CHEERS to the Aboriginal People's Television Network for breaking the story of sleaze dripping from a former top adviser to Stephen Harper. Bruce Carson was recently the director of policy and research in the PMO and a close confidante of our Dear Leader.

According to the APTN, Carson subsequently lobbied the Indian Affairs Ministry on behalf of an Ottawa-based water company attempting to win millions if dollars in contracts to sell water-filtration systems to native reserves.

According to a contract obtained by an APTN investigative team, Carson's lobbying efforts included the services of a 22-year-old Ottawa prostitute, Michele McPherson, who was guaranteed 20 per cent of all gross revenues from sales related to water contracts on First Nations reserves.

Carson has a long history of sleaze. In the 1980s, he was disbarred from practising law and jailed for defrauding his clients.

JEERS to the US Embassy in Kabul for denying Malalai Joya a visa to enter the United States. Joya is an  internationally acclaimed women's rights activist and former member of the Afghan parliament. She was due to begin a three week book tour in America to promote an updated version of her memoir ‘A Woman Among Warlords’.
 
Previously, Joya toured the United States and other western countries, and called for NATO troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan. When she applied for a visa this month she was told by the embassy that her application was denied because she was “unemployed” and “lives underground.”

Said Sonali Kolhatkar of the Afghan Women’s Mission: “Malalai’s visa denial exposes the hypocrisy of the US’s stated desire to liberate Afghan women. What does liberation mean when in reality the government is busy silencing Joya?"

Speaking of Afghanistan, cringe-worthy CHEERS to German newsmagazine, Der Spiegel, for selectively publishing US Army photographs that may prove to be more damaging than those of Abu Ghraib.  

Last year, a self-styled "kill team" of American infantrymen murdered an as-yet unkown number of civilians, staging killings to make it look like the soldiers were defending themselves from Taliban attacks. As soldiers always do in war, the kill team members took photos and cut "trophies" from the bodies of the people they killed.

Der Spiegel has published just three pictures from more than 4000 photos and videos obtained by the magazine. It has refused to say how the pictures were obtained, and published them behind a paywall that restricts their dissemination.

Still, the images are now in the public domain, and as upsetting as they are the world needs to see these pictures. Der Spiegel proves that journalism can stand up to American intimidation, and also begs the question that not enough of us are asking loudly enough: Why the heck are we still in Afganistan?

Speaking of an out-of-control US military, JEERS to them for openly planning to manipulate social media. The Pentagon is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

A California corporation has been awarded a contract to develop an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities, also known as "sock puppets".

A military spokesman said that none of the interventions would be in English because it's illegal to address US audiences with such technology. No word on whether or not it's illegal to use sock puppets on Canadians.  

CHEERS to the Pew Environment Group, a US non-profit research trust, for standing up for Canada's boreal forests. In a recent report, Canada’s Boreal Forest, the World’s Waterkeeper, Pew states that the forests contain a quarter of the world’s wetlands and are the most important global carbon sink.

Preservation of these great forests should be an international priority, says Pew. If only our political classes could be as supportive of Canada's environmental concerns. Instead we get sold "ethical oil". And fracking. What's fracking you ask?   

Earthshaking JEERS to the process known as hydrolic fracturing, or fracking, which caused a spike in earthquakes in Arkansas. If you haven't heard of fracking now's the time to find out.

Not only is fracking a colossal waste of water, and a significant threat to the environment and people's health, but it's now causing earthquakes. Time to stop f**cking with fracking people. (The next issue of X-Ray is devoted to fracking --- Ed.)