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It’s a sad story, but still pretty cool that one of my photos (released under a CC:by license) was used by CBC News. I got a call this afternoon from the reporter asking if they could use the photo. I said of course, and started to explain CC:by, when she commented that she knows about Creative Commons and just likes to notify people when they use photos. So she went above and beyond (she could have just used the Flickr mail feature) and looked up my office phone number to ask me directly.

This week, at the North American Leaders Summit in Montebello, Quebec, 3 undercover police officers pretended to be protesters in an attempt to provoke violent incidents. The entire series of events was captured on video, and shared via YouTube. The cops are the three goons with bandanas over their faces. None of the real protesters wore disguises. One of the cops is carrying a rock.

Agent provocateur with a rock in his right hand.

The real protesters intervene, trying to prevent violence. Somehow, they realize that the agents provocateurs are cops, and accuse them of that. The fake protesters stop dead in their tracks, and one of them can be seen leaning over and talking with one of the uniformed riot police - over the riot shield - and shortly afterward, the three “protesters” are yanked out, “arrested” and carried to the safety of the police side of the line.

The Quebec Provincial Police have admitted that the 3 “protesters” were cops in disguise.

Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada (and, one can only hope, future Prime Minister of Canada) wrote a description of the event on her blog (the Green website is Drupal, by the way…) Similar events allegedly happened in Seattle and Quebec City. Police either staging or allowing violence in order to justify cracking down on protesters.

This is unacceptable. I expect all police officers involved in this action to be summarily fired. And the entire chain of command, up to whoever ordered this. We can’t stand for our police forces to be instigating violence. Thankfully this didn’t happen this time. But it was damned close.

As a Canadian citizen, I demand an inquiry. I demand it to be public and open. And I expect for this to never, ever happen again. We are above this.

What scares me is this - what would have happened without YouTube to get the video out? There was video taken at Seattle and Quebec City, but it stayed on analog tape and didn’t get as widely circulated. This is why “Web 2.0″ is important. Never mind personal publishing for cat blogging, and ego surfing and identity management. The reason Web 2.0 is changing the world is by putting the power back into the hands of individuals. Democracy is mass media, in action.

I had a long post written up about the execution of Saddam Hussein. I decided at the last minute to not click the “Submit” button. But, my friend Niran wrote up an eloquent post that says it much more clearly.

One thing I’d add is this: I’m truly curious about the proportion of the American population that think Saddam was executed as part of the War on Terror™, or to grant democracy in Iraq. His execution had nothing to do with either (no WMDs have ever been found, and execution by a foreign power - even through a fledgling local puppet government - is no way to instill democracy).

My brother has a house in Phuket, Thailand, so I've been trying to follow news on this week's coup to see what's going on. I had no idea there was an ongoing corruption scandal of that magnitude. It seems unclear whether this coup was a good or bad thing. Some people say it's bad because it's "against democracy" - others say it's good because it gives a chance to reboot a democracy after cleaning out the garbage first.

I'd been following the story via Wikinews, which has been more useful than local/national newscasts. And then I stumbled across the Flickr coverage, linked from the Flickr Blog. They assembled photos from various Flickr users located in Bangkok, added audio from an interview with one of the photographers, and the result is a very powerful photographic slideshow.

Thailand Coup, told by Flickr users

In our North American State of Heightened Alertness, I doubt we’d be allowed to freely pose for photographs with active tanks in the streets, if such a thing happened on this side of the Pacific…

With the big brouhaha about the evacuation of Canadian (and American, and British, and French, etc…) civilians from Lebanon, I think we're all kind of missing the point.

There are 50,000 Canadian citizens in Lebanon right now. The Canadian government has had to rent some cruise ships to ferry them to Cyprus and/or Turkey for further evacuation by air. The process is taking longer than many would like, but our people are being transported out of the danger zone. Prime Minister Stephen Harper even used his PM Airbus (our version of Air Force One) to ferry a few Canadian civilians out (Stephen, that was a classy move. The only thing that would have topped that, since you were already in the area, would have been to clear everyone off of the plane, fill it to the gills with civilians, and wait for it to return with backup).

But, what about the Lebanese civilians? Are they officially to be left behind? If it's too dangerous for a North American or European civilian, why is it considered an acceptable risk for the 3.5 million innocent civilians that happen to live in the region?

I may be extremely naiive, but this really seems like a perfect candidate for the UN blue helmets to move in and help restore order. Likely a much better allocation of military and humanitarian resources than securing oil supplies to maintain a particular hegemony… 

2 words that are now synonymous with “Happy Holidays” - I first read about the uproar over SpyGate via Stephen’s NewsTrolls service. Then, I’ve heard it several times since then on American TV networks. On freaking TV.

So, an “elected” president apparently tramples the constitution, giving the nod for government agencies to spy on citizens just in case they might be doing something bad - without the need for judicial review or approval. And, that’s being acknowledged by Bush’s own people as an impeachable offence - with the story broken in the Traditional Media by the New York Times.

Maybe there’s hope, after all… If this story gets large enough, it can’t be ignored (even by Shrub). If it doesn’t make it to full impeachment status, at least it will make the next election a bit more interesting. But, with Bush not able to run again, maybe that’s a moot point…

Happy holidays, indeed!

Update: Now BoingBoing is pointing to a Miami Herald article that describes the Bush wiretap approvals as doing something that Bin Laden could not have done - erode the constitution and spread fear throughout the entire country, in the name of a president-come-king. It’s great when fearmongers are able to leverage synergy to amplify effect… (yeah - I used corporate marketing buzzwords to describe the business relationship between Bush and Bin Laden)

Kevin Newman has been mentioning Global National’s podcasting project for the last couple of weeks, but I only checked it out on Monday. This could be one of the coolest things to happen to Mass Media and podcasting so far this year. The entire audio portion of the Global National newscast is available via a podcast subscription, with only a minor delay after it goes to air (they do have to encode/publish the audio of the live newscast). It’s also available directly from the iTunes directory.

I listened to Monday’s show on the way home from work Tuesday (I missed it “live”) and it was great! The 30 minute newscast distilled down to 22 minutes of content (no commercials). It was a combination newscast and open microphone forum at a university in Toronto. Content that is harder to get from “traditional” podcasts (how ironic is that?)

I really hope they keep this project going!

Global National has been experimenting with this stuff for a while now - it looks like each of their key reporters was given a blog sometime in the summer, with the predictable results that usually happen when someone is “given a blog” - about one post per month, orphaned blogs for several months, then periodic posting. Also, I just tried to subscribe to feeds for a few of the blogs, and there doesn’t appear to be any RSS feeds (so, it’s not really a blog in my mind). I’ll be subscribing as soon as that’s fixed.

But the podcasting project may just be sustainable - it’s only a minor additional step in the show production workflow, and could largely be automated.

Kudos, Global National!

Update: I just read through a few posts on Kevin Newman’s blog and it’s so refreshing to read the unpolished, unmassaged, “risky” published thoughts/insights/rants of a Big Media Personality. I’ve trusted Kevin’s reportage since he started at Global National, have appreciated his obvious sense of humour in tackling the issues, and now totally respect him for putting himself out there.

Note to Global: your weblog software is teh suck, though. No easy way to navigate through the posts. No RSS feeds. No seaarchability within a blog. Waaay overly NASCARed advertising/branding on the pages, etc… Please, grab a copy of WordPress (or WordPress MultiUser, or Drupal, or Movabletype, or anything) and give the reporters some decent tools so they can do a better job of blogging (and we can follow along - and maybe respond).

From the “well, that’s one way to take an afternoon and evening off” department…

There was apparently some kind of chemical (or biological? nobody seems to know anything) spill in the Bio Sciences building shortly before noon today. Since the Learning Commons is on the 5th floor of BioSci, that means we all got to make the journey down the concrete stairways to get the hell out of the building.

We have fire drills all the time, and it seems like some construction drone is always cutting something that shouldn’t be cut, or sparking something that shouldn’t be sparked, so we all assumed it was No Big Deal™. I left my Powerbook and iPod on my desk (taking only enough time to cleverly hide my iPod under a sheet of paper as it sat charging on my desk).

Turns out to be a Very Big Deal™. A few of us hiked to the nearby stip mall to have lunch at Harvey’s, and on the way back were passed by the Regional Decontamination Unit (a doublewide Atco trailer) as it rushed towards our building.

As we get closer, we see police cars blocking traffic, fire engines everywhere, and the hazmat team donning their cool blue suits (the ones with the funky helmets). There’s a kiddie pool set up outside the main entrance to decontaminate them as they come out, and the whole building is behind a string of police tape. News crews shooting tape. Photographers photographing. Gawkers gawking. Warderns warding. No mushroom clouds, though.

But, nobody has a goddamned clue what’s going on, including Campus Security, the City Police, and the building fire wardens. Some say it’s a chemical spill. Some say biological. Some say the building is sealed for at least 24 hours. Some say 2. There was a spill at the Health Sciences building last night, and that closed the building for 5 hours. I guess I’ll know more when I show up for work tomorrow.

Could be worse. Some folks are saying there was one person injured. I just had to eat at Harvey’s… I do feel very lost without my Powerbook (and especially my iPod) - perhaps that’s telling me to take some time off…

Update: Woah. Turns out it wasn’t a spill, but a suspicious envelope. Just got this email from Campus Security:

At 11:30 a.m. today the Bio Sciences building was evacuated as a precaution
due to a concern involving an envelope sent to an office in that building.
Since that time another envelope has been discovered in the same office
and we are now in the process of investigating whether or not these packages
pose any harm.

Please be on alert that if you receive an envelope or package with no return
address or a return address of anyone you do not recognize or in particular
has a return address of North York, Ontario DO NOT OPEN the envelope. Call
Campus Security immediately at 220-5333, identify yourself, your building
and room number. All occupants should leave the room, shut the door and
wait in the immediate area for Security to arrive.

Update: Story and photo by the Gauntlet