Saturday Anger-Making News Bummers

A couple short updates before I plunge back into the editing maelstrom.

First, yesterday the Supreme Court ruled on a Wal-Mart labour controversy. Followers of the story will recall the corporate department store chain shut down a Jonquière, Quebec store in 2005 after its employees formed a union. The employees howled union-busting but Wal-Mart said pffft, the store just wasn't profitable. The case slithered up the legal food chain to the Supreme Court--and yesterday that court ruled with Wal-Mart. So much for activist judges. (Montreal Gazette)

Second, freedom of speech fans have a new one to get worked up about. On Wednesday night a U.S. journalist was harrassed at the border by Canadian guards who, according to the reporter, obsessively demanded to know if she was going to talk about the Olympics while in Canada. Amy Goodman, the host of the U.S. radio program Democracy Now was travelling to speak at well-known radical terrorist institution the Vancover Public Library to promote her new book, Breaking The Sound Barrier. The incident stinks. It sounds like border guards were paranoid about criticism of the Olympics and wanted to stifle it. This is crap and there need to be a full investigation. Canada is not a country that should be harrassing journalists. You can read the Globe and Mail story here, and here's the blog entry on the Democracy Now website.

UPDATE: And here's a link to Rabble's comprehensive coverage, which includes audio of Goodman.