In Defence of Montreal Bagels

The Montreal food world is in an uproar after a New York food writer and ex-New York Times food critic insulted Montreal-type bagels in a flippant and cavalier slam.

"Former New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton stirred up a ruckus on Twitter Thursday night after criticizing Montreal-style bagels, complaining that “it’s like chewing glass.”
It all started when a former Montrealer and current New York Times writer, Adam Gopnik, claimed that the best bagels are the wood-fired ones Montreal is famous for.
Sheraton chimed in, slammed our famous bagels and the reactions from Montrealers on Twitter are priceless." Link

The reaction on Twitter by Montreal natives was swift and vicious, as one might expect when an insult so deep and hurtful is gratuitously proffered.
I don't know Ms. Sheraton, but her credentials are impressive and so the tweet probably goes along the lines of a good troll, meant to elicit a lively reaction bringing with it the attached notoriety, publicity that every writer needs in order to sell books.

Could you imagine the reaction of New Yorkers if a Montreal travel writer mentioned in a column that the Statue of Liberty was decidedly ugly and obscene?

As for the bagels, I'll not get into the comparisons as food tastes vary and my mom taught me that if you can't say anything good, don't say anything at all.

But on second thought, I shall do just that, that is troll New York City food in order to assuage the rage and frustration of Montreal food lovers in response to the hurtful tweet.

Now I'm no expert like Ms. Shereton, but I do travel to New York City many times a year to visit family and eat out more often there, than in Montreal. I don't eat at the Michelin-starred restaurants that NYC boasts because these few establishments are unrepresentative and grossly over-priced and require a couple of hours at the table, an experience I eschew.

But when it comes to the rest of the food scene, Montreal is equal or better than NYC, where middle-priced restaurants in Montreal are just plain better than their counterparts in New York.

As for that sophisticated New York foodie, it is a sad myth. New Yorkers eat trash that Montrealers would never touch.

Let's start with the lower end, where disgusting food carts do a booming business selling gross looking mystery meats cooked up on an unsanitary looking grill by a guy who doesn't bother to wear a hat and who handles the money and the food bare-handed without a second thought.
The famous New York hot-dogs carts, serve over-boiled dogs directly out of a pool of dirty looking slimy hot water topped with globules of floating fat. Ugh!!
Other staples like frighteningly greyish shawarma accompanied by a warmish bottle of water or coke, are meals only a New Yorker could tolerate.
As for street food, NYC boasts just about the most disgusting offerings in THE WORLD and cannot compare to cities like LA or Miami, where street food is an art.

The famous hot dogs at the Papaya King are terrible and the service and attitude obscene.
Most of the offerings and toppings can best be described as slop. What Montrealer would actually want to eat the hot dog pictured here?

Now the world-famous Nathan's at Coney Island is just about the worst fast food restaurant I've ever eaten at.
I can understand tourists wanting to be a part of the famous Nathan's lore, but how locals can eat here is beyond the pale.
There isn't one item on the menu that is in the least bit palatable with a special mention of the waffle fries being the worst.

As for New York's best fast food burger joint, the Shake Shack, hamburgers are indeed delicious, but everything else sucks, especially the crinkle fries that are so dry that they taste like cardboard and require mounds of ketchup to get down.

There isn't a poutinerie in Montreal that doesn't beat the heck out of New York fast food joints for taste variety and value.

Now the reason I dwell on the New York food cart industry is that it is omnipresent. Every street corner has its version of these eyesores. It seems that half of New York eats at these shitholes, a sad testament to the New Yorker palate.

As for New York bagels which I promised not to critique,,,, well I lied.
The hallmark of a New York bagel is huge lead-like dough ball with a tiny hole in the middle so as to better carry the massive amount of fillings that are required to balance out the dryness. New York bagels are indistinguishable from any other plain bread product, with zero personality and zero oomph. Toasted, they taste like white bread..ugh.

Montreal bagels are really two treats in one. Toasted they are light and delicious, where a dash of topping is all that required to bring out the best. A Montreal bagel, well-toasted or lightly toasted is sublime, whether topped by a dash of jam, cream cheese or classic European churned butter.
But the real culinary treat is when Montreal bagels are bought fresh out of the wood-fired oven (something that doesn't exist in New York.) The delicate bagels are placed in an open paper bag (so as to let the bagels cool slowly) which ultimately leads to the baker's dozen turning into twelve on the trip home. New Yorkers aren't sophisticated enough to fathom a Montreal bagel because, in New York, bagels have to be obscenely massive.
The only similar experience I can compare to a fresh-out-of-the-oven Montreal bagel is that which every Frenchman enjoys in France.
On a Paris holiday, I skipped the hotel and went across the street to a café that served freshly-baked baguette with outstanding European butter and a generous wedge of Camembert. Delicious!
This delicate bread experience is something New Yorkers are never able to comprehend because everything has to be over-sized, over-salted, over-spiced and over-stuffed.

The only redeeming factor in the bagel scene in New York is the famous but fading in popularity bialy, which when freshly baked is something special, but a product that doesn't toast well and so is an ethereal but fleeting experience at best.

As for the vaunted New York pizza scene, all I can say is pizza is pizza and most of us have our personal favourite type, be it regular, thin-crust, deep dish or Napoli style. The street version of New York pizza is that sloppy gooey mess of a slice that needs to be folded over in order to eat. Okay, but nothing to write home about.
You can find as good or better pizza in just about every single North American city.
At the top of the heap are the over-rated famous NYC pizza joints that live on reputation and so can charge an arm and a leg. Di Fara's is perhaps the most renowned, charging a whopping $38 ($50 Canadian) for a four topping extra-large.
Only an idiot New Yorker with more money than sense would pay that much considering that there are dozens of other pizza joints in the city making pizza as good or better for less than half the price.
But reputation is everything in New York, where over-paying is the rule, where money replaces taste as a criterion.

Take for example the famous Peter Luger steakhouse in Brooklyn where tourists flock and uniformed richnicks blow an exorbitant amount of money on steaks that are good, but no better than most fine steak-house across America. To boot the side dishes liked steamed broccoli are exorbitantly priced yet are pedestrian and uninspired. Bah!
If you are looking for a better place to blow big bucks on steak try M. Wells Steakhouse in the Bronx, which actually owns a Michelin star and is described by the famous Michelin guide "with its distinct French-Canadian culinary influence," It is of course run by Montreal expatriate chef Hugue Dufour.

Miami has a lively Cuban food culture, New Orleans has sublime cajun, Boston is seafood and LA and environs have a bold Mexican food environment. All delightful and original.
What is New York famous for?
Deli.
A lost food culture that is in its death throes. Where the once hundreds and hundreds of Jewish style delis populated just about every neighbourhood, New York is now reduced to about a dozen or two dinosaurs where innovation is a dirty word and where the same old, same old has less and less appeal.
The one bright light is the innovative and brass Mile End Deli in Borem Hill, where ex-Montrealers (who else) have brought traditional Montreal Jewish deli to New York with an updated and fresh approach.

King of the hill is the famous Katz's Deli on the lower east sides of "When Harry met Sally" fame. Sadly it is a dreary military-like mess hall atmosphere where sullen New Yorkers wolf down crappy food with nary a look left or right.
Katz's reminds me of BEN'S deli in Montreal, which while full of lore and a deep history suffered and ultimately closed because the food just wasn't that good.
On a late night, after-wedding nosh at Katz's our group was singularly unimpressed with the service and the food. My turkey sandwich was dry as a bone and the matzah-ball in my chicken soup was stone cold.
Unacceptable.

Probably the only deli of interest is Junior's, a massive old-style Jewish deli converted to Jack of all trades, where the food isn't anything special, but the experience delightful. Junior's safeguards the New York reputation of excess, where an egg salad sandwich is eight inches high and probably consists of a dozen eggs and a cup of mayonnaise. While the food isn't great, the people watching is. It is mesmerizing to see people put away so much food, an experience that will have you shaking your head.

I won't bother describing the rest of the food scene but will offer that Los Angeles, Miami and New Orleans all have a style and personality that is unique, fresh and exciting, something sadly lacking in New York.

As for middle-of-the-road restaurants, I've never had a meal in New York where I've commented that you can't get that in Montreal, but the opposite is true.
New York restaurants are generally uninspired, over-priced, over-crowded and staffed by an arrogant uninterested, rude and surly waitstaff.
It is, I suppose a badge of honour that New Yorkers wear with pride. Have at it.

As for Montreal bagels tasting like glass, all I can say is that New York bagels taste like shit.

Maxime Bernier Will Win 30-40 Seats in Quebec Alone

If there is one thing certain that can be said of the Quebec electorate, it is that there is nothing to be taken as certain.
Quebec voters, unlike Canadians outside the province, have always been volatile with little brand loyalty.
Take for example the great Bloc Quebecois wave of 2000 and 2004 where they elected 54 MPs from Quebec with 49% of the popular vote as well as the Orange crush of of 2011 where the NDP wave took 59 of the 75 Quebec seats with an 43% of the popular vote.

Commentators and pundit who predict the demise of Maxime Bernier and his descent into obscurity are either dead wrong or whistling through the graveyard.

Maxime Bernier arrives on the political scene in Quebec at the most opportune moment, with voters itching for a new face and a new ideology.
With the Bloc in its death throes and the shine off the Trudeau apple, voters are desperate for a choice, one that Bernier fits to a tee. That support will transcend English/French lines as well as federalist/separatist ideology.

First let us look at the sovereigntists and soft nationalists, who understand that the Bloc is a spent force, and who now see Bernier as the only legitimate defender of Quebec culture, a stalwart against forced multiculturalism of the federal Liberals.
To hard and soft nationalists alike, the notion that if they are to be stuck in Canada, a party that defends traditional Quebec culture in Quebec as well as traditional Canadian culture in the ROC is a compromise made in Heaven.
Those remaining Bloc MPS already understand that an independent Quebec is no longer an option and so most, if not all, would jump to support a Bernier party.
Bernier would be careful to demand that BQ MPs publicly disavow sovereignty before allowing them into the party and I'm sure those who wish to preserve their cushy jobs in Ottawa would make the pragmatic decision to do so.

There are many Canadians who support Bernier's view on preserving Canadian culture and the danger of a European type of illegal immigrant invasion. This percentage  is even a higher in Quebec.
Justin Trudeau's branding those who wish to preserve the Canadian identity as it is as intolerant, is already alienating Quebec voters who refuse to be insulted because they fear that their Quebecois culture being eroded by uncheck illegal immigration.
It is a much bigger issue than anyone in the federal Liberals understand because it touches two raw nerves, protecting traditional Quebec identity and law and order.
Quebecers have always been a people of law and order and throughout the tumultuous years of the independence movement, have never shown an inkling of support for lawlessness or upheaval.
The idea that foreigners can traipse over the border with impunity, while regular Canadians must put up with interminable line-up at the border crossing in order return home from vacation is utterly unacceptable.

Bernier's deep conservatism, his opposition supply management and call for an end to government subsidies may in theory hurt him in Quebec, but it won't.
While the organized unions and dairy farmers will cackle, ordinary Quebecers will ignore their entreaties, with the issue of defending Quebec's French identity in Canada as the over-riding issue of the election.
Let us remember that the Bloc Quebecois wave and the subsequent NDP wave were both predicated on the defence of traditional Quebec culture and language.

The last election saw Quebecers caught up in Trudeaumania like the rest of the country. While Trudeau's support is slipping, but holding in Canada, Quebec is a different story where Trudeau is fast gaining a reputation as selling out Quebec to immigrants.
As for the NDP, its already weakening support in Quebec is further collapsing because  of their new leader, Jagmeet Singh, a character who represents what the majority of Quebecers loathe, foreign religious orthodoxy.

Bernier is an extremely popular figure who will get re-elected in his home riding no matter what the party affiliation. His status as a favourite son and staunch defender of traditional Quebec and Canadian culture is the one and only issue that matters federally.
And so it seems that the stars are aligned for Bernier who perhaps realizes what the pundits are incapable of understanding.

When I say Bernier can win 30-40 seats in Quebec, I am being conservative, with the Liberal fortress Montreal and Laval, just about the only safe ridings for the Liberals.

As for a Bernier political party in the rest of Canada, the decision to run candidates will be difficult and I shall leave that discussion for another blog post, but there is a scenario whereby Bernier can actually insure a Scheer Conservative government through coalition.

As for the pundits predicting the premature political death of Bernier, consider their track record where none were able to foretell seismic shifts in Quebec voter intentions.

Canada's Foreign Policy Blunder Dooms Those It Meant to Help

Nobody in the mainstream media will say it but Canada's momentous blunder, an ill-thought-out tweet calling out Saudi Arabia on human rights issues will turn out disastrously for those it meant to help.
If Donald Trump has taught us anything, it is that Twitter is just about the worst tool that politicians can use to communicate government policy.

Why Canada's mainstream media is shying away from reproducing the Tweet, I don't know, but try searching for the tweet yourself and you'll not find the original on the CBC, CTV or mainstream newspapers.
It seems the tweet is as toxic as the Danish cartoons of the profit Mohammed that had the Muslim world in an uproar and led to the murder of several journalists.

I am publishing the original so that readers can see what is arguably the tweet with the worst negative consequences in the history of the platform.

Worst of all, the tweet and this tweet by Canada's Foreign Minister has all but condemned those whom it was trying to free.

Samar Badawi and Raif Badawi can take little comfort in the Canadian government's stupid attempt to pressure the Kingdom and can now look forward to their situation getting much, much worse.
And in Saudi Arabia, much, much worse is really much, much worse.

How Canada's foreign affairs department can so badly under-estimate the reaction to their tweet is a testament to the amateurs who run foreign affairs who believe that lecturing and hectoring dictatorships can effectively cough up positive results.

Saudi Arabia is the Beverly Hillbillies of nations, a country of autocratic religious yahoos who inherited a fortune à la Jed Clampett.

 Do Canada's idiots at foreign affairs actually believe their lectures about human rights will sway a country that has no shame in putting up a sign like this which underlines its policy that non-Muslims are actually barred from the country's 'holy' cities of Mecca and Medina?

We must have the dumbest foreign affairs department in the world, filled with dough-headed liberal dilettantes who believe that Canadian liberal values apply to the entire world and that their inflated self-importance will have a significant influence.
Canada's allies are laughing their asses off at our utter stupidity and amateurness. They have told us in no uncertain terms that they won't back Canada's play in condemning the Saudi government over human rights. None of them wants to bet on such a losing hand, so don't expect any statements of support from our allies.

Instead of attempting the impossible task of lecturing a dogmatic, ultra-religious and anti-democratic country like Saudi Arabia into changing, perhaps we should better spend our capital on warning Canadians that travel to the Kingdom is hazardous to those who want to embarrass the government.
It's like a bear-trap, better to avoid than to extricate from.

At any rate, I'm happy about the whole fiasco because it is another huge embarrassment for the Trudeau liberals who can be rightfully humiliated for making a bad situation infinitely worse.
I do feel bad for the detained, they are sadly collateral damage caused by the Liberal government incompetence.

As for Saudi Arabia's reaction, restricting trade between our countries, calling back students and hospital patients and cancelling flights to Toronto, we should shrug off the moves as utterly unimportant.

Canada's trade with Saudi Arabia is negligible and the one huge contract for military vehicles now in place was not cancelled by the Saudis because of its importance to them.

The media may be aghast over the announced reprisals but the truth is that these measures hurt them worse than us.
The threat to stop buying grain from Canada is hollow because they haven't bought any in a long time, replacing us with a cheaper alternative from China.

The announcement that flights by its national airline to Toronto are being cancelled is also a ho-hum measure because none of the flights were nonstop and if you have to make a stop anyway, you can pick a flight there from anywhere in Europe.

At any rate, flying on Saudia is a bit off-putting with the slogan 'God Bless You' plastered on the nose of the aircraft, knowing the Kingdom's opinion of infidels.


As for the situation whereby medical doctors from Saudi Arabia get their training here and then work as indentured servants as residents, it is repugnant.
If Canada cannot train and pay its own doctors we are truly losers of the first magnitude.
The 4,000 places held by Saudis over the years in medical schools rob Canadians of the opportunity to become doctors and even with the inflated tuition rates the Saudis pay, we still underwrite their education in exchange for a couple of years of meagre-paid service in our hospitals. It is a deal with the devil.
The same goes for Saudi patients using our hospital facilities. No matter what they pay it isn't enough. They come here for treatment because it is cheaper than in the USA.  Good riddance.

As for the 15,000 Saudi university students studying in Canada who are paying full tuition, Canadian taxpayers still underwrite their education.
Let's do a little math for those claiming foreign students are a benefit to our universities.
McGill University has an annual operating budget of $1.3 billion dollars. Split among its 40,000 students, it comes out to about $30,000 spent on each student. Saudi undergraduate students pay about $20,000 for tuition and Saudi post-graduate students pay about $10,000 in tuition.
By the way, these fees include full Medicare coverage.
The foreign students also have the benefit of the infrastructure paid for and built up over the years by Canadian taxpayers and the benefit of the billion dollar endowment fund.
We lose $10,000 to $15,000 for every foreign student enrolled, so good riddance.

As for selling off Canadian assets by the Saudi treasury, it is again no big deal. They own little.

Perhaps the silver lining in all this is oil, which the Saudis have not said they will stop shipping.
If they do, it will demonstrate Canada's vulnerability and hasten the construction of the pipeline to eastern Canada.
One can only hope!

Doug Ford Sends Chills Down Progressives' Spines---In Quebec!

It's with schadenfreude-like delight that I watch Toronto progressives squeal in abject terror as Doug Fords cashes in his 'pound of flesh' by trimming down the number of seats on Toronto city council by almost half, signalling that there's a new sheriff in town and that he isn't their friend.

For those about to lose their jobs, the councillors and their staff and supporters it's seen as vicious political payback meant to punish the city that largely opposed Ford and the Conservatives who won the election despite Toronto's opposition.
The liberal media has gone apeshit;

Doug Ford must aspire to do more than just break things- Ottawa Citizen-Jul. 31, 2018
Where are the grown-ups in Ford's cabinet?- Toronto Star-Aug. 1, 2018
Doug Ford Is Bullying Toronto Because He Couldn't Get Elected ...- HuffPost Canada-Jul. 30, 2018
Doug Ford spits in the face of Toronto- Toronto Star-Jul. 27, 2018
Ford's Tories using taxpayer dollars to produce 'lookalike news' videos ... -Toronto Star-Jul. 31, 2018

The insufferable liberal media based in the golden horseshoe is having a hard time coming to terms with the new government, the cacophonic moaning and groaning, music to Doug Ford's ears and like the anti-Trump media in the USA, 'denial' isn't just a river in Egypt!

“There isn’t too many people that I know that wouldn’t want to trade in a bunch of politicians for $25 million,” Ford said.

Ha! Ha!

With one-liners like from the combative Ford, it doesn't augur well for the snowflakes as Ford is set to undo the liberal agenda that they so cherish. 

But what does all this have to do with Quebec where the upcoming provincial election is looming?

Like the Ontario Liberals under Kathleen Wynne, the ruling Quebec Liberal government seems to have run out of steam and a cranky electorate seems ready to toss them out of power with the only viable alternative, being the conservative CAQ.

It is somewhat surprising because Premier Denis Couillard has done an excellent job returning the province to budgetary surplus, a feat that few thought possible. Over the last few decades, debt has been the Achilles' heel of Quebec politics and paradoxically as the burden of the taxpayer debt-load increased, support for sovereignty decreased.
Somewhere along the line, the Quebec electorate realized it needed Canada to finance its entitlements and it became the most important factor in the contributing to the loss of support for independence.

But after decades of running up the debt, to the point where every Montreal resident owes approximately $44,000 in combined city, provincial and federal debt, the Liberal government finally tackled the thorny issue of debt reduction, much to its credit.

But alas, most voters have little understanding of high finance, nor do they particularly care and with many drowning in their own personal debt-Hell, making the monthly minimum on their VISA bill is as much fiscal responsibility they can tolerate.

At any rate, Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard and his Liberal caucus seem to be going down without much of a fight. Many party stalwarts, especially cabinet ministers are announcing that they will not run in the next election, preferring to cash in their pension and safeguard their separation bonus which is no longer payable should the member resign while serving as an active member of the National Assembly. This bonus can add up to over $100 thousand, so it's quite a risk to get elected, and then be relegated to the opposition benches, with the commensurate salary cut.

Coulliard missed a golden opportunity to make political hay by taking on the unionized SAQ employees who went on strike to protest their meagre $25 an hour salary base salary. Facing down the union and allowing a strike to go on, or better still declaring a lock-out would have enjoyed massive public support, but as I said, the fight seems to be gone.
Previously Couillard bravely faced down powerful public servants by actually lowering pension benefits, a gutsy and dangerous move that could have exploded in social unrest. He and his government are a pale shadow of what they once were.

And so the CAQ is on its way to forming a majority government by default, much like Doug Ford's Conservatives who gained power because of the Ontario public was just plain sick of Kathleen Wynne.

But in its haste to be done with Couillard are Quebecers really mindful of where they are headed?
With Doug Ford Ontarians knew what they were getting, he never made any bones about his conservative values and his intention to slash and burn government spending.

But the CAQ has cleverly toned down the conservative rhetoric and has decided to keep their collective mouths shut on policy in order to just let the Quebec Liberals sink on their own.

It's going to be quite a shock to Quebec progressives and centrists when once in power the 'vrai nature' of the CAQ emerges.

The Liberals, the Parti Quebecois and Quebec Solidaire all, more or less, share the philosophy of big government spending.

The CAQ is pro-business and believes firmly in less government spending and less government regulation. 

The hallmark of Quebec governance over the last fifty years has been more and more regulation, massive spending and government interference in all aspects of Quebec life.

And so, with the CAQ, voters should be careful for what one wishes for. There are not that many real conservative-mind voters  in Quebec who share the CAQ philosophy and so the change will be quite a shock to the system.

I don't know exactly what the agenda will be, but one thing for sure, the SAQ and its union is headed for privatization under the CAQ. They are an obvious target for a government intent on showing their conservative credentials.

And just like in Ontario, for the entitled, payback's a bitch!

Confessions of a Nitpicker

"A nitpicker is a person who finds faults, however small or unimportant, everywhere they look. After seeing a movie, a nitpicker lists every tiny thing he or she didn't like about it. Use the informal nitpicker when you're talking about someone who is extremely critical, even when those criticisms seem inconsequential."

One of the things I am most proud about my blog, No Dogs or Anglophones, is the fact that through more than a thousand posts, readers have written less than a dozen times to point out a factual error. I take great pride and expend a great deal of time and effort meticulously fact-checking the content.
In fact, I daresay that I spend more time on the effort than mainstream media do on the stuff they publish, the constraints of a deadline and economic pressure limit the amount of time and resources devoted to keeping those articles absolutely clean of factual errors.

For that reason, I have developed an unforgiving rage when mainstream media either through laziness or ignorance publish stuff that is just plain not true, based on the facts.

Let me give you an egregious example of incompetent reporting that I spotted last week involving a study that rated passports according to the number of countries that were available to holders, visa-free.
Here from Global News; 

"Canada has the world’s fifth most powerful passport, new ranking says"

"The Henley Passport Index measures how powerful the national identifications are based on how many countries citizens can access without a visa.......     Canada is in fifth place at 185, and tied with Belgium, Denmark, Ireland and Switzerland.
These are the countries that made the top 10 list:

1. Japan (189)
2. Germany, Singapore (188)
3. Finland, France, Italy, South Korea, Spain, Sweden (187)
4. Austria, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, United Kingdom, United States (186)
5. Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Switzerland (185)
6. Greece, Australia (183)
7. Czech Republic, Malta, New Zealand (182)
8. Iceland (181)
9. Hungary, Slovenia, Malaysia (180)
10. Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia (179)"

Really?.....
I cannot think of a stupider conclusion, one that actually skewers the truth and fosters the myth that Canada has the fifth most powerful passport in the world when nothing could be farther from the truth.
For the idiots at Global and CTV and a dozen other websites who got it painfully wrong, let me explain.

You enter a bridge tournament and at the conclusion of play one team is at the top with 189 points. It is followed by a group of two teams with 188 points, followed by a group of six teams with 187 points, followed by another group of seven teams tied at 186 points and finally a group of five teams (of which you are a member) with 185 points.
In fact, there are sixteen teams that have more points than you, but you go home and tell your family that you finished fifth.
Such is the logic of Globalnews, CTV and others which would have us believe that with seventeen players ahead of us in the point standings, we finished fifth.

This error is disturbing because it shows either an appalling lapse of analysis or perhaps worse, a desire to justify a false story that  puts Canada in a favourable light, which in that case, rates as "Fake News."
Let me further explain for the thick-head writers and editors.

When Canada's Penny Oleksiak tied with American Simone Manuel for first place with identical times in the 100-metre freestyle swimming event in Rio, two gold medals were issued, but no silver medal was awarded. The third-place finisher (who finished with the second best time) was awarded a bronze medal.
If you find this concept hard to understand, you shouldn't be writing for a national news organization, let alone be entrusted to edit articles.

For most of us, asking ourselves if what we are reading or watching actually represents truth is an unreasonable burden. If we doubted everything we see on TV or on the web we couldn't enjoy surfing the web, watching television or reading.
For me, doubting everything I see is a condition I cannot control.
When a TV weatherperson announces that we'll have bright blue sky's this afternoon, I ask myself if the sky will really be blue or is it a case of our human eyes perceiving it as such.
In other words ... a nitpicker.

I see errors everywhere, on national television as well as local. Some errors are big some are small, but the most irksome are those that just get the facts wrong or worse, invent facts to suit a point of view as in the case of the phony passport story above.

I have long given up attacking the plot loopholes and obvious errors in episodic television but even there, cannot resist when the mistake is egregious, committed by reputable writers who should know better.
Last week Barbara and I devoted three hours to an HBO series called "Cormoran Strike" about a less than successful gruff, one-legged British detective. The series was based on the work of the celebrated JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame who wrote the detective series under a pseudonym and who consulted on the show.
To make a long story short, the detective is asked to investigate the death of a supermodel by her brother, who appears upset that the police have closed the case and judged it as a suicide.
After three episodes totalling some three hours, Cormoran confronts the complaining brother as the murderer.
Whaat????
Why on Earth would a murderer want to reopen a closed case when he, in fact, is guilty?

It was a patently unacceptable conclusion that basically scoffed at the intelligence of viewers and considering the reputation of Ms. Rowling, wholly unacceptable, leaving me in a classic funk because I thought I was watching a quality program. Link
Shame on you J K Rowling!!!!

While I do try to leave fictional television and movies out of my nitpicking, I do take offence when stupid period errors like using words that weren't commonly in use in the era are employed.  This week I cringed at the use of  "Do me a Solid" in Showtime's "I'm Dying Up Here, a show about the comedy scene in Los Angeles in the seventies and the use of the word "Newbie" in an Amazon series about the personal and professional lives of employees at an American news magazine in the late 1960s.
And how about this gaffe in the period show "Magic City"about a Miami hotel magnate which takes place around 1959.

Did you see the error?

Jeopardy is a quiz show in which smarty-pants contestants phrase their answer in the form of a question.
 (Question: Young Prime Minister of Canada. Answer "Who is Justin Trudeau")

The show prides itself on being very finicky and precise, so any answer that isn't exactly right is rejected.
This leads to many answers initially deemed correct or incorrect by host Alex Trebek being reversed later on in the show when contestants are either docked or awarded points after the judges' review, similar to video-replay in hockey.
Sometimes the judges miss an error or reject an unanticipated but acceptable answer.  When the error goes undetected and has the effect of penalizing a losing player to the point of affecting the outcome, that player is invited back to compete again in a do-over appearance.

So Jeopardy is more than fair game when the show inadvertently misses a mistake that affects the game.
As a nitpicker, I love spotting these errors and find myself shouting "AHA!"  at the TV several times a week over just such a situation.

That happened last week when a returning champion was back for a do-over because just such an error and as the game played out another undetected error emerged.
The category was a word puzzle whereby words are presented to convey a message.
For example;
Question: "A legal doctrine overturned in the 1950's"

Answer: "What is 'Separate but Equal'."

The error that slipped by Alex and all the judges occurred on this question;
Question: "This familiar phrase originates from Tennyson's 'Charge of the Light Brigade'."

The contestant answered " What is 'Cannons to the left of them, cannons to the right of them!'"
Trebek awarded the contestant a right answer despite the erroneous answer.

Of course, I shouted out at the TV that the answer was wrong, much to the annoyance of my wife, who rightly claims that all my nitpicking ruins the shows which we're watching.

Since I can recite the poem off-by-heart, I knew that the contestant reversed the two lines, a clear Jeopardy No/No.
As you can see, the clue's first line is indicating "Cannon to the right of them." not left. Reversing the order makes the answers incorrect according to Jeopardy standards.

"Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

   Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,"

Since the mistake didn't affect the outcome, no later action was required and as Alex likes to remind us.... "No harm, no foul."
.....But the judges absolutely missed the error.

You can watch the exchange at the 9:00-minute mark on the tape below.

Now Jeopardy has a bunch of judges who have the added luxury of producing the show on tape. They still get it wrong plenty of times a week. Can you imagine the number of mistakes that occur in live TV news coverage?

I do... and it's appaling.

I have tried and failed to give up the habit of nitpicking and it is well-nigh impossible. So I will ask readers to indulge me and suffer through the nitpicks I present on an ongoing basis.

I'll let you go with this final nitpick, a photo of the then US secretary of State Rex Tillerson meeting with Canada's foreign minister Chrystia Freeland in Washington.

This nitpick is only for ultra-professionals and the only hint I'll give is that it has to do with the flags.

Consider yourself a nitpicker if you can find it..
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. This will help you see the mistake;

 On the left is a knock-off Canadian flag displayed in China (where else?) and a correct version displayed in Japan.

Still not seeing the difference???

Look at the deep sharp angle on both sides of the center shaft Maple leaf compared to the correct soft corners on the right.

The Chinese version and the American version are both wrong. It's comforting to know that the two most important countries in the world buy cheap knock-off versions of our flag for official use.