National Post Publishes Correction

BOOYAH!  JOB DONE!  The Natty Post corrects in response to this story:

Editor’s note: In the original article, Michael Rogers intended to say “early evolutionary ancestors” instead of Neanderthals when speaking about the agricultural revolution. As well, he intended to say there’s no anthropological evidence of Type 2 diabetes, not Type 1. All changes have been made in his quotes. 

Not even sure the phrase "early evolutionary ancestors" cuts it science-wise in this context but fuck it I'm in  a good mood.  We'll let it go.  Kudos to Bianca Bharti for fixing things and being a good sport about it.  As for Doc Rogers, well they say he is from the University of Guelph.  I had a friend who went there.  When I asked him what it was like he said Guelph is the sound a whale makes when it swallows.  I don't know what that means but I don't think its a compliment.

National Post Publishes Absolute Bullshit Re Beyond Meat

The absolute bullshit is this bit:

“For the last million years, we’ve evolved with a very specific diet that’s been based on whole foods,” [Michael] Rogers said. “There hasn’t been a change in our diets this drastic in all of human evolution with the exception of one event in human history: when the Neanderthals ventured from forests into pastoral land and started … agricultural practices,” more than 12,000 years ago.

I don't know who Michael Rogers is, but this kind of quote is the kind of thing that makes you think he isn't much of an expert.  I mean, the timing of wheat domestication is about right, a couple thousand years too early, maybe.  But the species is wrong.  The last Neanderthals walked maybe 40,000 years before crops were domesticated, unless Mr. Rogers knows something nobody else does.

Seriously, this is a big fat fucking boner of a mistake: Neanderthals invented agriculture.  BULLSHIT!!!   That the NP published it without  fact checking is embarrassing.  And if you are trying to criticize alt-meat, making this kind of claim isn't going to help.

PS.  I have never tried a Beyond Meat product nor do I have an opinion on the company.

Lawrence Solomon, Anti-Vaxxer: Part Bazillion

Enter Lawrence Solomon. You remember Lawrence Solomon, don’t you? He’s what I referred to last summer as a rising star in the antivaccine movement. A conservative columnist for the Financial Post, when first we met him he was complaining about a “conservative failure of skepticism” on vaccines because, apparently, conservatives haven’t been antivaccine enough for his liking. (Maybe he’s happier with more recent developments.) Indeed, Solomon used some seriously brain dead arguments about herd immunity indistinguishable from the nonsense they regularly spew over at the antivaccine crank blog.

I've said it before; The Star published one piece suggesting that Gardisil might have some hidden dangers and the whole media shit.  Quite properly, too, and The Star issued a grovelling apology. Because The Star is a class act where people worry  about accuracy and journalistic standards.  What kind of crap newspaper must The National/Financial Post be to offer this guy an ongoing platform for spouting dangerous gibberish.  Do these people have absolutely no shame?

Die Media Die: National Post On Its New Summer Print Schedule

National Post is on its summer print schedule. No more Monday papers until after Labour Day.
— Steve Faguy (@fagstein) July 6, 2014

I haven't seen the official  NP statement announcing their summer schedule, but someone on the inside has emailed me a secret first draft, before the despairing tone of it was softened to something more resembling "down but not out".

Dear National Post Readers, Should There Be Any Of You Left Out There:

Between now and Labour Day we will not be printing our Monday edition.  Since it was going entirely unsold, management felt the energy expended in its production might be better directed towards heating our tents and running the coffee machines on a restricted basis.  Also, it was discovered that some of the glue used to bind our glossy inserts could be boiled down to its starch and sugar components, and smeared over bread for its calories.  Or over boiled belt and running shoe, maybe, when the time comes.  

For, as our readers may know already (assuming you are out there somewhere, not surfing the Internet for your news and entertainment), we were recently forced to sell our building on Don Mills Road and relocate to an yurt village along the Don River itself, for budgetary reasons (we're broke). We use the wifi at a nearby Tim Horton's to file our stories, and pee in the bush.  Unfortunately a nearby encampment of homeless cannibals has contested our right to this space, and they seem more numerous and better fed than we.  We may have more urgent tasks ahead of us soon than cranking out our Monday paper.

And, as for that edition, and in fact all of our editions: despite our many, many efforts to "do more with less", it still isn't happening.  Our product (The National Post) still goes over like a bus full of Vietnamese orphans off a ravine road North of Ho Chi Minh City.  

Nevertheless, we can do naught but pray for a brighter future, or at least a swift death.

The Editors
National Post

Marni Soupcoff Leaves National Post

There's been rumors of axe sharpening over at the National Post in advance of their move to new quarters.  It looks as though Marni Soupcoff maybe decided to jump before she was pushed:

Don't know quite when this happened, but her twitter feed only goes back a week and they still have her listed on the NP website, with her last piece dates from a little under two months old.

Changes At The National Post

Dear Reader:

You will notice a some changes to your print edition of the National Post beginning today.

The paper, already a three-section product in most of the country from Monday to Friday, will follow much the same format in Toronto. As a result, the Sports and Arts & Life sections will be merged.

In all editions, Sports, with our dynamic mix of columnists including Bruce Arthur, Cam Cole, Sean Fitz-Gerald and Mike Traikos, will front the section Monday to Thursday.  On other days however, Mr. Arthur will be forced to play theater critic, though he frankly can't stand anything on screen or stage that doesn't include kung-fu fighting.  Cam Cole will  take up the role of travel columnist, and may travel as far as the bus can take him.  He can also lie about places he's been too, if he wants.  We don't give a shit.  As long as the result is 500 words and we're not out the price of a plane ticket.  As for Sean Fitz-Gerald, he'll see double duty in our homes and garden section, spend the rest of his days writing about bathroom tiles.  The fucker.  And  that prick Traikos gets stuck with the obits.

Why?  Because we can.  Because these clowns NEED the work  Because they know if they give back a word of lip they're down the road for good. Because the only good thing about being captain of a sinking ship is you get to throw everyone else overboard first.  Because we hate our jobs and our lives and want our employees to feel the same, so they quit before we have to fire them and give them packages.

We hope you continue to buy and read the National Post.  In fact, we get down on our knees and beg you too. We're just this fucking close to the edge, and our kids all need braces.  Who will pay for them if Daddy is out on the street?

The Publishers
National Post

National Post To Launch Video Game Site

It's rumored that one of the games is a virtual dunk tank where, for fifty cents, you can choose the NP columnist you hate most  and pitch virtual base-balls at a virtual target that, if struck, will send them splashing into a tank of virtual water.  

If so, Jon and Barb Kay are getting severely wet.  And maybe, just maybe, The Post will turn a profit.  

Whither PostMedia?

Into the toilet slowly, having  lost about half its market value since it began trading in June.  Reading Selley's cruddy column today  made me curious as to how the stock was doing.   It also helps explain how the stock is doing.  Although Selley is hardly the only crud-pumper at the National Post.

Quote from here .

Still No Digital Goldmine For National Post

 This article is several hundred words of Paul Godfrey whistling past the grave-yard.  Meanwhile, PostMedia stocks take a familiar course:

Meanwhile, they've turned out the lights to trim their power bills in the PostMedia HQ just down the road from me.  Jonathon Kay and his mom huddle in the darkness, burning unsold newspapers to keep warm.

From One Sinking Ship To Another

Den Tandt goes from Sun Media to the National Post.  The world goes on as always.

In case Sun readers were wondering: hey, where the hell did Den Tandt go?