As Justin Bieber, the pop confection who made “Blagojevich hair” look cool, inches ever so close to adulthood, he will yearn to participate in that sort of depraved activity that leaves most adults who indulge it morally bankrupt: politics. And as he discovers this political identity within him, he will begin to say polarizing things like “I don’t really believe in abortion” and “there are some senators who should really be in jail.” This time, Bieber is in hot water for expressing the latter sentiment– against, of all people, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar.

I very much miss John McCain. It seems to have been forever since he was last embroiled in a story arch within this complicated soap opera we call the news, and I miss writing about him! Luckily, he decided to change that today when, while on the Senate floor, he called Barack Obama‘s campaign bus [...]

A contentious interview about Occupy Wall Street given last week on Canadian network CBC’s The Lang & O’Leary Exchange is going viral. The program’s host Kevin O’Leary went after Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Chris Hedges‘s sympathetic views of the protest, calling him a “left wing nutbar.” “If you want to shut down every corporation, every bank, [...]

We’re starting to think Canada has a problem with women having breasts. Just weeks after a Canadian parliament member’s cleavage was photoshopped from existence in her official portrait, a female premier is being slammed for daring to bare her decolletage.

As the New York Post puts it, President Obama’s a “Ca-nucklehead” for “barnstorming the heartland to boost US jobs in a taxpayer-financed luxury bus the government had custom built — in Canada.” The Post‘s Geoff Earle reports the Secret Service commissioned the bus–and a second as well–from an American company, but the million-dollar buses have some Northern exposure:

Comedian George Lopez, host of TBS’ Lopez Tonight, has drawn the ire of several conservative websites by telling CNN’s Piers Morgan that “If Sarah Palin becomes president at any point, I will say allegedly, I will move to Canada.”

Given Lopez’s prior Palin pronouncements, it’s hard to see what they’re all getting worked up over, but it does underscore the degree to which Michele Bachmann has sucked all of the air out of Palin’s presidential ambitions.

So much for romance. A video broadcast on Canadian television Thursday shows the web-legendary “kissing couple” from the riots in Vancouver a week ago were actually knocked to the ground by riot police just before the photo was taken, thereby squeezing the last bit of mystery out of the stunning photo that seemed at first to show an oblivious man and woman in a passionate embrace as the city went to Hell all around them (and all over hockey, no less). Well, so much for that. Thanks a lot, internet.

Canada’s newest cable news network, Sun News, launched on Monday as a sort of “Fox News North,” as the Hollywood Reporter has described it. Described in on-air promos as a “hard news and straight talk” network, Sun News is getting plenty of comparisons to Fox News, with a business model based on providing an alternative to the “left-leaning all news channels CTV and CBC.”

If a tractor ever goes out of control–without a driver, of course–in the parking lot of your local Wal-Mart store, best advice: move your car. Take it from the folks up in Canada, who watched (and videotaped) the action as a tractor started spinning large circles in a Wal-Mart superstore parking lot, and in the process knocking the proverbial stuffing out of a few cars and one poor tree before some reckless brave individual ran the tractor down, climbed inside and brought it to a stop.

Hot microphone accidents are always funny. This, though, might be one of my favorites. Today, President Obama was doing a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Steve Harper which Fox News was covering live. When it came time for Harper to answer a question he first responded in English, before replying as well in French, at which point the channel quickly cut away. Before they left, though, a comically annoyed Shep Smith could be heard exclaiming “Fox don’t do French.”

A man in Canada was able capture some pretty amazing footage as a semi truck careened out of control, nearly ramming into his car and others. The man had installed a “dash cam” on his car after gotten into an earlier accident, and it caught all the action as it unfolded on a snow-dusted freeway.

Like most of the media this week, Bill Maher and his Real Time panel last night spent a great deal of time trying to explain the reasons why the Arizona shootings last week occurred. And while it was clear that Jared Loughner committed the acts because of mental problems, the question was why people like him turn to violence in the first place. One suggestion Maher put on the table: America’s lack of universal health care.

Once a person takes a place in public office, they discover that they need to learn how to deal with the press and, occasionally, that involves figuring out how to avoid them. There are many strategies on how to accomplish this, the one currently most in vogue involves positioning the entire media as biased therefore depicting all of their questions as unfair attacks that you can rightfully avoid. Of course, that takes a while. Fortunately, Alberta Health Services CEO Stephen Duckett has found an easier technique: when pesky journalists start following you around, distract them with a big cookie.

Ann Coulter popped up on Rick Sanchez’s show today to clear up some misconceptions about her trip to Canada a few weeks back: she was joking when she said Muslims should use flying carpets, and the tape that shows her responding to a angry, Muslim, Canadian university student by advising her to take a camel, was doctored (sort of). Full segment after the jump.

Ann Coulter got exactly what she hoped for when she took her roadshow to Canada: a canceled speech because of protests. The conservative author and commentator is threatening to file a human rights complaint against the University of Ottawa after she was forced to cancel a speaking engagement last night because they didn’t get her “satire.”

Ann Coulter is gearing up to speak on three campuses in our neighboring country to the north, of which she once said, “They are lucky we allow them to exist on the same continent.” But before she steps foot on Canada’s snowy surface, the University of Ottawa’s administration has advised the outspoken conservative pundit to check herself before she…well, you know the rest.

It seems that when Sarah Palin criticized the current socialized Canadian health care system last fall, she knew what she was talking about. Palin, who during her attack on the similar system proposed in the United States coined the term “death panels,” admitted to a crowd of supporters in Calgary, Alberta that in her youth she and her family would sneak into Canada from their remote Alaskan town for health care.

Those who doubted Lindsey Vonn‘s injuries when she soared to a gold medal finish in last night’s women’s downhill skiing event can now believe. Vonn, who had been suffering from an injury on her right shin sustained during a practice run, held the pain back just enough to win her medal last night, but just crashed while seeking her second medal in the women’s super combined competition. NPR reported that she was visibly limping and complaining that the injury was “not good” this morning. She managed to maintain her lead during the downhill portion of the competition, but wiped out, giving up the lead– and the gold medal– to her friend Maria Riesch of Germany.

Michael Bublé is not a name that should probably be making repeated appearances on Mediaite. After all, he’s an adult contemporary Canadian crooner famous for singing old Frank Sinatra songs and seducing all your friend’s mothers. Yet here he is again, fraternizing with another prominent American political commentator, seemingly oblivious (or slyly aware) of the position this person holds in the wide world of conservatism.

Leave it to Malcolm Gladwell to come up with a reason why journalism – particularly magazine writing – will survive. Gladwell believes that even if a tiny percentage of people in the world value and subscribe to publications like the New Yorker then that actually translates into a large enough number to sustain the industry. But Gladwell also warned in his chat with his friend, colleague, and debating partner Adam Gopnik that it’s not often that his theories get substantiated by subsequent events.

Well if the real goal of the underwear bomber was to make international travel as unpleasant as humanly possible he may have succeeded! And if there is a prize for overreaction to the attempted Christmas day attack Canada is definitely in the running. Two days ago it was reported that books and magazines had been banned on all U.S. bound flights. Overreact much?

As the face of media evolves, it’s important to honor the figures who helped define, shape and set the standards in their industries. These are some of the most prominent members of the media who passed away over the past 10 years. Take a look back with some snippets from their respective New York Times obituaries.

We’ve mentioned a couple of times on this blog before the New York Times reporter Nazila Fathi, who during the protests over the Iran election this past June was often the only reporter on the ground reporting for the Times. Now she too has departed.

Do you ever watch television and feel certain that someone inside that little box is sending you a message? Well, that happened to me watching Conan O’Brien‘s “The Tonight Show” from Friday night — it wasn’t quite “What’s The Frequency Kenneth,” but it was close.