What is St. Steve Staples' Rideau Insitute anyway?
Certainly no flipping way is it simply "an independent research institute" as a story today in the Globe and Mail credulously and most misleadingly describes the joint (at least St. Steve is forced to concede that our C-17s are a Good Thing, what with Haiti--though I don' t quite see how aircraft are "spent" ).
The excerpts below from an earlier post give the real nature of the Institute, only sometimes even hinted at by our intrepid (read lazy) reporters seeking a quick and easy quote to, er, balance a story about the Canadian Forces. Hurl:
The excerpts below from an earlier post give the real nature of the Institute, only sometimes even hinted at by our intrepid (read lazy) reporters seeking a quick and easy quote to, er, balance a story about the Canadian Forces. Hurl:
Update thought: I'm amazed that in the Globe piece St. Steve didn't call for our forces at Haiti to be put under UN command--see antepenultimate paragraph of this post....As for St. Steve Staples and the Rideau Institute, saying that he has been critical of "excessive spending on the military" is the usual limp and hardly complete description of the joint or its president our media usually employ, e.g. (the first example below is from the same reporter):
Steve Staples, president of the Rideau Institute in Ottawa, said the Defence Department is in a better position than other departments to weather the expected cuts to the federal government's planned disbursement. He said social, health and arts spending likely will be hit hardest as the Conservatives tighten budgets."These cuts that DND has to make are a drop in the bucket since the department has been enjoying large increases each year for many years," said Staples, who has criticized what he calls excessive spending on the military. "Compared to other departments, DND is the teacher's pet of the government."..
...the Rideau Institute, which has opposed the Afghan war and large-scale defence spending...No need for the "has". It just plain opposes--past, present and future, regardless of the situation or facts. And it might have been worth including this aspect:...the Rideau Institute, a left-leaning public-policy group..."Far" left-leaning, I'd say. Just look at usual suspects who are involved.
Upperdate: Should have noted Mr Staples' real labour of love, never mentioned by our journalists and no longer mentioned at the Rideau Insitute site itself (as far as I can see):About UsGet the picture that our media, either conciously or out of culpable ignorance, do not give?..
“A ceasefire is always the first step to achieve peace.”
Ceasefire.ca is a project of the Rideau Institute on International Affairs, a public policy research and advocacy group based in Ottawa. Ceasefire.ca is the institute’s main public outreach and advocacy arm...
...it has pushed Canadian politicians of all stripes to oppose the war in Afghanistan...
...in order to act as strong political forces in Ottawa that lobby for peace, the Rideau Institute and Ceasefire.ca are not registered charities (and therefore cannot issue tax receipts for donations until the federal government changes its charity laws)...You can contact Ceasefire.ca through the Rideau Institute.
Rideau Institute
The Hope Building
63 Sparks Street, Suite 608
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5A6
CANADA
t. 613 565-9449 ext.24
e. sstaples@rideauinstitute.ca
w. www.rideauinstitute.ca
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 1:16 p.m.
9 Comments:
Although I wouldn't bet on it, it is at least remotely possible Mr. Staples knows how aircraft lives are measured.
Aircraft get "spent" because their airframe life is only projected to last a certain number of hours.
C-17s, for example, are supposed to have a service life of 30,000 hours (or 30 years at 1,000 flying hours per year).
A couple years ago, utilisation for the USAF C-17 fleet peaked at about 1,250 flying hours per year; it has since fallen to 1,035 hours per year as more aircraft have entered the inventory.
Y'know, I'm prepared to give Galloway a pass on this one (yes, that's the sound of the hoofbeats of the Four Horsemen you hear, get over it).
Galloway's drawing attention to all those who opposed the C-17 purchase and are now eating their words for whatever reason. Yes, it's not like the Globemasters haven't already been proving their worth, but for those who think of the military as "big boys with big toys," this important use of military aircraft forces them to reconsider.
And possibly to remember this situation the next time the CF needs to make a purchase (anyone think a JSS-type beast would be of use in a situation like this?).
For that service, I'll forgive Galloway's indiscretion regarding Staples. Your own mileage may vary.
Chris: Quite. But I wouldn't bet on it either--though Ms Galloway may have got her quote muddled.
Babbling: Your charity astonishes me :)! I'm a low mileage kind of hard man where our media are concerned.
Mark
Ottawa
Murray Dobbin as a "senior advisor"? Scott Sinclair? Kathleen Ruff?
What a joke of an Institute of far-left plunging miscreants.
Staples is one of those ever so holy progressives who places his own narrow minded belief that peace is always possible above the lives of those who can find protection under the rifles of a professional military.
The freedoms he enjoys he would so quickly deny others. His belief that you can always talk to despots and mass murders shows he still lives in some self inflicted Peter Pan world where he has yet to grow up.
There is a simple description for such narrow minded stupid people.
Useless.
Gloria's not one of those left-wing editorialists masquerading as a reporter, so my suggestion would be to send her the info you've collected on Staples & Coy and tactfully suggest that calling them "independent" is a bit of a misnomer. If this int gets passed around newsrooms (and it does) then with a little luck, reporters will stop quoting him or anyone else from the Institute for "balance."
What makes this guy so dangerous is that he hides his knee-jerk anti-military bias and left-wing agenda behind the fig leaf of an "independent institute."
Under other circumstances, that would be a very reasonable suggestion, ArmdRecceBoy, and one I'd follow. In fact, I've done things like that with other journos in other situations.
But Staples (and Michael Byers, but we're not talking about him) is a bit of a different case. I just find it extraordinarily difficult to believe that all these media types have Staples on speed dial, and none of them know his bias. The fact that all of them call him for "balance" suggests to me they know exactly the perspective they'll get from him when they call - that's why they call. To believe otherwise would require the deliberate suspension of reason, as I see it.
The fact that the journos who quote him don't reveal his known bias is completely unprofessional. Either they're deliberately manipulating their readers, which is unethical according to their own standards, or they're unable to perform a simple background check with as basic a tool as Google, which is ample evidence of incompetence. Either way, it's unprofessional.
True enough Damian. Newsrooms these days are largely staffed by student interns, and the combination of time pressures, inexperience, lack of institutional memory and flat-out laziness (if not implicit bias towards the line being pushed by the Rideau Institute) makes Staples and Byers and their ilk all too easy to call up and quote. Witness the otherwise inexplicable popularity of Scott Taylor with the CBC. The biggest factor is probably ease of access to Staples and his quotability. It's the same formula that worked so well for REAL Women in the '80s and '90s (remember them?).
Maybe the solution is to set up our own "independent think tank" -- The Torch Institute. Herr Doctor Brooks, chief analyst and pitbull. A little letterhead, a mailbox and a few business cards and we're in business ...
I like the way you're thinking!
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