First and biggest news of the week was the upset election of 76 year old Jorge Bergoglio, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, who interestingly has taken the name Francis I. No sooner was he elected, and leading up to his investiture next week (since 1978, new Popes have refused to
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Blast Furnace Canada Blog: Devolution for NWT — a start
I cannot agree too much with PMS’ agenda, but today he took a huge step forward in signing a tentative devolution agreement with the Northwest Territories and five of the region’s First Nations. It could come into effect as early as next year. Basically speaking, the territory will be able to
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Métis wuz robbed sez Supremes
Finally, one of the three pillars of Canada’s aboriginal peoples — the Métis — have won justice. They are owed a lot of money — perhaps ten billion or even more. And it’s because of one thing. Our constitution. There’s one thing about constitutions. The way they’re drafted can leave
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Arkansas: Crossing the line of decency
Arkansas has finally gone too far when it comes to women. Really. This is a new forward advance in the war against women and it’s awful. And it’s on abortion. If you’ve followed my entries here you know that I think abortion is absolutely despicable and that Canada should have
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Free choice in communications? (Competition Tribunal says no)
To my surprise and dismay, the Competition Tribunal has approved Bell Canada’s takeover of most of Astral Media’s assets. This comes some time after a similar buyout attempt was rejected. Yeah, Bell will have to divest several cable channels — namely Family Channel (Read: Disney Channel Canada), Teletoon (English and French), Teletoon Retro
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Charles McVety vs sex ed
I really have to hand it to some social conservatives who are so sexually repressed they recoil at the word sex. I don’t know if Charles McVety of the Canada Family Action Coalition is quite that regressed, but his playing on people’s worst instincts would be comical were it not for
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Ratinzger quits
As suprising (not) as Joe Ratzinger’s resignation today as Pope Benedict XVI may have been, he did the right thing. The Catholic Church is so dysfunctional that it’ll take years to begin to fix it (and although he was an insider for decades, it got to be too much even
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Stuff from Duff ™ (with apologies to Hilary and Hailey)
Mike Duffy, a supposedly neutral journalist and Ottawa pundit for nearly 30 years for both CBC and CTV before he became transparently neo-con and did everything he could on air to make Paul Martin Jr kick the political bucket was rewarded for his total lack of journalistic integrity with an
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Is it too much to demand a REAL Parliament?
As the House of Commons is now back in session, I have the following questions: Is it too much to ask that titles of bills and acts are as neutral as possible so as to state the purpose — eg. “Criminal Law Amendment Act No. 1, 2013” rather than propaganda
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Guest post: The Trudeau Paradox (Part Three)
In Part I of this essay, we discussed the origins of Quebec nationalism and how it developed into a desire by Francophone Quebecers to have their province recognized as a distinct society within Canada. In Part II, we saw how Pierre Trudeau sought to counter this as Prime Minister of
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Guest post: The Trudeau Paradox (Part Two)
Part I of this essay discussed the origins of Quebec nationalism and the desire of Francophone Quebecers to have their province recognized as a “distinct society” within Canada. This desire was fiercely opposed by Quebec political thinker Pierre Trudeau, who became Prime Minister of Canada in 1968. Trudeau was seen
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Guest post: The Trudeau Paradox (Part One)
Once again I am happy to give over this space to Jared Milne, this time writing about the Trudeau factor. This article is in three posts. **** The results of last year’s provincial election in Quebec, which returned the Parti Quebecois to power, only reconfirmed the perceptions many Canadians in
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Who’s the jack booted thug?
This new commercial from Wayne LaPierre of the NRA sets an all-time low. You can be absolutely sure that this ad would not have been made if Obama and his kids were white. I’m showing it here to demonstrate just how low the level of debate has gotten in Washington
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: "Free to Be" — 40 years on
For what I think will be my last post of the year, I wanted to reflect on something I heard about a couple of weeks ago — the 40th anniversary of Free to Be… You and Me and the impact it had on a generation of kids. Including me, who
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Now we finally know the real price of milk, thanks to the teabags
We’re all familiar with the concept of a loss leader — a store will deliberately price key products to a price below cost, often way below cost. This is to get people into the store to buy stuff that is overpriced. A good example are razor handles and blades —
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: When will Scalia just shut up?
Antonin “Nino” Scalia, the current dean of the US Supreme Court and a very staunch conservative, has always had a way with words especially in the opinions he authors for the majority or in dissent. There is no question he is a champion of free speech and expression — he
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Canada’s F-35 — the $46 billion dollar boondoggle
Later today, the Amsterdam based accounting firm Kynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler (KPMG ™) will issue a report regarding the proposed procurement of 65 Lockheed-Martin F-35-A Lightning II fighter jets for the Canadian Air Force. If media previews are to be believed, the program will be way higher than the $9
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Immigration "reforms" actually regressive
We’re starting to see the fallout from the Con government’s proposed changes to immigration policy. And while I agree that such policies need a reboot every now and then to meet current trends (and to a lesser extent, changes in social morés), what is shaping up to be what we’ll
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: "State" of Palestine? Where *and for what why)?
Yesterday, the UN General Assembly voted to grant Palestine the same status as the Vatican — “non member observer state.” I have the feeling that if we in Canada had a Liberal or ND government, this country would have voted to abstain as more than 40 countries did. That’s the position
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Maybe the United States NEEDS a fiscal cliff
The riots we’ve been seeing across the European Union — not just the 17 countries inside Euroland but also the 10 that are not — are the result of people being fed up with having the cradle to grave welfare state being clawed back or almost eliminated. Here in Canada
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