Free Republic

There was a bit of good news about the future of public discourse this week. The United States Supreme Court, even though stacked with right-wingers, sounded like it was ready to give the Biden administration the go-ahead to try to persuade social-media platforms not to put out content promoting nonsense about the presidential election, conspiracy theories about the pandemic and other assorted bilge and crackpottery... When other communications revolutions like the printing press, radio, and television came along, they were still largely controlled by the elites. But when the internet came along, regulatory bodies like Canada’s CRTC backed off. It...

Twitter permanently suspended prominent feminist Meghan Murphy last week for saying men aren’t women. Murphy accused the social media platform of “censoring basic facts and silencing people.” Meghan Murphy, the founder of Feminist Current and a journalist who has written for New Statesman, Vice News, CBC News, and the Globe and Mail, was permanently suspended from Twitter last week after the social network implemented a ban on “misgendering” transgender people. The posts which reportedly led to Murphy’s ban were, “Women aren’t men,” and “How are transwomen not men? What is the difference between a man and a transwoman?” After Twitter made...

MATTI FRIEDMAN What I find most remarkable, having lived here for the past 23 years, is Israel’s bewildering and fast-moving society, the complexities of which are usually overlooked by observers. The question of what “Israeli” means in 2018, and how that’s changing and why, are particularly important ones at this anniversary. One good way to answer is to listen to pop music. But the singer in a shiny white gown who belted out a cover for a national TV audience was Sarit Hadad, one of Israel’s biggest pop stars and the queen of a genre called “Mizrahi,” or “eastern.” In...

Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard took advantage of a public appearance with Prime Minister Stephen Harper to repeat his wish for the province to sign the Constitution. Couillard said he wants Quebec to sign on by 2017, the 150th anniversary of Confederation. The premier made the comments Saturday during a Quebec City speech, at an event commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Sir George-Etienne Cartier, a French-Canadian statesman viewed as one of the Fathers of Confederation. Cartier’s vision for a united Canada that incorporates “a strong Quebec identity” could serve as an inspiration in future talks, Couillard said

The Globe and Mail is planning to reduce its work force by about 10 per cent through voluntary buyouts, and possible layoffs, publisher Phillip Crawley told staff Friday. The newspaper is looking to cut between 80 and 90 jobs, and will offer voluntary buyout packages over the next few weeks. Should that target not be reached, layoffs will be needed to reach that figure, Mr. Crawley said. Roughly 800 people work at The Globe and Mail, with editorial representing the largest department. The last time the newspaper offered voluntary buyouts, in 2004, about 30 employees took the packages. The last...

The Dixie Chicks have a movie, Shut Up & Sing, coming out today, and, to keep things lively, they're staging a grudge match with the worst site on the Internet, political-rhetoric division. "The fat chick will only drive traffic to this site," writes one poster to the site. "The Frenchy Chix can't get a gig in a gay bar in Ithaca," writes another. Others chime in with more corruptions: Chubby Chicks, Ditsy Twits, Vichy Chicks. "Yep typical liberals," says someone else. "No character." This is Free Republic, an exercise in political extremism that, despite being and something of an anthropological...

Watching political types learn to use the Web is a lot like sitting on the cottage porch in summer -- if you'll recall -- underneath the electric bug-zapping lantern. On a warm evening, you can watch nature run its course around you, punctuated only by the occasional loud pop as one of the Earth's lesser creations hits the lantern and explodes on contact. And the universe keeps turning. --Snip-- The Liberals got themselves a day of negative headlines after the boorish blog of Mike Klander, a party vice-president, was uncovered. This was the one that posted a picture of Olivia...

TORONTO, Sept. 28 - As one of Canada's pre-eminent historians, David Bercuson of the University of Calgary is not your average couch potato. But with beer in hand and feet up on the sofa, he watched the Olympics on television last month to cheer on the world champion hurdler Perdita Félicien to win a gold medal for Canada. When Ms. Félicien inexplicably stumbled into the very first hurdle like a rank amateur, Mr. Bercuson dashed straight to his computer. He knocked out a screed declaring that her sad performance, and that of the entire Canadian Olympic team, was just another...

Democratic strategists must be having night sweats. Coming out of the primaries they figured they'd picked a sure winner in Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. In a time of war, who better than a decorated war hero to unseat President George W. Bush? And so began one of the more bizarre chapters in modern U.S. political history, whereby a liberal, patrician, pacifist multimillionaire cast himself as the next best thing to screen hero John Rambo. Following his return from Vietnam, Mr. Kerry was a forceful and at times strident critic of the war. The new John Kerry made scant reference to...