Petraeus’s imaginary Taliban
In Nikolai Gogol's novel Dead Souls, his protagonist Chichikov seeks to purchase serfs who have died but are still registered against their owners as taxable assets. By relieving the owners…
Bill Longstaff
On trashing the long form census—Stats Can on my tail
Shortly before the Canada Post lockout, Statistics Canada mailed me a copy of the 2011 National Household Survey, formerly known as the long form census, to dutifully fill out. I…
Pakistanis really don’t like the U.S. They really don’t
That the United States is unpopular in Pakistan is common knowledge. But just how unpopular is surprising. According to the Pew Global Attitudes Project, 73 per cent of Pakistanis hold…
Impeaching Ahmadinejad
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameni, has a problem. He wholeheartedly supported incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 2009 presidential election, and now it turns out the flaky Ahmadinejad is being…
Americans tire of war spending
Americans have for some time seemed to have an insatiable appetite for military spending. Defence was the sacred cow of their federal budget. Now it seems they are losing that…
Why the dolphins are smarter than us—recently revealed
Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, animal advocate and a very funny man, once observed that, "Man always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins…
Sports—tribalism in full cry
The now infamous Vancouver hockey riot has done a pretty good job of smearing the city's reputation around the globe. Shocking as it was, it wasn't entirely surprising. Rioting seems…
Time to end growth?
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Canada's economic prospects are looking good. In its latest global forecast of economic activity, this year we will have the highest GDP growth…
"Saudi women, start your engines!"
I admit I was motivated to write this post by the above heading. I couldn't resist it, so I plagiarized it. Apparently it first appeared as a Twitter message on…
A dynamic Turkey steps up
Congratulations to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) for their victory in the Turkish election last Sunday. Erdogan led his party to their third…
CBC contributes much more than dollars
A study released Wednesday by international consultants Deloitte and Touche reports that CBC/Radio-Canada contributed $3.7 billion to the Canadian economy in 2010. This contrasts to its annual parliamentary allocation of…
Stephen Harper’s moral relativism
In Stephen Harper's speech to the recent Conservative convention, referring to foreign policy, he announced that the Conservatives moral stance would be clear. "Moral ambiguity, moral equivalence are not options,"…
Good news—Gates says NATO faces dismal future
U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates is not amused by the lack of military esprit de corp among America's NATO allies. "The blunt reality," he lectured, "is that there will be…
Peru chooses social democracy over capitalist "democracy"
Some events of note in South America's last five years: In Bolivia, President Evo Morales presided over the ratification of a new social democratic constitution and was re-elected as president…
Now here’s a death penalty I can support
Former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, now secretary of Homeland Security for the U.S. government, is a staunch supporter of the death penalty. This is not a position I would normally…
U.S. follows lead of Taliban Jack
Googling the history of our Afghanistan adventure the other day, I encountered a snide Vancouver Sun article written in 2008 mocking "Taliban Jack" for his position on the war, sarcastically…
War on drugs busted
Reports criticizing the War on Drugs are manifold but few carry the cachet of the Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy. Issued this month, the report commissioners are…
Will the Conservative majority placate the West?
The West has in the past had a number of grievances against Ottawa, some legitimate, some not so much. The sense of grievance is strongest in Alberta for various reasons…
Don’t mess with my vote, Jack
With 59 of their 103 seats in Quebec, we could expect the NDP to pay close attention to Quebec's concerns. That would, of course, be appropriate. But what I wouldn't…
Obama and the Middle East—time for the Yankee to go home?
I realize that U.S. President Barack Obama is now campaigning for the 2012 election. And I realize also the importance of Jewish support to his campaign. And I recognize the…