The Black Rod

A botched murder investigation. Check A prime suspect painted with a bullseye by police afflicted with tunnel vision. Check A dubious eyewitness who identifies the suspect with certainty at trial. Check An overzealous prosecutor who would go to any length to get a conviction. Check Sound familiar? The prosecution of Mark Stobbe follows the blueprint for a wrongful conviction exactly as writ large in a series of public inquiries in Manitoba in recent years. The only difference is that in those inquiries (Sophonow, Driskell, Unger) the juries convicted the accused on the evidence presented to them, and it was the NDP government that had to concoct reasons, such as those above, to toss the guilty verdicts, hold staged show trials to exonerate the convicted men on bogus grounds, and pay millions in compensation (except for a surprised Kyle Unger who got nothing.) In the case of Mark Stobbe, the egregious behaviour of police and prosecuto...

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!! What's wrong with all you people? Don't you know that this warm weather is a harbinger of doom? Haven't we been told over and over again for the past 10 years that global warming will bring the end of mankind? That Mother Earth herself is at risk? And here you are, celebrating the early spring, raking your lawns with gusto, taking your dear children for walks when you should be praying for another six weeks of harsh winter to preserve the world for those very offspring. Fie, we say. Fie. Oh well. There's nothing we can do but clear our desks of the clutter that's piled up this gorgeous month and write our annual March Madness issue. Spring Romance The Green Party knows the end is nigh. But its too busy plotting merger with the Liberal Party of Manitoba, or so we were told earlier this month. Talk about madness. Who in the world cares about what the Green Party and the Liberal Party are doing? Zero meet zero. ...

Groan. Get this. A story based on information that's already two months old gets printed in a Toronto newspaper and the Winnipeg news media goes giddy chasing it. In the process, they missed the real news. Does Winnipeg have the worst journalists in the country or does it only seem that way? Winnipeg reporters went gaga over a story in the Globe and Mail that the Friends of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights have to raise almost $50 million more than they intended because of cost overruns. Duh. That was reported in Winnipeg in January when the CMHR revealed that construction costs had climbed by $41 million. So what's new? Apparently, the spin. Gail Asper, head fundraiser for the Friends, is now painting the group as the heroes of the story, riding to the rescue of the beleagured museum that's been abandoned by the heartless government. (Gag.) They will have to raise almost $200 million from private and corporate sources (sob) instead of the $1...

What the hell was that all about? After seven weeks of testimony one fact is crystal clear---authorities don't have a shred of evidence against Mark Stobbe for the murder of his wife Beverley Rowbotham. Not A Shred! When the trial started, Crown attorney Wendy Dawson painted a horrific picture for the jury. A woman--a loving wife and a mother of two young sons--- butchered in her back yard. A heartless killer stuffing her bloody body into her car and abandoning both like garbage in a dark and empty parking lot miles away. A trail of circumstantial evidence leading straight to her husband. Dedicated police investigators ripping away the mantle of grieving spouse to expose the maniacal killer inside. She was going to produce a mountain of indisputable evidence to build the circumstantial case---videotape, eyewitnesses, photos, charts, audio tests to prove that a woman's screams from the backyard could be heard in Stobbe's living room where he said he was wat...

They seek him here, they seek him there Those Frenchies seek him everywhere Is he in heaven or is he in hell? That damned elusive phone scoun-drel. He meddles in elections What cheek, pray tell If you should see him, give a yell! By now the entire Parliamentary Press Gallery have donned their night-vision goggles, reknit their nooses and fired up their torches prior to scouring the hills for Pierre Poutine, the most wanted man in Canada today. The people who snickered when domestic terrorists calling themselves Anonymous threatened the life and family of Public Safety Minister Vic Toew have unanimously decided that a man who made some phone calls nine months ago is Public Enemy No. 1. Why? Because his capture might, finally, lead to the destruction of the Conservative Party and the return of the Liberals to power and all will be well with the world again. The Ottawa press mob has united to pitch the Liberal Party narrative that they only lost the 2011 election b...