Christian Conservative Christian "Independent"

I'm an evangelical Christian, member of the CPC, but presently & unjustly exiled to wander the political wilderness.
All opinions expressed here are solely my own.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Lady Thatcher passes away... the cat, not the PM

A cautionary tale about today's fast paced social media, and a near international embarrassment.

Apparently the rumour mill was churning last night at a military dinner event in Toronto, with the sad news that "Lady Thatcher has passed away". The rumour eventually reached the PM's staff, who were in attendance, who then began to make preparations for a press release.

That's why it's always important to take the time to double check things... had the PM's staff not done so, it could have been very embarrassing.

Turns out that the British government didn't have a clue what they were talking about... so they began to trace back the source of the rumour.

Turns out "Lady Thatcher" had indeed passed away... not the "Iron Lady" of Great Britian, but Transport Minister John Baird's beloved 16-year-old cat.

The moral of today's story... FACT CHECK!!!

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6 Comments:

  • At Wed Nov 11, 11:40:00 p.m. EST, Anonymous qwerty1 said…

    The fact the he called his cat Lady Thatcher is pretty cool. Must have been a tough cat.

     
  • At Thu Nov 12, 10:59:00 a.m. EST, Blogger Top Can said…

    Really sorry to hear about the cat. But this seems to be another example of Dmitri Soudas not doing due diligence and checking the facts before running his mouth/blackberry.

    As well, let's not forget that Soudas almost caused an international incident here.

     
  • At Thu Nov 12, 11:51:00 a.m. EST, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    Who said it was Soudas who was the problem? In reading the story, he seems to have been the one to save the day! (for all we know it could have been a Tweet from a Baird staffer that started the whole thing)

     
  • At Thu Nov 12, 01:56:00 p.m. EST, Blogger Top Can said…

    I'll just quote directly from where I read this story:

    "Soudas immediately emailed his contacts at Buckingham Palace and in PM Gordon Brown's office. They had no idea what he was talking about. Lady Thatcher, they informed an embarassed Soudas, was still very much alive."

    That's from the Toronto Star, which I guess conservatives don't really view as a reliable news source. But for Soudas, did he really have to call all the way to Britain and embarass himself to find out? Couldn't he have found out from other sources first?

     
  • At Fri Nov 13, 09:47:00 a.m. EST, Blogger Bert said…

    It's a good thing that someone doesn't have a cat named Stephen Harper. Just think of the headline where someone might say, "Stephen Harper has 9 illegitimate children" (kittens) ?. Can you imagine the liberals getting hold of that ?. Almost makes me want to get a cat.

     
  • At Mon Nov 16, 10:23:00 a.m. EST, Anonymous Toronto condos said…

    I'm glad it is not the Iron Lady who passed away. Poor cat, though. Yeah, double checking things sure is important. This misunderstanding could have ended up as a much bigger scandal.

    Elli

     

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