“You cannot say you are for our military and then not stand behind the things they do,” said Harper. (From A ‘sea of red’ unfolds as troop supporters crowd Parliament Hill)

This space welcomes guest blogger The Right Hon. Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada.

Friends,

One week ago, as I addressed loyal Canadians on Parliament Hill, I made a statement that has ruffled a few weak-kneed feathers, and rattled a few yellow-bellied cages.

There are some who would tell you that this is a democracy, and that it is possible to support our troops while criticizing the orders that they are given.

I’m here today to tell you those people are wrong. If you truly want to support our troops, you cannot question their orders, or the people giving them, or the political party that got those people elected.

It doesn’t matter whether you disagree with those orders. It doesn’t matter whether those orders are patently stupid, dangerously insane or utterly incoherent. If we told the Canadian Forces to dress up in Ronald McDonald outfits and march into the maw of an erupting volcano while playing the theme to The Bob Newhart Show on kazoos, you would be honour-bound to support those orders to the hilt.

Just wanted to clarify.

technorati tags:politics, canada, conservative, stephen_harper, troops, afghanistan

• Blog with the Governor General
  Her Excellency Michaelle Jean has a new site devoted to public engagement using blogs and forums. Still early days, and there are no feeds, but this could be very interesting.
  (tags: governor_general canada online engagement)
• Should Darren Barefoot reproduce?
  Darren and Julie are trying to decide whether to become parents. Their solution: a wiki, and the wisdom of crowds. Makes you think it may be as simple as Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V…
  (tags: wiki darren_barefoot vancouver parenting)
• George Hotelling wins the Antonio Pizzigati Prize for CitizenSpeak
  Celebrating this Drupal e-mail advocacy module is a terrific way to launch a terrific prize. Congratulations, George!
  (tags: activism drupal engagement opensource award public advocacy)

• Idealware: Comparing Open Source Content Management Systems: Joomla, Drupal, and Plone
  Just what the title says: a great comparison of three great tools.
  (tags: cms comparison opensource drupal plone joomla)
• Confirmed: Kean Jr Campaign Behind Astroturfing
  Launching an election campaign? Get your staff together and let them know what is and isn’t appropriate behaviour on campaign computers. Now.
  (tags: election campaign dirty_tricks ethics blogging online_community)

• Feed to JavaScript
  A free service that converts RSS feeds to Javascript snippets that you can cut and paste into the HTML of any web page. You can also download the software and host your own Feed2JS site.
  (tags: rss feed javascript free tools conversion)

From the fevered and fecund imagination of David Granirer comes this news:

The Search for the Funniest Comic With a Day Job Contest starts on Friday, Sept. 22 at the Laughing Bean Coffee Co., 2695 E. Hastings, 2 blocks west of Renfrew.

I’m up on October 13th 27th; show starts at 7:30 pm.

A powerful-looking documentary is coming to the Vancouver International Film Festival:

Encounter Point is a new feature documentary about everyday leaders – a former Israeli settler, a Palestinian ex-prisoner, a bereaved Israeli mother, a wounded Palestinian bereaved brother – who risk their lives and public standing to promote a nonviolent end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The film explores what drives these and thousands of other like-minded civilians to overcome their losses to work for peace.

Encounter Point premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and won the 2006 Audience Award for Best Documentary at the San Francisco International Film Festival. This summer, it screened in East and West Jerusalem, Gaza, Haifa, Jenin and the United Nations.

Hailed by Variety as a “Concise, intelligent docu[mentary]… Dynamically edited… deftly avoids schmaltz in its delineation of grief and its celebration of cross-cultural activism,” Encounter Point was directed by Ronit Avni, co-directed by Julia Bacha (co-writer/editor of the critically acclaimed documentary, Control Room) and produced by a Palestinian, Israeli and North American team.

To view the trailer, visit http://www.encounterpoint.com.

• September 28, 7:15pm, Empire Granville Cinema 2
• September 29, 10:30am, Empire Granville Cinema 5
• October 10, 12:30pm, Empire Granville Cinema 2

Empire Granville Cinemas
855 Granville Street (betw. Robson & Smithe)

More info on the VIFF showings here.

SpeechList, my free newsletter about the craft of speechwriting, has officially moved to Social Signal with issue #7. Along with the usual news, tools and practical tips, this issue has a feature article on breaking into speechwriting:

Maybe you’ve written a few speeches for yourself or others that went over well. Maybe you’re just attracted by the glitz and glamour of the profession. (Maybe you just fell over laughing.) Whatever the reason, you want to start speechwriting professionally.But where to begin? Unlike aspiring doctors, bike mechanics and chefs, speechwriters don’t have a prescribed course of study and internship. There aren’t a lot of jobs out there labeled “speechwriter”, and no one career path to follow.

The bright side is, that means there are a lot of ways into the business. Here are five tips for anyone who wants to make the leap into professional speechwriting.

Check out the latest issue here – and if you want to subscribe, just click here.

• Drupal Class at Dudertown
  A series of screencasts showing you some of the Drupal basics, including theming and setting up a local Drupal environment on a Mac.
  (tags: drupal screencasts tutorial video howto)