The Last Exile

As the war for television entitlements heats up Michael Geist explains just how far broadcast networks want to go beyond just a fee for carriage increase at the current CRTC hearings. Toronto Star:

Fee for carriage is only part of the story, as broadcasters are also seeking to: block U.S. signals; leave some Canadian communities without over-the-air television; and delay the transition to digital television transmission until 2013. The prospect of blocking U.S. television signals will come as a shock to many, but both CTV and CanWest, Canada’s two largest private broadcasters, have asked the CRTC to establish a new program-deletion policy.

For many years, Canadian broadcasters have benefited from simultaneous substitution, which allows them to air U.S. programs at the same time as U.S. broadcasters but to substitute their broadcast (complete with advertisements) on both channels. That policy is the reason programs such as House or Desperate Housewives air simultaneously in the U.S. and Canada, creating an important commercial advantage for Canadian broadcasters.

The broadcasters now wish to expand the simultaneous substitution policy with program deletion. It would provide that when a Canadian broadcaster purchases the rights to a U.S. program, they would have the right to air it whenever they choose within a seven-day window. The hook is cable and satellite companies would be required to block the U.S. broadcast of the same program if it did not air simultaneously. The proposal, which would lead to millions of Canadians regularly encountering blank screens instead of expected programs, would perversely increase the attractiveness of U.S. programming.

Geist goes on to suggest this will lead more Canadian television consumers turning to the internet as a viable alternative, and in this I agree. Once that happens, and its felt in the pockets of broadcast networks as well as cable and satellite providers -a big push will come to regulate the internet to control not just how we are watching but what we watch.

The CRTC began hearings on Monday. The Canadian Broadcast Television Networks are demanding a Fee For Carriage from cable and satellite providers. For my US and Int’l readers, the CRTC is the government body which licenses and regulates the use of all public air waves in Canada (specifically radio and television). It is probably one of the most hated institution in the country – right after Revenue Canada Taxation but before the CBC.

The Broadcast Networks came out swinging and CTV has threatened to cut transmission to the cable and satellite providers unless the CRTC allows them to charge a Fee for Carriage to cable and satellite broadcasters. Broadcast Networks revenues are primarily based raised from advertising. The more viewers the greater the rate the Broadcast Networks can charge for advertising. Since the recession hit, advertising revenues are down by at least 40% and the networks are complaining they will have to start closing local stations unless they get a ‘fee for carriage’ fee. Of course, Cable service provider seems to have very little issue funding local programming….

Cable and satellite providers are objecting to the FFC, and threaten- if they have to start paying a FFC fee now; the cost will be pass immediately unto their customers whose rates have all recently been raised as per the CRTC decision allowing an increase in their services. Cable and satellite providers suggest it makes no sense to negotiate a FFC fee when Broadcast Networks broadcast free, and furthermore, without cable and satellite providers carrying their networks in their cable satellite line-up; it increases Broadcast Networks revenue stream substantially. And it’s an interdependent relationship which has mostly worked to the benefit of all concerned.

First things – first. I cannot believe the absolute chutzpah of the CBC for climbing on board with the other broadcast networks. It’s bad enough that Canadians have been forced to fund this government stain to infinity and beyond but demanding a fee for carriage on top of taxation dollars already received – is equivalent to stabbing the back of the hand of all Canadian taxpayers.

No one in this country forced the major broadcast networks to buy all out those little local stations; so why should we Canadian consumers have to pay for the poor business judgment of Broadcast Networks? Thirdly, no one forced any of the broadcast networks to get into bidding wars for the Canadian rights to air shows like Jeopardy, CSI or House. I could never really understand why Canadian broadcast networks wanted to broadcast exactly the same television fare which could be found on any cable provider in the country who also carries ABC, NBC, CBS, or FOX. Ask yourself this; -does anyone really need two stations to broadcast the same episode of ‘Survivor’? Apparently, in Canada we do….

In the end, I suspect the CRTC will be forced to impose FFC on the cable and satellite providers in order to save the broadcast networks from the consequences of their own worst judgment. Remember the phrase ‘big to fail’ is just another way of saying; “give me more, more, more!” The cable and satellite providers will dully pass on the increased costs to consumers. I expect many consumers will look at the increases in their cable and satellite bills as kind of new fangled accelerant and start the process of disconnecting from cable and satellite services for their television viewing. Boxed set series/movie DVDs, internet and old fashioned television antennas can be easily and cheaply made to work in lieu of either cable/satellite providers. Then, of course, the Cable and Satellite providers will demand a hearing in front of the CRTC to ask permission to raise fees to make up for declining revenues because bail outs are what we do.

It would be bold and innovative; if the CRTC were to allow Cable and Satellite providers to offer Canadian consumers some real choice if some version of the FFC is introduced. The CRTC could start by demanding 65% of all Canadian Broadcast Network television must be produced in Canada to justify the FFC charge, and any aired television shows which are already broadcasted on a US Network carried by the Cable and Satellite provider will results in a rebate from whatever the full FFC charge is. Finally, let the consumer decided how far the knife is to go by allowing us to purchase individual channels without the cumbersome and costly bundling which goes on now. There is something deeply sadistic in making consumers pay for 100’s of channels when potentially there are only 10 stations we want to watch.

Apparently, really, really, stupid. The Toronto Sun:

A Bloc Quebecois MP who once accused Israel of war crimes racked up more phone charges than any other MP last year, largely the result of a trip to Lebanon.

However, Maria Mourani says the $34,205 tab is justified because it allowed her to keep in touch with her office during the month-long trip that she paid for out of her own pocket.

Of course, she could have used ‘Skype’ or ‘Google chat’ or even just texted her office at a tiny fraction of the cost of cost she is asking Canadian taxpayers to shell out for her cell phone bills. If there was actually any ‘conserve’ in the present ruling Conservative party, Prime Minister Harper would direct government accounting clerks to only pay out the cost of sending one text per phone call and send the bill back to Mourani with an admonishment to seek reimbursed via the Bloc Quebecois for the balance.

I realize this isn’t incredible generous of me but I can’t help smiling that come this fall Southern California place host to 1,300 plus Palestinians from Iraq. And may I suggest Irvine as a final destiniation spot in Southern California where the Palestinians will probably feel the most at home. Speaking as a Canadian; its a welcome change not to be playing the world’s hotel manager to this latest crop of refugees. CS Monitor gets full kudos for raising American concerns for Israeli sensitivities.

While the US generally doesn’t accept Palestinians, Todd Pierce, a spokesman for the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, says that the Iraqi population of Palestinians falls under a different category from those in Gaza and the West Bank. Each applicant will be carefully scrutinized for terrorist ties, he adds.

The US reluctance to accept Palestinians is because it “doesn’t want the refugee program to become an issue in its relationship with Israel,” says a diplomat in the region, who requested anonymity because he is not cleared to talk to the press. But these Palestinians, he says, will be processed as refugees from Iraq.

While I realize its presumptuous of me to speak on the behalf of country of which I am not a member; I doubt you could find any Israeli (with the possible exception of Amira Hass like characters) who would lose any sleep over the USA opening its arms to the Palestinians, and if I could be so bold to suggest – there are plenty more to spare, and could be yours just for the asking.

The Toronto Star is reporting the new ‘blended’ sales tax is a tough sell for the Liberals provincially and the premier has ordered his MP’s to go out and sell it – aggressively.

A backlash is brewing over Ontario’s move to a new harmonized sales tax and the Liberals are clearly spooked. The combined sales tax doesn’t come into effect until next year, but already is proving to be such a bust with Ontarians that Premier Dalton McGuinty is giving ministers new marching orders to go out and aggressively sell it, the Star has learned.

McGuinty is forcing his cabinet to go on a communications blitz to promote the move that will see Ontario blend its 8 per cent provincial sales tax with the 5 per cent federal goods and services tax.

As of July 1, 2010, Ontarians will pay a blended tax of 13 per cent on hundreds of items that had previously been subject to only the 5 per cent GST. That move will boost the price of items such as gasoline, heating fuel, fast food, newspapers, magazines, taxi fares, dry cleaning and new homes costing more than $400,000, among other things. Fallout was evident last week as MPPs returned to Queen’s Park following the Easter break.

Gee, I didn’t see this one coming. Here is the thing – you want to sweeten the hand reaching ever deeper into my pocket – cut the provincial sales tax by 3%. A straight ten percent across the board is marginally acceptable but to add an 8% increase to a whole range of customer services and items is simply unacceptable. Think of it as the ATFAT principle in action – a turn for a turn.

Since the voters of Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock did. Toronto Star.

LINDSAY–Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory suffered a stunning defeat in a cottage-country byelection tonight. Tory conceded defeat as votes were being counted in the sprawling riding of Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock.

And this from a ‘safe-seat’ but as far as a ‘stunning defeat’ narrative goes – it was only stunning to John Tory and his small group of supporters. I suspect the majority of Ontario conservatives took it as a given as long as Tory was running in any riding.

This is what I wrote back in December:

John Tory is simply the manifestation of all the ills of the conservative party in Ontario and not the cure. Drop this red dog, and come up with a truly conservative party platform to draw conservative voters like me back into the fold. Until then, I hope you enjoy your stay in electoral perdition.

Anyway, apparently Tory will now – finally tender his resignation.

This is what I wrote during the last provincial election and I offer it as a guideline to those conservative delegates who may be voting to elect a new conservative leader sometime in the near future:

I didn’t vote for John Tory when he was running for mayor of Toronto (or David Miller – ever). In fact, most people in Toronto didn’t vote for John Tory for mayor of Toronto which is why he is not mayor of Toronto.

Be that as it may, the Ontario Progressive Conservative party decided to vote him as party leader. Maybe they figured he needed a consolation prize after losing the election to be the mayor of the centre of the universe.

I said at the time it was a mistake. I grumbled, I groaned, but I was poohed-poohed all around by conservatives. Let him show his true nettle in the legislature I was told. I would be impressed…then he voted for a huge salary increase….I’m still waiting to be impressed. No doubt I will go to my grave waiting to be impressed by John Tory.

People vote for conservative leaders when conservatives elect conservatives to lead them and not when conservatives elect liberal lites to lead them. It is patently dishonest and no one likes to be fooled. This is why John Tory, for all his crying on the back of the bus will not be premier of the province come October 11th.

Allegedly, I am a conservative but I am not a good party girl. I wouldn’t even join the Blogging Tories. This is probably just as well as I probably would have been turfed out quicker than BEAJ was cast out of the BT forum. Actually, I would vote for the NDP if Baroness Thatcher crossed the ocean to lead them. I have to admit that the federal conservatives are disappointing me too. This move to the centre is alienating me big time and my vote cannot be counted on next time round.

Take my two cents for whatever you consider it’s worth but do not claim you have not been warned.

I haven’t bothered to weigh in on the federal budget fiasco. I don’t even know the details but when words like ‘stimulus’ and bail-outs are demanded and used, I am old enough as a taxpayer to know it all amounts to me bending over and taking it up the butt. The only question I need to know is – how much and how long am I going to be made to suffer?

In other news today, a fatwa has been issued for Arabs not to vote in the upcoming municipal elections in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Post reports:

The Palestinian Authority’s chief Islamic judge, Sheikh Tayseer Tamimi, published a fatwa on Saturday banning Arab residents of Jerusalem from participating in the upcoming municipal election.

In a separate development, the chairman of the Supreme Islamic Council in Jerusalem, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, renewed the fatwa barring Palestinians from selling property to Jews. He also warned Arab Jerusalemites against resorting to Israeli courts to settle disputes over real estate, out of fear that their homes and lands might end up in Jewish hands.

Although the PA has previously urged Jerusalem Arabs to boycott the municipal election, this is the first time the chief Islamic judge issued such a fatwa.
The overwhelming majority of Arabs in the capital have refrained from participating in the local elections since 1967 – some for political reasons and others out of a belief that they won’t benefit from going to the ballot boxes or running as candidates. The handful of Arabs who defied the boycott have been attacked both physically and verbally.

But let me clarify one point. The Arabs who have been attacked for defying the election boycotts in the past were attacked by their fellow Arabs and not the Jews. Let’s face it – it’s hard to keep the ‘apartheid’ victim mantle fresh if one is choosing to actively participate in the political process.

Ynet News is carrying a simply explosive report of an article published in a Kuwaiti newspaper which alleges that US President Bush has offered up the Golan Heights to the Syrians for a total break with Iran.

US President George W. Bush suggested to Syrian President Bashar Assad that Israel would withdraw from the Golan Heights in exchange for a complete disbandment of the Syrian-Iranian alliance, Kuwaiti newspaper al-Jarida reported Friday. According to the report, the offer was made in a secret letter from Bush delivered to Assad by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during his recent visit to Damascus.

The letter included an American proposal to reach “a quick and satisfactory solution” to the Golan issue in return for defined moves and a declaration that the Syria would abandon its alliance with Iran once and for all.

A Palestinian source close to Abbas told the paper that the offer was included “in a secret letter sent personally by President Bush. “In the letter, Bush suggested finalizing the agreement within several weeks, before the US presidential elections, in order to push the Middle East peace process, an achievement the president will be able to proudly present before leaving the White House in January.”

The same source added that the delegation accompanying Abbas on his visit to Syria “was unaware of the letter or its details, and the US insisted that this be carried out secretly and far away from the official channels.” The newspaper went on to report that the American ambassador to Damascus was not informed about the issue as well. The source added that the real objective of Abbas’ arrival in Damascus was to deliver the letter to Assad.

There was bill before the Israeli Knesset which required a vote to be held in the Knesset before any land was offered or exchanged by any Israeli administration and must be carried by at least two-thirds of the house. I am unsure what stage the bill is and the last report suggested a final vote would not come until the winter session of the Knesset.

The introduction of such legislation was to protect the Israeli state in the event of a weak Israeli administration selling out the Jewish people.

No one needs peace with the Syrians and certainly not at the price of such a strategic asset and natural resource of the Golan Heights. Israel has already been pressured by the Americans to sacrifice land for peace in the Gaza Strip and has yet to receive anything but Kassams in return.

The Syrians have nothing substantial to offer the Israelis for the Golan which represents huge returns in both tourism and agriculture for Israel, as well as, one of the major sources of fresh water available to the Israelis in the region. The Golan Heights has been held longer than by the Israelis than by the Syrians. The majority of citizens residing in the Golan Heights are Israeli citizens. If anything, the Israeli historical claim to the Golan Heights are far stronger than the pretenious Syrian ones.

In the 19th century the Jewish philanthropist Rothschild bought approximately 18,000 hectares of the Golan Heights and the Jewish National Fund still holds the original deeds and title to this land today.

The French had no legal right to offer the Golan to its Syria clients as the land was part of the original Palestinian mandate and reserved for the Jewish homeland in a legally binding decision made at the San Remo conference in 1922 and put under mandate by League of Nations in 1923. The land was illegally transferred away in March 1923 by the British to the French under their mandate in order to enlist French support for the British securing the oil fields of Mosul, Iraq. Furthermore, Syria lost the Golan Heights in its war of aggression against Israel, and in a sane world, this would be the end of it.

There is a chance this report is false, after all it resides on the integrity of Palestinian Authority official, but it aptly captures the prevailing American ethos which has consistently treated its alleged ally as nothing more than a spoil of war. So far there has been no word if the Israelis have countered offered California to Mexico.

Earlier in the week I read this little blurb from a Toronto Star article. The report had very little to do with kassams raining down on the Israeli city of Sderot per say and a whole lot to say about the plight of the Gazans but it struck me as a prime example of what’s terribly wrong about the Toronto Star’s reporting of this conflict.

Though the small, homemade rockets cause little damage and few serious casualties, thousands of Israeli communities around Gaza have been traumatized by the constant explosions.

(Photo: Amir Cohen, Ynet News)

I think the entire editorial board from the paper should go live in Sderot for the next month. A kassam landing in one’s home, school or business creates a great deal of damage. The full financial burden of Gaza’s kassam war on Sderot has brought a wreck of ruin to the economy of this blue collar Israeli city. Businesses are shutting down, everyone who can has already fled, but overall, these are poor Israelis with nowhere else to go.

Saturday night, two brothers were injured in a kassam attack doing nothing more nefarious than just walking on an Israeli sidewalk. One of the boys, an 8 year old, has had surgeon’s amputate part of his left leg, and even now a surgical team is struggling to save his crushed right leg from a similar fate. Apart from a hole in his chest and two injured lungs I suppose the Toronto Star thinks he is good to go. Here’s the Ynet News report of the incident:

VIDEO – Doctors at the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon were forced Sunday to amputate part of the left leg of eight-year-old Osher Tuito, who was seriously injured in a rocket attack on the southern town of Sderot on Saturday evening. The boy’s right leg was also seriously hurt. He was anaesthetized and his situation was reportedly stable
(…)
Dr. Emil Chai, the hospital’s deputy director-general, told Ynet, “When Osher arrived here, his leg was completely crushed. It was clear that we would probably have to amputate it. He underwent surgery during the night and we are trying to keep the second leg, but it’s also in bad condition. “Apart from that, he has a hole in his chest and his lungs are inured. We still fear an infection and are constantly on the lookout. His brother Rami was also operated on tonight. Both his legs are plastered now and we presume that he will be transferred to the orthopedic ward in the coming hours.”

Personally, I thought this was only a matter of time considering the Olmert government’s continued apathy towards the plight of Sderot’s civilians. Taken from the Jerusalem Post:

A new Facebook group is urging Sderot residents to use the Internet to learn how to build crude rockets, much like the Kassams launched at them from the Gaza Strip, and fire them back at the Palestinians. The group, which currently has 45members, posts material from the Internet on how to manufacture rockets.

Facebook, a social networking site that has taken the on-line world by storm, allows anyone to create groups and to invite people to join. The group’s creators, Shai and Batya Messenberg from Petah Tikva, posted a description that reads: “It cannot be so difficult: If those retards from the Gaza Strip can do it then so can you.” The description encourages residents of the town to trawl the Net for information on how to build ballistic missiles from materials found in the home. “I’m sure that very soon they [the Gazans] will get the message,” the group’s creator wrote.

I cannot decide, in the face of the Kadima ineptitude, whether to hope there are more than a few Jewish rocket scientists who will come to their aid or not. What I cannot understand is why the government has not allowed the IDF to target the homes of the leadership of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. This strikes me as a far more effective strategy. It is all very well to attempt to take out random rocket crews but if one does nothing to stop the leadership which is sending the crews….well, what’s the point in the big scheme of things?

The leadership of Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad has ensured the population is so radicalized that they are secured a steady supply of foot soldiers for fodder, that I say – it’s long past the time to target those who educate, finance and send out the kassam crews to work every day. If the leadership had to pay a price for every kick-back rather than be on the receiving end of the graft-backs – things might change.