Funny line from the 1999 Simpsons episode “Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo” but it got terribly serious today with one of the whistle blowers being found dead and PM David Cameron cutting short a visit to South Africa (presumably in part to honour Nelso…
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Blast Furnace Canada Blog: Brooks is not the victim here
Why was Rebekah Brooks made to fall on her own sword? What happened to the buck stops here (meaning it’s the ownership of the paper, not the editors, who take responsibility)? Isn’t the Murdoch family who should give up Ne…
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: BREAKING: Rupert throws in towel
The BBC has just reported, as I am writing this, that Rupert Murdoch and his News Corporation is giving up its bid for total control of BSkyB (he presently has a 39% stake in the DTH satellite company and its stable of news and sports channels). &…
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: How low will Rupert go?
Former British PM Gordon Brown has gone on the offensive against Rupert Murdoch. He stated today that while both PM as well as Tony Blair’s Chancellor, his banking records and e-mails were hacked by the more reputable of Rupert’s publ…
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Canada boycotts arms meeting
I rarely agree with the Harper Government on anything. But on this one, I do. We have every right, indeed the duty, to boycott a disarmament conference if the country chairing the meeting is North Korea. …
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Good riddance to one Murdoch newspaper, but here comes another …
The ever so controversial Sunday paper News of the World, which defies even the vilest of descriptions, is finally folding this weekend after 168 years after it got caught up in even more phone hacking scandals. The paper has raised eyebrow…
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Bye Bye Schuller!
Remember the Air Farce joke a few years back about the aftermath of World Youth Day in Toronto in 2002? How several hundred thousand people decided they needed to go answer the call of nature at the same time and the sewage backed up into t…
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Another blow for DSK? (And yet another random rant about the double standard)
Just when when Dominque Strauss-Kahn thought he finally got a lucky break, now a French writer by the name of Tristane Banon has filed a complaint that he raped her in 2003. DSK in turn has filed a counter-complaint accusing her of filing a…
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Case against DSK on shaky ground
The free world was shocked when Dominique Strauss Kahn was charged with sexual assault a few weeks back. But now, DSK’s bail conditions have been significantly relaxed after the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. (son of Jimmy Cart…
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: TSX shareholders stand up for Canada
The proposed merger between the Toronto and London Stock exchanges has just been called off — after a count of the proxy votes determined that there was only a simple majority of stockholders who approved the deal. The required threshold h…
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: SCOTUS okays violent vid games
The US Supreme Court ruled today, 7-2, violent video games are protected by the First Amendment and California had no right to pass a law that banned the sale of such games to people under 18. The majority judgment was written by that noted sarca…
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Mail moves again
So the postal workers are going back and the mail starts moving tomorrow. Just as well, but there were much better ways to settle the issue than a forced wage settlement that was even less than what the post office was offering.
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: H of C like the Pink Bunny — they keep going and going and …
… going and going … the debate in Parliament on the back to work legislation for the locked out workers at the Canada Post Corporation, that is. (Kady O’Malley has a good analysis of exactly what the NDs are up to and how the filibuster…
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Black going back to the clink
Looks like Lord Conrad Black couldn’t catch a break after all. US Federal Judge Amy St. Eve, who originally sentenced Black to 6½ years in prison on fraud and obstruction of justice, had the case remanded to her after the US Supreme …
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Hamilton takes another step out of the Dark Ages
It finally looks like Hamilton is about to get out of the dark ages and allow department stores to be open 24 / 7. It only makes sense. Not that I really care for places like WalMart that much — but why is it that we have to dr…
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Hudak’s hopes that we have short memories …
This fall’s election in Ontario is going to be pretty exciting if for no other reason than two of the three candidates for Premier represent Hamilton districts. Andrea Horwath represents Hamilton Centre (most of downtown and a chunk of the West …
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Vancouver goes berserk — again
I had a feeling that the Boston Bruins were going to win this year’s Frederick A. Stanley Cup — yes, the guy’s first name was Fred — but what happened last night in Vancouver, that is the riots, was inexcusable. The police knew this was bound to …
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Uphold the sex workers’ decision
This week the Ontario Court of Appeal is hearing arguments in the case involving three sex trade workers who have asked to have three sections of the Criminal Code, as it is applied to them and others similarly situated, to be declared unconstitutional…
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Simplify the tax system and give us back the lost decade and a half
My beef this Sunday morning is taxes.
I haven’t had much time to think about the “revised” federal budget, and there’s not much point in tearing it apart, any honest analysis would be as long as the budget paper itself (300 pages plus). I do g…
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: BREAKING: Jack Kevorkian dead
Source: Detroit Free Press. All I can say is, he put forward an issue many of us don’t really want to talk about on the agenda.
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