Eye on a Crazy 2010

As 2010 draws to a conclusion, I want to thank all of you who have stopped by to read Eye on a Crazy Planet and have helped to make it a success.

To everyone who reads this blog, contributed comments, and most importantly, has discussed and spoken out about some of the issues that have come up here, we should all be proud of our contribution to public discourse.  This blog and your support have helped to frame some national discussions and in some cases we've made a real difference!

Eye on a Crazy Planet is only 6 and a half months old. It started at a time when, during the course of some research I was doing on a screenplay, I came across information that proved that conflict tourist Kevin Neish lied to Carol MacNeil in a CBC News interview about the knife-wielding "activists'' treatment of Israeli soldiers during the Mavi Marmara take-down in May. That information became the basis of a National Post story.

We also played a significant role in exposing Libby Davies, the deputy leader of the NDP, and the most outspoken anti-Israel parliamentarian, as someone who either denied Israel's very legitimacy OR was unfamiliar with basic facts about an issue which she had adopted an extremist position. Which of those positions you believe depends on whether you believe she was sincere in what she said in her video performance or in her subsequent "apology."

It was the Davies story that was a large inspiration for the creating of this blog following my alerting the mainstream media to the existence of the notorious Davies video and its significance.

There have been a lot of other issues that we've explored together, including the strange malfeasance of the leadership of some of Canada's public employees' unions, waste of public funds, the Rob Ford campaign and the slimy behaviour of some of his opponents, and the insinuation of communism and some other malevolent ideologies into Canada's university system. Recently, we helped expose what became an international story about the extent to which bigoted anti-Zionist ideology has become so rabid in the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education that scholarship has become subservient to bias there.

And we've had quite a few laughs along the way!

2010 has, in many ways, been an encouraging year for Canada. As one of the best educated, and freest countries, Canadians have shown continued support for the two mainstream political parties whose policies are really nearly identical on substantive matters, while the socialist NDP is mired in near single-digit support nationally.  There are some people who take a cynical view of the Canadian Conservative and Liberal parties having more similarities than differences. I would suggest this is something we can be optimistic about.

When reasonable, intelligent people look at an issue, they will usually arrive at similar conclusions. That is the case with our two most popular parties. Another thing in which Canadians can take a measure of comfort is the continued marginalization of radical elements which have continued to show their totalitarian leanings.

But vigilance is the price of freedom. Public service unions, that use members' dues to pay for junkets to dictatorships like Cuba, still want to surreptitiously influence the political sphere. Their allies in post-secondary educational institutions hope to do the same in that arena with as little public scrutiny as possible. There are still non-governmental agencies which draw funds from the public purse while they support foreign terrorists and act as apologists for domestic ones. Things may be going well in Canada, but those who think democracy is a failure because it hasn't placed them in power remain a threat to our freedoms.

There are a few acknowledgments I would like to make. I want to thank my fellow bloggers who have contributed their support, including our friends at Jay Currie, Moose and Squirrel, Dodo can spell, Skippy Stalin, Five Feet of Fury, Dvar Dea, Backseat Blogger, Sassywire and many others - please forgive me if I don't mention you all. Sometimes we agree and sometimes we don't, but I always respect your commitment to democracy and the democratic values of free expression and public exchange of ideas.

However a very special thank you needs to be made to Blazing Cat Fur. BCF, along with Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant, is one of Canada's foremost advocates for and defenders of free speech. BCF is also responsible for alerting the public and the mainstream media to some of the goings-on and relationships between malevolent groups that are a threat to the freedoms which we enjoy and rather foolishly take for granted. He does this in most instances without taking any credit for himself.  BCF is on my list of Canadian heroes.

Additional thanks go to our friends at The Michael Coren Show and at The National Post for their support.

But mostly, my thanks go to you, for reading this blog, and particularly for those who read Eye on a Crazy Planet and look into what you've read here in order to find out more. Being informed makes us better citizens and better defenders of democracy.

I don't ask you to take my word for anything. I do ask that you find out as much information as you can about matters of public interest that mean something to you and to speak out and act on what you learn. We owe that much to ourselves.

Happy New Year !!!!