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Fox News

Bill Vallicella (aka The Maverick Philosopher) asked me the other day, "Is it true that the Fox News Network is not available in Canada? Why are Canadians so big on socialized medicine? What's your take on it?" Since you asked, Fox News is coming to Canada, finally, and it has the chattering classes at McLeans (Canada's version of Time), all aflutter. Our broadcasting regulations are handled by a Federal body called the Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) and that body has finally given the OK. Earlier, the CRTC had ruled that Canada already had enough American news networks and did not need more. We do have CNN and MSNBC among others. The problem is that the CRTC's regulation stems from the days when nobody had cable and it was seen as prudent to allocate the radio spectrum in such a way that there was diversity on the dial; diversity that it was said capitalism could never provide. I'm not sure about dates, but I think this would have been back in the 1950's. Today, however, almost everybody has cable and bandwidth is not an issue. We still have the CRTC, and it does do some good things, like keep hate off of our airwaves, except that we are very close to having Al Jezeera on cable. It seems that the CRTC, staffed by good Liberals no doubt, can't seem to find a way to convince itself that keeping Al Jezeera out isn't discriminatory. I know, I know, the only remaining point to the CRTC's existence is to discriminate among what ought not be permitted, and it can't justify itself to itself. The mind boggles. They settled for saying that it would be allowed, permitted [tedious legal clauses here]. The Canadian cable companies said there was no way they could comply with those clauses because it would make the service unprofitable. Basically the CRTC said they want the cable companies to do something like delay the transmission and drop it altogether if something "bad" should be aired. It sure looks like the CRTC went to great lengths (buck passing) to prove they have no balls. About Health Care- there just isn't space. Liberals can't stand suffering and they think the state is capable of anything it puts its mind to. That's about as good as I can do.

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