This year’s installment covers a number of topics, including the Michael Hiltzik sock-puppetry controversy; the alleged Ramadi airstrike; the paper’s decision to reveal the Swift counterterror program; the firing of the paper’s editor and publisher; the Iraq war and the war on terror; the paper’s shilling for Democrats during the 2006 election; and my decision to cancel the paper — among many others.

This post summarizes an entire year’s worth of work documenting omissions, distortions, and misrepresentations by this newspaper. I have made an effort to document my arguments that this paper is a regular practitioner of liberal bias. As with my previous posts, the proof is voluminous. As a consequence, don’t feel that you need to read the entire post in one sitting. Feel free to bookmark it and return to it in the coming days, browsing through the categories as they interest you.

It is almost too much for one sitting... Almost ;)

He doted on Christina, now 16, his daughter from a marriage that ended in divorce. He made her blush when he showed her a tattoo with her name on his arm. Toward women, he displayed an old-fashioned chivalry, something he expected of our son. Remember who taught you to speak, to walk and to be a gentleman, he wrote to Jordan in his journal. These are your first teachers, my little prince. Protect them, embrace them and always treat them like a queen.

Though as a black man he sometimes felt the sting of discrimination, Charles betrayed no bitterness. It’s not fair to judge someone by the color of their skin, where they’re raised or their religious beliefs, he wrote. Appreciate people for who they are and learn from their differences.

The United States is strangely popular in India. Polling regularly shows Indians to be among the most pro-American people anywhere--sometimes registering warmer sentiments towards the United States than Americans themselves do. But this is not so strange: India and America are the world's biggest and oldest democracies. Both are multiethnic, continental empires with strong cultural-religious identities. Each inherited the rule of law from Britain. Indian and American foreign policies appear equally animated by a self-regarding exceptionalism and a habit of moralizing in international affairs.

Both India and America are revisionist powers intent on peacefully recasting the contemporary international order and ensuring themselves a prominent place in it. America's rise to world power in the 19th and 20th centuries is, in some respects, a model for India's own ambitions. As Indian analyst Pratap Bhanu Mehta told the New York Times, Indians have "great admiration for U.S. power" and want their country to "replicate" it, not oppose it. How many of America's European allies share such sentiments?

The CIA has labeled India the key "swing state" in international politics. It predicts that India will emerge by 2015 as the fourth most important power in the international system. Goldman Sachs predicts that, by 2040, the largest economies on earth will be China, the United States, India, and Japan. A strategic partnership of values among the last three, naturally encompassing the European Union, may defy predictions of a coming "Chinese century"--and set a standard of democratic cooperation and prosperity China itself might ultimately embrace on its own path to greatness.

But there was no official comment from Arab leaders, many of whom have been accused of human rights abuses - though on a much smaller scale than Saddam - and slow progress on democratization by Western countries and non-governmental rights watchdogs. For Sunni Muslims, Saturday was the first day of the most important holiday on the Islamic calendar, Eid al-Adha.

Libya's government declared a three-day official period of mourning. Flags flew at half mast and all official celebrations of the eid, were cancelled.

LIST OF LOSSES

These guys put more on the line in 2006 than either Harper or Klassen. And so did all of those who died.

They are:

Diplomat Glyn Berry, Cpl. Paul David, Master Cpl. Timothy Wilson, Pte. Robert Costall, Lieut. William Turner, Bombardier Myles Mansell, Pte. Kevin Dallaire, Cpl. Matthew Dinning, Capt. Nichola Goddard, Cpl. Anthony Boneca, Cpl. Jason Warren, Cpl. Francisco Gomez, Cpl. Bryce Keller, Sgt. Vaughan Ingram, Cpl. Christopher Reid, Master Cpl. Raymond Arndt, Master Cpl. Jeffrey Walsh, Cpl. Andrew Eykelenboom, Cpl. David Braun, Pte. William Cushley, Sgt. Shane Stachnik, Pte. Mark Graham, Cpl. Keith Morley, Pte. Josh Klukie, Cpl. Robert Mitchell, Sgt. Craig Gillam, Trooper Mark Andrew Wilson, Sgt. Darcy Tedford, Pte. Blake Williamson, Warrant Officer Richard Francis Nolan, Warrant Officer Frank Robert Mellish, Cpl. Glen Arnold, Cpl. Shane Keating, Pte. David Byers, Sgt. Warrant Officer Robert Girouard, Cpl. Albert Storm and Cpl. Randy Payne and Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, who was killed in Lebanon.

Throughout the year, there were so many memorable images of soldiers helping Afghani orphans, soldiers in battle or snapshots of the aftermath of a deadly roadside bomb where Canadians were killed.

That's the reality of a Canadian soldier in 2006.

Sure, some question the mission but so many Canadians are behind these troops. Numerous Red Rallies in unity were organized across the country, including the Sea of Red Toronto displayed Sept. 29 at Dundas Square.

The dispute over Boxer’s award began earlier this month when Kaufman, who runs a one-man group in Florida called “Americans Against Hate,” posted an article about the Boxer-CAIR connection on the Web site of Front Page Magazine, a publication sponsored by David Horowitz. Kaufman noted that Boxer’s office had put out a press release mentioning it was giving a certificate of achievement to Elkarra, 27, who serves as executive director of CAIR’s Sacramento office. The certificate was being given “in recognition of his efforts to protect civil liberties and to build bridges among diverse communities in California.”

Kaufman said in an interview that one of his goals is “to shut CAIR down.” In his article in Front Page, he charges that the group is “connected to Islamic extremism” and notes that two men previously associated with the group have been convicted of terror-related charges and two others have been deported. He also contends that Elkarra himself was a “radical” who had accused Israel of being an “apartheid” and “racist state” and that he had “defended” a northern California man who had trained for jihad in a Pakistani terrorist camp.

Boxer was unaware of the certificate to Elkarra that had been given in her name by staff members in her California office and only learned of it “when she came across a story on Horowitz’s blog,” according to the e-mail from Ravitz, the senator’s spokeswoman. After review by her staff, Boxer was particularly concerned by claims that CAIR had refused to condemn Hamas and Hizbullah and recognize those groups as terrorist organizations,” Ravitz said.

Dave Alwatan wore an Iraqi flag around his shoulders and flashed a peace sign to everyone he passed at the Karbalaa Islamic Educational Center in this suburb of Detroit, a city that has one of the nation's largest concentrations of people with roots in the Middle East.

"Peace," he said, grinning and laughing. "Now there will be peace for my family."

Video of his last seconds (does not include the actual hanging). Ms U has a more complete (still no actual hanging) video.

Addendum: An eyewitness describes exactly what happened.

We Got Him!!!! Only $354 Billion & 3,000 US Military!
(I'd call that a Bargain. The best we've ever had...)

Some thanks are in order:

1) To George W. Bush. It only cost $354 billion (and counting) and the lives of 3,000 very expendable US military to enable the President to demonstrate to his dad that he has a bigger Dick. Or is one...

Isn't it ironic - don'tcha think? Saddam hung so that Dubya can prove that he's BETTER hung...

2) To George H.W. & Barbara Bush for raising a child with such wonderful values.

I thank god I am not a lefty loser like this malfunctioning tard.

As a series of doctors attempted to solve Grace's mysterious ailment, similar cases began to appear throughout her hometown of New Jersey. One dentist in particular took notice of the unusually high number of deteriorated jawbones among local women, and it took very little investigation to discover a common thread; all of the women had been employed by the same watch-painting factory at one time or another.

In 1902, twenty years prior to Grace's mysterious ailment, inventor William J. Hammer left Paris with a curious souvenir. The famous scientists Pierre and Marie Curie had provided him with some samples of their radium salt crystals. Radioactivity was somewhat new to science, so its properties and dangers were not well understood; but the radium's slight blue-green glow and natural warmth indicated that it was clearly a fascinating material. Hammer went on to combine his radium salt with glue and a compound called zinc sulfide which glowed in the presence of radiation. The result was glow-in-the-dark paint.

Hammer's recipe was used by the US Radium Corporation during the First World War to produce Undark, a high-tech paint which allowed America's infantrymen to read their wristwatches and instrument panels at night. They also marketed the pigment for non-military products such as house numbers, pistol sights, light switch plates, and glowing eyes for toy dolls. By this time the dangers of radium were better understood, but US Radium assured the public that their paint used the radioactive element in "such minute quantities that it is absolutely harmless." While this was true of the products themselves, the amount of radium present in the dial-painting factory was much more dangerous, unbeknownst to the workers there.

“So why are you with Aoun and Hezbollah?” I said.

“Aoun is honest and correct,” Antonios said. “Hezbollah in America is seen as terrorists, I know. I understand. But they are a large party in Lebanon and we have to live here with them. So we have to convince them to come back, to put down their arms and join the rest of us. We cannot do it by fighting.”

At least they don’t want to do it by fighting today. Another Aounist I know explained their strategy to me earlier in the year: “We’ll extend our hand and ask them to join us. But we can’t wait forever. If they refuse to disarm we’ll crack the $*hit out of them.”

“On the other side,” Jack said, “is the Hariri family which has governed since 1990 with and without help from the Syrians. They’re only interested in keeping the Ministry of Finance so they can pay no taxes and steal from us like they do through the cell phone companies.”

Indeed, Lebanon’s cell phone companies are the corporate equivalent of rapists. It costs two dollars a minute to call the United States from Beirut, and it costs 50 cents a minute just to make a local call. This in a country where the average salary is only 800 dollars a month. A member of my hotel’s staff told me a Mexican businessman who stayed with them recently had to pay four dollars a minute to call his wife in Mexico City.

Until the Syrians were chased out by the March 14 Movement, broadband Internet access was banned in Lebanon to prevent people from making free or cheap long distance phone calls using Skype or other Internet services. The ban has since been lifted, but Lebanon’s telecommunications infrastructure is still terribly behind the rest of the world and the region.

* The filter again.