the same strategy.

I should not unfairly single out Mr. Boag, as his perspective is plagiarized from an intellectually and historically illiterate world view that has been building up steam for 30 years. It is a view that dispenses with the indispensable distinction between good and evil. It is not moral seriousness. It is relativism, and it is contemptible. This mass amnesia about who the forces of good in the world are, and who the forces of evil are, is a serious problem. That this worldview has captured the CBC and so many North American campuses is not surprising, but it is a genuine cause for concern. The West has ceded too much of, and must reclaim, the moral high ground.

[Super 70s Sports @Super70sSports]

Super Sky Point to Dolly Parton, who possessed a charm and authenticity that made her one of the rarest things you can find in modern times: a celebrity who was almost universally beloved. Great talent, better person and, of course, a timeless beauty as well. #RIP

[Super 70s Sports @Super70sSports]

In the 70s, you could have a beer and enjoy some quality bro time with your orangutan and it wasn’t even really all that weird somehow.

[John Pitchford🌹💙 @Johnnypapa64]

At David Niven’s funeral the largest wreath was from the porters at Heathrow Airport. The card with it read “To the finest gentleman who ever walked these halls. He made a porter feel like a king”

[Super 70s Sports @Super70sSports]

I feel like if you’re trying to kill Batman you’re kind of handicapping yourself if you decide to wear your church shoes.

[Lorrie Goldstein @sunlorrie]

Mark Carney has presided over the worst first year of economic growth in Canada by any prime minister since at least 1963, with real GDP shrinking by 0.5%, but 60% of Canadians think he's doing a good job of managing the economy. https://t.co/92651GNDqF

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

I am a farmer and the outright owner of a $400,000 John Deere combine, and this morning a sensor decided I am not allowed to drive it.

The sensor was working perfectly. That was the problem. An emissions reading drifted, the machine did what the manual calls a derate and everyone out here calls limp mode, and now I have a full tank, a full engine, and 3 miles an hour. It is October. The forecast is rain Thursday. The corn does not care about the settlement.

I did everything you are supposed to do. I bought it outright. I did not lease. I have the title, the manual, the torque specs, and 40 years of knowing which bolt is which. I can rebuild the engine on a tailgate. What I cannot do is tell the engine it is allowed to run.

Because the thing that stopped it is not a part. It is a permission. The reset lives in software, the software lives with the dealer, and the dealer is 90 minutes away and booked through Friday.

So I called. I always call. That is the instruction, and I follow the instruction.

They said someone could come Monday. I said the crop will be down by Monday. They said they understood. I have learned that when a company says it understands you, it means it has written down that you were told.

Yesterday the FTC announced I won. Right to repair. 10 years of it. I read the whole thing at the kitchen table with the combine sitting dead in the field I can see from the window.

Here is what I learned about winning. The settlement says I get the same software the dealer gets, eventually, on a schedule they report every 60 days. It does not say the software arrives before the rain. It does not say the machine will listen to me tomorrow. It says that someday, carefully, I will be allowed to ask it the same way the dealer asks it.

I own the steel. I always did.

I just found out I have been renting the word go, and the lease has 10 years left, and the corn is still in the field.

[Super 70s Sports @Super70sSports]

Although physicists can’t explain it, this exact pitcher was somehow simultaneously in 86% of American homes in 1978.

[Super 70s Sports @Super70sSports]

Nobody partied harder in the 70s than Alice Cooper and Edith Bunker.

[Pulp Librarian @PulpLibrarian]

Keeping it reel... How To Breakdance, from View-Master (1984).

[Super 70s Sports @Super70sSports]

When you’re talking about the greatest long-haul truck drivers of the 80s, I’m coming to the table with Large Marge every time …

[Creepy.org @creepydotorg]

Legendary actor Mel Brooks just turned 100 today and is no longer allowed to play with LEGOs.

[Super 70s Sports @Super70sSports]

Just another struggling prom band going nowhere …

[Cory Morgan @CoryBMorgan]

It's rich hearing some at Calgary city hall implying a week of partiers for Stampede hampers the downtown quality of life.

Meanwhile, junkies openly consume in every park, on the trains & on the sidewalks.

But yeah. The Stampede is the problem to prioritize.

[Andrew Lynch @andrewglynch]

if a toddler puts a sticker on you, that’s a sign of great respect in their culture

[Simons @Simon_Ingari]

2010: If I can't see you, you're probably not working.

2015: Open-plan offices are the future.

2021: Working From Home is the future.

2024: Hybrid is the future.

2026: "come to the office 4 days a week because of culture"

The culture: Everyone with noise cancelling headphones

[Jonathan Kay @jonkay]

think about how much cooler the world cup would be if the national groupings were less random
every group is this weird fruit salad of nations
in my view, the groups should have interesting *themes*
here's my suggestion, but I'm sure FIFA can come up with something even better